Shortcuts & Delusions: Peak Trump Derangement Syndrome

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With Rand Paul getting passed around cable news networks and social media platforms like a prison whore because he’s been giving speeches about Trump Derangement Syndrome, I feel like riding his coattails and shooting my mouth off about it as well.

On July 19, CNN.com ran “Outrage erupts over Trump-Putin ‘conversation’ about letting Russia interrogate ex-U.S. diplomat Michael McFaul.” This is the best example I’ve seen (though there have been so many to the point of media saturation it is probably impossible to qualify one as “best”) of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

From the article:

“At this week’s summit in Helsinki, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed what President Trump described as an “incredible offer” — the Kremlin would give special counsel Robert S. Mueller III access to interviews with Russians who were indicted after they allegedly hacked Democrats in 2016. In return, Russia would be allowed to question certain U.S. officials it suspects of interfering in Russian affairs.

One of those U.S. officials is a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul, a nemesis of the Kremlin because of his criticisms of Russia’s human rights record.

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to rule out the Kremlin’s request to question McFaul and other Americans. Asked during the daily press briefing whether Trump is open to the idea of having McFaul questioned by Russia, Sanders said President Trump is “going to meet with his team” to discuss the offer…

The willingness of the White House to contemplate handing over a former U.S. ambassador for interrogation by the Kremlin drew ire and astonishment from current and former U.S. officials. Such a proposition is unheard of. So is the notion that the president may think he has the legal authority to turn anyone over to a foreign power on his own…”

The rest of the article is more or less comprised of tweets by Trump’s detractors condemning the possibility of such an act by his administration.

I can guarantee that if Sanders/Trump said they would never agree to this deal, everyone would piss and moan that it’s proof Trump is trying to obstruct justice/Mueller’s investigation because it would mean he wouldn’t get to interrogate the 12 Russian hackers he indicted.

The people freaking out quoted in the story make it seem as though American agents will kick in McFaul’s door, cover his head with a blackout balaclava, shove him onto a military transport plane and send him to a black site in Siberia for Russia to waterboard him.

It doesn’t have to be like that: you can have American investigators travel to Russia to question the 12 Russian hackers Mueller indicted, under the supervision of Russian officials, and vice versa for Russian investigators to travel here to question McFaul under the supervision of American officials. But because Trump and Sanders said they were looking into the possibility of doing this, of cooperation between America and Russia to perform a mutually beneficial act, Trump haters say it’s evil incarnate. Don’t those with Trump Derangement Syndrome want Mueller to have a more thorough investigation of Russian/Trump collusion in the 2016 election?

The headline itself is proof that people who oppose the possibility of this questioning just suffer from TDS.

“Outrage erupts over Trump-Putin ‘conversation…'” Outrage over floating the idea of doing this, not even the event taking place.

Those with TDS are incapable of playing the long game; they can only lose their minds at anything and everything Trump says or does. They are compelled to go against their own best interests and goals just so that they can appear to oppose Trump.

And that’s the way it is, as far as you know.

Image: Markus Schreiber/AP Photo

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Dillon Eliassen is a former Managing Editor of Being Libertarian. Dillon works in the sales department of a privately owned small company. He holds a BA in Journalism & Creative Writing from Lyndon State College. He is the author of The Apathetic, available at Amazon.com. He is a self-described Thoreauvian Minarchist.