For years, conservatives have joked that Trump Derangement Syndrome—TDS—was a real condition. Now a respected psychotherapist is confirming what the right has been saying all along: millions of Americans are suffering from a genuine psychological fixation on President Donald J. Trump.
Speaking with Fox News host Harris Faulkner, psychotherapist **Jonathan Alpert** described TDS not as internet slang or political rhetoric, but as a full-blown mental disorder that has overtaken a large swath of the American left. According to Alpert, this isn’t a fringe issue—it is “the defining pathology of our time.”
Faulkner opened the interview with a simple question: How does he identify TDS when speaking with patients?
“It doesn’t take long for me to pick up on this,” Alpert said. “People are obsessed with Trump. They’re fixated. They’re **hyper-fixated** on Trump.”
Alpert explained that many of his patients cannot function normally because they are emotionally overwhelmed by the mere existence of the former president. Their symptoms sound more like someone dealing with trauma than politics.
“They can’t sleep. They feel traumatized by Mr. Trump. They feel restless,” he said. “I had one patient who said she couldn’t enjoy a vacation because anytime she saw Trump in the news, she felt triggered.”
Triggered—by a headline on their phone.
“This is a profound pathology,” he continued, “and I would go so far as to call it the defining pathology of our time.”
Faulkner then asked how often he sees this problem in his practice. Alpert’s answer was startling:
“**Three-quarters of my patients** present with these symptoms,” he said. “Within probably five minutes of seeing me, their hatred for Trump comes up.”
Think about that. In a country of 330 million people, if that ratio even remotely reflects reality, tens of millions are psychologically consumed with Donald Trump to an unhealthy degree.
Alpert didn’t mince words—this obsession is not normal.
“To be that fixated on a figure, on a person, it’s simply not healthy,” he said.
He contrasted today’s hyper-politicized climate with the era of President Ronald Reagan. After Reagan was shot in 1981, the nation responded with unity and grace. Alpert reminded viewers of Reagan’s famous joke to his surgeons—“I hope you’re all Republicans”—and their reply: “Today, Mr. President, we’re all Republicans.”
“Our country has strayed so far from where we once were,” he said. Today, many Americans can’t go on vacation without panicking at the sight of Trump’s name.
The therapist made one thing clear: TDS is treatable, but only if people acknowledge it exists. And many on the left refuse to do so, preferring to marinate in their outrage as if it were a lifestyle brand.
For conservatives, Alpert’s assessment simply confirms what they’ve watched unfold for years—an entire political movement so consumed by hatred for one man that it has abandoned reason, unity, and basic emotional stability.
TDS, it turns out, isn’t a joke. It’s a national crisis.
