David Marcus Calls Trump Derangement Syndrome Mass Hysteria, Citing 75% of One Therapist’s Liberal Patients
Updated
Updated · Fox News · May 23
David Marcus Calls Trump Derangement Syndrome Mass Hysteria, Citing 75% of One Therapist’s Liberal Patients
1 articles · Updated · Fox News · May 23
David Marcus argued Trump Derangement Syndrome is better understood as mass hysteria than an individual mental illness, saying media and Democratic rhetoric have socially reinforced fear of President Donald Trump.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revived the issue after joking on a podcast that TDS could merit an ICD disease code, while psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert said 75% of his liberal Manhattan patients show obsessive anti-Trump fixation.
Marcus said that framing matters because therapy or a hypothetical vaccine would not solve the problem; he argued the wider information system—news outlets, entertainment shows and social media algorithms—is driving the behavior.
He pointed to people cutting off MAGA relatives and to commentary urging such breaks as evidence the phenomenon is being normalized beyond individual psychology.
The column casts TDS as a long-running media-amplified social contagion that will persist, Marcus said, until the institutions feeding it change course.
Are social media algorithms creating new forms of mass psychogenic illness, and what is the cure?
How can we distinguish between rational public concern and contagious mass hysteria in the digital age?
Beyond blaming media, what systemic changes could build resilience against mass psychogenic events?