In its simplest terms, Trump Derangement Syndrome is “a neurotic obsession with Donald Trump.”

Officially at least, TDS is not a real, diagnosable, or treatable mental disorder, but to deny its existence is to deny the reality of the last seven or more years. Not to intentionally set anyone’s hair on fire, but two types of TDS have existed since Trump formally announced his candidacy on June 16, 2015, with a campaign rally and speech at Trump Tower in New York City. From that moment, it’s been game-on ever since.

One American Thinker contributor describes TDS — let’s call it Type I — thusly:

I always thought “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (TDS) was a funny way to describe the enthusiasm with which the left detests Donald Trump. However, after my interaction with ‘Lloyd,’ I get it now. TDS is a real malady — created by the gaslighting and propaganda of the left.

Those suffering from it don’t just hate Donald Trump, they’ve fabricated an irrational worldview to justify that hatred. It is truly deranged. To move forward as a nation, we need to understand it and develop strategies to deprogram those afflicted with it.

“Career educator” Will Stanton, on the other hand, describes TDS, which we’ll call Type II, like this:

[Since his] election in 2016, Donald Trump’s supporters have been in search of new and evolving defenses to justify Trump’s unjustifiable behaviors. The breadth of these defenses is astounding, highlighting the fact that his supporters, like Trump himself, are only comfortable on the shifting ground of their own alternate reality in which constantly retreating from fact and objectivity is the only way to maintain the illusion.

The fascinating — some would call it maddening — dichotomy is that card-carrying members of both types of TDS bristle at the notion that their type exists; but if it does, they are certainly not afflicted with it.

Today’s fare focuses on TDS Type I and afflicted Washington Post Associate Editor Bob Woodward, one of the left’s stage 4 TDS poster boys, along with Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Chucky Schumer, Adam Schiff, and a yuuge cast of Trump-loathing Democrat lawmakers.

Woodward’s most recent TDS flareup came in a WaPo opinion essay in which the investigative journalist of Watergate fame discussed his recent release of The Trump Tapes, 20 “raw interviews” he conducted with Trump during his last year in office. Woodward calls Trump “an unparalleled danger.”

The Trump Tapes: 20 interviews that show why he is an unparalleled danger. My essay …  with audio included.

Kinda smacks of the MyPillow dude, a tad, although less melodramatic.

The Trump Tapes: 20 interviews that show why he is an unparalleled danger. My essay for @PostOpinions @washingtonpost with audio included. https://t.co/SzvPgwWafZ

— Bob Woodward (@realBobWoodward) October 23, 2022

Here’s how Woodward’s kicked off his hype-fest “opinion” piece:

In more than 50 years of reporting, I have never disclosed the raw interviews or full transcripts of my work. But after listening again to the 20 interviews I conducted with President Donald Trump during his last year as chief executive, I have decided to take the unusual step of releasing them. I was struck by how Trump pounded in my ears in a way the printed page cannot capture.

In their totality, these interviews offer an unvarnished portrait of Trump. You hear Trump in his own words, in his own voice, during one of the most consequential years in American history: amid Trump’s first impeachment, the coronavirus pandemic and large racial justice protests.

How “coincidental” that Woodward decided to “take the unusual step” just days before the midterms, huh?

Bob Woodward arrives at Trump Tower in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Woodward’s hit piece on Trump reads like a run-of-the-mill infomercial:

Much has been written about that period, including by me. But “The Trump Tapes,” my forthcoming audiobook of our interviews, is central to understanding Trump as he is poised to seek the presidency again. We spoke in person in the Oval Office and at Mar-a-Lago, as well as on the phone at varying hours of the day. You cannot separate Trump from his voice.

In the summer of 2020, for example, when the pandemic had killed 140,000 people in the United States, Trump told me: “The virus came along. That’s not my fault. That’s China’s fault.” I asked him:

“Was there a moment in all of this, last two months, where you said to yourself, “Ah, this is the leadership test of a lifetime”?

Trump: “No.”

On the printed page his “no” reads flat, a simple declaration. Now listen to the audio of that exchange. This “no” is confident, dismissive, full of self-assurance. It leaves no doubt about the finality of his judgment. This “no” distances him from bearing responsibility.

“Sound has an extraordinary emotional power, an immediacy, and authenticity,” Woodward opines.”A listener is brought into the room. It is a completely different experience from reading Trump’s words or listening to snatches of his interviews on television or the internet. Trump’s voice magnifies his presence,” adding: “Consider this from my 14th interview with Trump, on May 22, 2020.”

[Trump] “You’re probably going to screw me. Because, you know, that’s the way it goes. Look, [George W.] Bush sat with you for hours and you screwed him. But the difference was, I ain’t no Bush.”

“The mockery in Trump’s voice does not come through as powerfully or as memorably on the printed page,” writes Woodward, no doubt as an added incentive to sell his case.

Woodward continues to ramble on with other examples of the “unparalleled danger” of Donald Trump. Meh.

As my colleague Susie Moore observed:

Over the course of the past seven years, we’ve largely divided ourselves into Trump camps – ya love him or ya hate him, and the people who feel the opposite? Well, they are the worst.

This is neither an indictment of Trump, nor a defense of him. It’s an observation – and a reflection on us. Too many have allowed their sentiments on one man – or, truthfully, what he represents to them – to steer most everything they say and do. And whether they’re operating under blind allegiance or blind hatred, they’re still flying blind.

Which is why it’s critical to fix your sights on principles, not people.

As for your not-so-humble political pundit, methinks this is a good place to wrap it up.