On MAGA, Thought-Terminating Cliches, Cults, and the Real Meaning of "TDS"

 On MAGA, Thought-Terminating Cliches, Cults, and the Real Meaning of "TDS"

I recently had a very negative interaction with a MAGA supporter online, the details of which I won't go into here but are all still public on my Facebook page. Rather than focus on the hatred the person had toward my Jewish ancestors and myself, I want to focus on something he kept repeating, and something I've seen repeated recently by MAGA supports about anything critical of them, trump, or nazis. Funny how they already lump all those things together even if not relevant to the conversation topic. They write, or rather shout by typing in all caps, "trump derangement syndrome is real." The phrase is sometimes shortened to TDS, though that will always be The Daily Show to me, and The Daily Show is very, very real.

If you want a more detailed explanation of the phrase, see its Wikipedia page here: Trump derangement syndrome - Wikipedia.

The short version is that it's used to discredit and deflect any criticism of their politics by calling anyone they disagree with deranged. At first, this may seem like more harassment by them and just more name-calling, but let's take a closer look at how this phrase functions. It's actually cult-like behavior.

Now, I'm not a psychologist, sociologist, or ologist of any type, but this isn't going to be an analysis that needs an advanced degree, just knowledge of a few key concepts. The main concept you need to arm yourself with is what's called a thought-terminating cliche. 

For a detailed explanation of the concept, here's the entire Wikipedia article on that too: Thought-terminating cliché - Wikipedia. 

Here's an explanation in under one minute from a YouTube channel on linguistics I find informative: Thought-terminating clichés are what they are - YouTube. The video is by Otherwords, which is a series on the Storied channel, created by PBS.

To summarize the important stuff, a thought-terminating cliche is a phrase used to end a line of thought or a conversation. A common one might be, "It is what it is." If you have a disagreement, either with two competing thoughts in your own head creating cognitive dissonance, or are in conflict with someone else, you can just use a handy thought-terminating cliche to put your mind at ease and move on to a more pleasant topic. If you want me to explain more, well, "let's agree to disagree."

Now that you know what to look out for, the next important thing to know about thought-terminating cliches is that they are used by cults to control people. They shut down any questioning of cognitive dissonance caused by the belief in the cult. Religions do it too of course, as does the corporate world, and politics. These institutions use cult-like behavior to gain power over their followers, employees, and constituents.

For a bit more detail, here's another Otherwords video on the language of cults, and the section on thought-terminating cliches starts at 3:57: How Cults Use Language to Control | Otherwords - YouTube.

This brings us back to the accusation of "trump derangement syndrome." It's a phrase to stop any criticism of the far right. They just shout that you're deranged and put their fingers in their ears. It's what cult members are trained to do. So when someone's arguing with you on the internet and calling you deranged with nothing to back it up, it's not you. They're using a thought-terminating cliche. It's as far as their line of thinking is capable of going before they would otherwise need to stop, lest they're forced to examine their own beliefs.