Antidote to Trump Derangement Syndrome

Since we started reporting on it last year, Trump Derangement Syndrome has, if anything, surpassed epidemic proportions, starting in the Faculty Lounge.

Speaking of which, in our faculty lounge blog roll, we have shown reports from Campus Reform that in the past two months:

• Subini Annamma, a professor at the University of Kansas, tweeted that Trump supporters are ”deeply invested in white supremacy;”

• After a Bernie Sanders supporter shot U. S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., Central Connecticut State University professor Jerold Duquette argued that “mentally unstable people drawn to political extremism” would be motivated to do “horrible things” by Trump’s “corrupt, dishonest, and stupid” rhetoric.

Trying to be constructive, George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf suggested academics study the white middle class to better understand Trump voters. While it would be amusing to see academics fanning out to NASCAR races, we would urge them all to consider the ideas of libertarian journalist John Stossel, never a Trumpeter, who recently put current events in perspective for the Constitutionally illiterate, i. e. most of academe.

“If you worry that Trump will destroy your way of life, the smartest thing to do is to decrease the power of all presidents: Shrink the executive branch back to the humble role it had when the founders wrote the Constitution,” Stossel writes. “Make sure Congress passes declarations of war before the U.S. goes to war.”

“Don’t let any president rule through executive orders. Make sure Congress passes laws instead of letting federal agencies write rules. A president’s job is to execute laws. The fewer and simpler those laws, the easier it will be to prevent crazy things from happening.”