My first encounter with TDS, and my advice

For the first time in my adult life I was blessed with an email from an individual who was suffering from TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome.)  Yup, my first encounter with such specimen.

His  initial triggers were his disagreement with my self-admittedly untrained predictions about the impacts of the Covid-19 virus, and his belief that I was a hypocrite.  But later in his email he revealed his underlying TDS that was the cause of his distress.

Here is the complete text of his email:

Since you are a self-admittedly untrained & not a medical professional, you should stop with the fear mongering! I bet you warned people that they should stockpile food and gold for Y2K too! 

You made a bunch of predictions indicating a high percentage of certainty about the coronavirus. If you are so certain, put your money where your mouth is!

I'll bet you $5,000 that your predictions do not come true. Not a joke, I'm making a serious and sincere offer.

Oh, but I forgot, your a Christian so you probably don't gamble. Yet you'll support a jackass like Trump who has been married three times, paid off porn stars, and who gleefully boast about "grabbing women by the @#$^".

If Obama (who I did not vote for by the way) had done these things you would have been apoplectic. But since Trump installs judges you like you give him a pass. Presumably you familiar with the word hypocrite?

I replied very late at night, so I was not on my very best “Christian” behavior:

Dear Bernie (not his real name)

If you consider what I have written [to be] "fear mongering", that demonstrates to me that you have been among the many individuals who have chosen to be uninformed or who just haven't been paying attention.

While I am not and have clearly stated I am not a medical professional, I have kept abreast of this topic.  I won't trouble you with noting the time I've spent and the many sources I've accessed.  Suffice to say I have obviously been paying more attention to these current events than you have.  I'm amused that someone as admittedly uninformed as I am could provoke you so badly.

You are correct, I am not a gambling man like you.  That is why I am paying attention to events and reaching reasonable conclusions.  Only a fool would offer a bet like you have made. Go ahead, stick your head further into the mire and roll your dice.

Instead of being fearful, it is better to be aware and prepared; my valuable "tip of the day." No charge.

Others who ignore reality may be good candidates to represent President Xi Jinping of China in being his mouthpiece in declaring everything is fine, nothing to see here, so they can snow the world into believing they are open for business when they clearly are not.  Have you considered applying?  You'd be excellent!

I hope you are right about "nothing to see here."  But reading your arrogant obliviousness, I really don't care if you remain oblivious and bear the consequences.

On your other chosen but unrelated sideline topic, you fail to understand human nature, or are just naturally unpleasant.  Everyone is a hypocrite to a degree.  And if you believe you are perfect, you probably don't know you are deceived to boot. 

I choose the lesser of evils.  No one is perfect. Regarding Trump, yours is my first email from a person suffering from "Trump Derangement Syndrome", (TDS), a condition where an individual exhibits rage against Trump-induced successes. See, I can BS my way through psychiatry, too!  Anyway, you make me feel so blessed (a Christian term) for finally having this growth experience.

At least Trump kept his promises, unlike so many politicians. "Promises made, promises kept" as we like to say. Perhaps you don't like the promises he kept.  Perhaps you prefer open borders, criminal illegal aliens, taxpayer funds used to subsidize illegals, higher taxes, higher unemployment, lower wages, out-sourcing US jobs (see where that gets us over the next few months with our sole-sourcing to China) more government regulations, socialism, and corrupt bureaucrat-controlled "deep state" government.

I voted for Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, a very moral man, and arguably one of the worst presidents in history.

Trump and everything he represents is miles ahead and preferred over any Democrat running.

You appear to have a lot of pent up resentment toward my blogs.  Take two pills, any pills, and don't call me in the morning.

So much for what I learned in my Dale Carnegie course.  However, I felt much better, had a good night’s sleep and look forward to blocking his future emails to me should he choose to reply.

Seriously, most people with whom I share my thoughts about the virus give me the distinct impression that they don’t know much about it and don’t really care.  This includes medical professionals.  I attribute this reaction to three things:  1) Our innate “normalcy” bias whereby the prospect of forced drastic change is uncomfortable and too hard to think about, so we don’t, 2) Preoccupation with their narrow profession, whether it be cardiology, sales, accounting, or anything else, along with their family responsibilities, and 3) Most media hasn’t paid much attention, preferring to focus on gossip column-type events and flinging innuendos about Trump, so we aren’t exposed to many things that may more significantly impact our lives than what happened in the network gossip columns.

The next 30-days will reveal how right or wrong I and others have been.  Stay tuned.