The Cult of Trump: Minnesota Republicans’ Bizarre Attempt to Diagnose Democracy as Mental Illness

Five lawmakers are so obsessed with defending Donald Trump that they’ve abandoned governing in favor of diagnosing his critics with a fake mental illness.

Somewhere in Minnesota, five Republican state senators are pacing in their offices, sweat beading on their foreheads as they scribble furiously on legal pads, trying to crack the code. They aren’t working on healthcare reform or economic relief. No, they’ve found a far more pressing emergency: diagnosing half the state’s population with Trump Derangement Syndrome, a made-up disorder designed to pathologize anyone who refuses to worship at the gilded altar of Donald J. Trump.

The idea is so absurd it feels like satire — yet these five lawmakers have slapped their names on a bill that proposes to define Trump Derangement Syndrome as a legitimate mental illness under Minnesota law. It’s the political equivalent of a bunch of middle-aged men in suits daring each other to eat a urinal cake, just to see if they can make liberals mad enough to talk about it.