OPINION:
If the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, used by psychiatrists, were to officially recognize Trump Derangement Syndrome as the serious mental illness that it is, there would be thousands—perhaps tens of thousands—of leftists across the country diagnosed as suffering from the world’s only political psychosis.
The best-known manifestation of Trump Derangement Syndrome came on Jan. 20, 2017, the day Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president. A short ITV News video posted on Facebook showing a woman in a light green jacket and glasses protesting Mr. Trump’s inauguration by hysterically screaming “Noooooooo!” to the sky seven years ago on Saturday has been viewed 5.7 million times.
“Jessica Starr made no attempt to disguise her emotions on Pennsylvania Avenue today,” then-ITV News correspondent Martin Geissler reported. “She was sitting on the ground in silent protest when the announcement blared over loudspeakers: ‘Donald J. Trump is the president of the United States.’
“Suddenly, involuntarily, [Starr] erupted into a visceral, primal scream.”
That outburst of Trump Derangement Syndrome was Ms. Starr’s Warhol-esque “15 Minutes of Fame.”
But if one had to designate a Patient Zero—the person identified as the first carrier of a communicable disease in an outbreak—for Trump Derangement Syndrome, that dubious distinction would have to go to “Doonesbury” cartoonist Garry Trudeau.
Now, fully three years after Mr. Trump left office, the ultraliberal Mr. Trudeau’s painfully unfunny Sunday-only “comic” strip continues to vitriolically and personally attack the former president.
By contrast, despite three years of countless verbal gaffes, numerous instances of confused wandering on stage after speaking engagements, repeated retelling of long-since debunked personal anecdotes, and disastrous economic policies that have given Americans 40-year-high inflation and interest rates, President Biden has been spared the entire time from Mr. Trudeau’s poison pen.
For an editorial cartoonist, Mr. Biden’s omnishambles administration has been—or should be—comedic gold, yet neither the president nor his international grifter son, Hunter, has been the target of so much as a single “Doonesbury” cartoon attack during the three years of the Biden presidency.
Mr. Trump might no longer occupy the Oval Office, but he still very much resides rent-free in Mr. Trudeau’s mean-spirited, left-wing hack cranium.
Take two Sundays ago, for example. One day after the third anniversary of Mr. Biden’s assuming office, did “Doonesbury” take the occasion to lampoon, say, the many obvious failures of Bidenomics, the floodtide of illegal immigrants he has enabled with his open-borders policies, or any of his many unscripted word salads (or those of his “Peter Principle” vice president, Kamala Harris, or press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, for that matter)?
The short answer: No.
And if you got your political news and commentary only from “Doonesbury,” you wouldn’t know anything about Hunter Biden’s lascivious cocaine-and-hookers lifestyle exposed by his “laptop from hell,” the tax-evasion charges he’s only now belatedly facing for not reporting the millions of dollars he got from foreign influence-peddling, or his ethically challenged big-money artistic side hustle subsidized by his “sugar brother,” Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris.
Instead, “Doonesbury” on Sunday depicted a fictional NPR-style radio host calling Trump a “sex offender” and “a rapist” (based on writer E. Jean Carroll’s entirely unproven, evidence-free accusations) and “a fraudster with 91 indictments.” That all of those indictments were brought by prosecutors who are avowed political nemeses engaging in election interference is left conveniently unmentioned by the cartoonist.
But why would we expect Mr. Trudeau to let facts stand in the way of his venomous leftist political narratives?
A week earlier, on Jan. 14, Mr. Trudeau depicted Mr. Trump with hair unkempt and applying orange rouge to his face while supposedly acknowledging as true Carroll’s department store dressing room sexual assault charge, the details of which bear an uncanny resemblance to the plot of a 2012 episode of “Law and Order: SVU.” (That fact, dismissed by Ms. Carroll as a mere “coincidence,” is conveniently omitted from the “Doonesbury” hit piece.)
The Dec. 31 “Doonesbury” strip depicted a father explaining to a young daughter playing with building blocks what the difference is “between Biden and Trump.”
“Biden builds bridges to connect us to each other and a sustainable future,” Mr. Trudeau has the father explaining, reality to the contrary notwithstanding. “But Trump builds walls to divide people and keep out democracy and the rule of law!”
I could cite many more examples of Mr. Trudeau’s severe Trump Derangement Syndrome affliction, following up on a similar compilation in this same space on Aug. 1, 2022, when the Biden presidency was just 18 months old, but why further belabor what by now should be obvious?
Another 18 months later, it’s abundantly clear that in the highly overrated “Doonesbury” comic strip, which long ago jumped the shark, Mr. Biden can do no wrong. Mr. Trump cannot only not do any right, but he is evil personified.
Regrettably, there’s no vaccine or booster shot to mitigate, much less cure, Mr. Trudeau’s severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. And if the former president wins a return to the White House in November, one can easily imagine Mr. Trudeau joining Ms. Starr in screaming at the sky on Jan. 20, 2025.
• Peter Parisi is a former editor with The Washington Times.
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