Ever since the 2016 presidential election, a troubling swath of Americans have developed a not-so-rare condition known as “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Those suffering from the condition often exhibit several symptoms, including paranoia, hysteria, intense hostility toward President Donald Trump, aggression toward his supporters, and a tendency to dye one’s hair purple.
It appears that the number of people experiencing this malady has not declined over recent years. Indeed, it has actually increased, according to psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert, who discussed the matter during a recent appearance on Fox News with Harris Faulkner.
When asked to identify the condition, Alpert responded, “People are obsessed with Trump. They're fixated. They're hyperfixated on Trump.”
He further noted that these people “can’t sleep” and that “They feel traumatized by Mr. Trump. They feel restless.”
In fact, one of his patients said she “couldn't enjoy a vacation because any time when she saw Trump in the news or on her device, she felt triggered. This is a profound pathology, and I would even go so far as to call it the defining pathology of our time.”
The therapist went on to state that Trump is the “trigger” for many of his patients. “To be that fixated on a figure, on a person, it's simply not healthy,” he continued. “Our country has strayed so far away from where we once were. If you look at in the '80s when President Reagan was shot, people were united. He famously said, ‘I hope you're all Republicans’ to the surgeons. The response was, ‘Today, Mr. President, we're all Republicans.’ But our country has lost that.”
Alpert further explained that about three quarters of his patients “will present with a lot of these symptoms” and that “within probably five minutes of seeing me, their hatred for Trump comes up.”
NEW: Psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert says that 75% of the patients he sees have a deep hatred for Trump and are "hyper fixated" on him.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 14, 2025
"They can't sleep, they feel traumatized by Mr. Trump."
"I had one patient who said she couldn't enjoy a vacation because anytime she saw… pic.twitter.com/q4n3KMtzFV
I don’t believe Alpert is exaggerating. There have been several studies showing that a considerable number of Americans are obsessed with President Trump. Surveys conducted in 2017 and 2020 revealed that “large numbers of Americans reported politics takes a significant toll on a range of health markers—everything from stress, loss of sleep, or suicidal thoughts to an inability to stop thinking about politics and making intemperate social media posts.”
Those who leaned left were more likely to experience all these negative effects, which increased over the course of the first Trump administration.
It’s easy to make fun of folks who are so obsessed with Trump that his very existence threatens their mental health. But there is a more serious issue underlying this.
For starters, it shows that the government has grown so massive and intrusive that many Americans on both sides are forced to obsess over it. From where I sit, the government should be so small that it matters little which party runs it. But since it is the behemoth we see today, we must be concerned about what is going on in the White House and the halls of Congress.
Secondly, these numbers reveal that the media has excelled at its job, which is to terrify the public into supporting a political agenda. Instead of informing the public, our once-vaunted fourth estate seeks to influence and divide us. It is no wonder that more Americans are dealing with mental health problems related to politics.
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