Trump Derangement Syndrome is real, and based on a new report from Axios, it’s an epidemic on the Left.
The news site spoke to a number of House Democrats who say their contact with constituents has gone off the rails in recent months as the Trump administration has ramped up deportations of illegal immigrants. We’ve already seen some Democrats engage in political theater by getting arrested at ICE facilities, but according to Democrats on Capitol Hill their base want more. In fact, they want blood.
The grassroots wants more. “Some of them have suggested … what we really need to do is be willing to get shot” when visiting ICE facilities or federal agencies, a third House Democrat told Axios.
- “Our own base is telling us that what we’re doing is not good enough … [that] there needs to be blood to grab the attention of the press and the public,” the lawmaker said.
- A fourth House Democrat said constituents have told them “civility isn’t working” and to prepare for “violence … to fight to protect our democracy.”
- A fifth House Democrat told Axios that “people online have sent me crazy s*** … told me to storm the White House and stuff like that,” though they added that “there’s always people on the internet saying crazy stuff.”
There sure are, but it’s also undeniable that a large portion of the Left has become utterly unhinged since Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden in the 2024 elections, and they’ve only gotten worse since Trump was sworn in and has actively begun reshaping the federal government.
Many lawmakers said these voters tend to be white, well-educated and live in upscale suburban or urban neighborhoods.
- “What I have seen is a demand that we get ourselves arrested intentionally or allow ourselves to be victims of violence, and … a lot of times that’s coming from economically very secure white people,” said an eighth House Democrat.
- “Not only would that be a gift to Donald Trump, not only would it make the job of Republicans in Congress easier if we were all mired in legal troubles … [we are] a group that is disproportionately people of color, women, LGBTQ people — people who do not fare very well in prison.”
The bottom line: “The expectations aren’t just unreal. They’re dangerous,” the eighth House Democrat said.
I’d love to know how many of these Democrats who are demanding a blood sacrifice from their politicians also support gun control. We haven’t seen any large-scale surveys of voters on the issue since the 2024 elections, but I haven’t seen any evidence that Trump’s victory has spurred large numbers of Democrats to rethink their position on the right to keep and bear arms, even if they believe his administration poses an existential threat to democracy.
I also can’t help but wonder if the Democrats Axios spoke to are downplaying the threat of violence coming from their constituents. If there’s a vocal contingent of Democrat voters who are demanding lawmakers allow themselves to become victims of violence, how many of them are also advocating for committing acts of violence?
As the unnamed House Democrat said, these expectations are dangerous… and not just to the Democratic brand in the mid-terms. From a purely political perspective the more unhinged the Democratic base gets, the better it is for Republicans. But the mental breakdown we’re seeing on the Left (and to be fair, in some quarters of the Right as well) could easily lead to more acts of political violence than we’ve already seen, and that’s not good for any of us.
Democrats have spend the past decade trying to portray Donald Trump as the next Hitler or Mussolini, and they only have themselves to blame for the unhinged anger and full-fledged freakout from the “economically very secure white people” among their base. For the rest of us, though, their bloodlust is yet another reason to exercise our right to keep and bear arms; not to wage war against our political opponents, but to protect ourselves from those who view their political opposite as an existential enemy.
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