In Arizona, political grievance is inching closer to medical diagnosis.
A Republican state lawmaker has introduced legislation directing Arizona health officials to study “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” a term long used by President Donald Trump and his allies to dismiss critics — and one that does not exist in any recognized medical or psychological literature.
Senate Bill 1070, introduced Monday by state Sen. Janae Shamp, orders the Arizona Department of Health Services to spend a year examining the “origins, manifestations and long-term effects” of the so-called syndrome on individuals, communities, and public discourse. The bill goes further, attempting to codify a set of legislative findings that read less like science and more like campaign rhetoric.
Among them: the claim that the “irrational animus” associated with Trump Derangement Syndrome was responsible for two assassination attempts against Trump last year. Other findings praise the president’s “contributions to America’s prosperity,” including eliminating “harmful mandates” and “affirming biological truth” to protect family values.
Trump Derangement Syndrome, often shortened to TDS, is not recognized by any mainstream medical organization. The term was coined during Trump’s first term and has since been weaponized as a rhetorical club — a way to frame political opposition as mental illness.
Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs is unlikely to sign the bill into law. Even if she did, critics say the proposal would put state health officials in an impossible position.
“You’re ordering a state agency to do a bunch of work that has no objective, no meaningful outcome,” said Will Humble, the former director of the Arizona Department of Health Services. “And, by the way, it’s outside their mission — they’re not social scientists.”
Shamp, a registered nurse and vocal Trump supporter, is not alone. Similar efforts to formalize or study the invented syndrome have surfaced in Minnesota and at the federal level, reflecting a broader Republican push to recast political hostility toward Trump as a psychological disorder rather than ideological opposition.
The tactic has escalated in recent years. Most recently, Trump sparked outrage after claiming that Trump Derangement Syndrome was responsible for the slaying of director Rob Reiner and his wife — a claim widely condemned as inflammatory and false. Reiner, a lifelong progressive, had been a frequent public critic of Trump.
Trump has also used the term to discredit former allies. Last year, he accused his former chief of staff John Kelly of suffering from TDS after Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, compared Trump to Adolf Hitler.
Despite the lack of scientific legitimacy, some individual mental health providers have claimed that patients report symptoms they associate with the term. But experts overwhelmingly reject the framing.
“Is ‘Trump derangement syndrome’ real?” psychologist Jonathan Alpert asked in a November op-ed for The Wall Street Journal. “No serious mental-health professional would render such a partisan and derogatory diagnosis.”
Yet Alpert acknowledged the political fervor behind the label, writing that he has seen intense emotional responses to Trump surface in his own psychotherapy practice — responses driven by fear, anger, and polarization, not pathology.
In Arizona, those distinctions may soon be beside the point. Senate Bill 1070 does not seek treatment, prevention, or clarity. It seeks validation — a state-sanctioned declaration that opposition to Trump is not just political, but pathological.
