Let's stop denying it: TDS is real.

I refer, of course, to Trump Derangement Syndrome, the disease that seems to explain why people are behaving so irrationally vis-à-vis the 47th president. Does anyone really question whether a too-large percentage of the 330 million people who live in this country are mentally disturbed when it comes to Donald Trump, unable to use logic and rational thinking and succumbing to uncontrollable emotions and blind loyalty?

TDS is real. Please stop pretending it is not.

Let me pose a few questions:

Is it not deranged to simply buy into the years upon years of lies Trump has told about the 2020 election (including about what happened in Nevada), asserting not just without evidence but against evidence that the balloting was rigged against him? He lost, he couldn't face that he lost and he cried widespread fraud, when none could be found.

You have to be really delusional to believe him, ready to drink a stronger Kool-Aid than Jim Jones ever confected.

Is it not TDS to hate the Left so much — as much as some Democratic Socialists of America and others might deserve your enmity — that you turn a blind eye to Trump's pathological lying, his abuse of the Department of Justice to go after his enemies and his appointing the worst gaggle of nincompoops, goofballs and grifters to his cabinet in our country's history? You could only defend all of this or, worse, ignore it, if you have a serious mental problem.

Yes, it's called TDS.

Is it not lunacy to witness the solipsistic AI garbage Trump posts — and it has gotten more incessant recently — and believe it is anything other than a childlike fascination with a new toy and a desperate attempt to burnish an image that gets more tarnished by the day? Think about it: If someone who worked for you were to spend a lot of time on social media posting manipulated images to make themselves look good rather than attending to their important work, wouldn't you fire them?

It would be insane not to do so. Yes, that's TDS.

Is it not utterly bizarre to countenance a sitting U.S. president insisting on having a midterm celebration in Texas, simply to put the focus back on him as he struggles to get over a 30 percent approval rating in the polls and threatens to hand control of both houses of Congress to the Democrats? It's almost as if he wants Republicans to lose.

It is TDS to believe anything else.

One more if you don't have my point yet: Is it not a sign of cognitive disintegration to see what Trump is doing with mail ballots as anything other than attempted voter suppression, hoping that he can reverse an inevitable result with the kind of chicanery and rule-breaking that is part of his brand?

If you see this as anything other than what it obviously is, you have TDS.

Yes, there are many other symptoms: Believing Joe Biden is responsible for the sagging economy. Being fine with Trump inflating his role in helping at Ground Zero (or should I say his fabulism about having any role at all) after the most tragic attack in U.S. history that was commemorated this week. Or not being concerned at all about a war prosecuted by a guy who promised to end all wars, a war of choice that has raised the cost of living for all Americans.

There is just so much evidence out there of so many people with this new affliction.

So the next time someone accuses you of being deranged for criticizing the latest presidential mendacity or narcissistic online effusion, just nod your head and say, "I'm sorry for your troubles, and I hope you get treatment for your TDS."

It's real.