Not a big fan of reality television, I never did see why so many Americans wanted to watch a jackass fire people from fake jobs on a weekly basis. Like most reality TV shows, The Apprentice appeared to be specifically designed to humiliate those lucky enough to appear on it. But The Apprentice took it one step further and turned the phrase “You’re fired” into part of the national vernacular. As someone who had to actually fire people in real life, I never found any pleasure in it, and did not understand why the viewing audience would want to watch it happen to some stranger. Still don’t, but in those days I had an easy out: I could simply change the channel.
Until the same people who enjoyed watching an idiot degrade people on television decided that he needed a wider audience and so went to the polls on November 8, 2016, and cursed our nation with his constant presence.
What were they thinking? That somehow this smarmy blowhard with a bad comb-over would become statesman-like? That he would magically gain the intelligence necessary to begin to understand how our government works? Did they think he could grow a brain or a heart in the few months between the election and the inauguration? Did they even think at all, or were they just hell-bent on owning those dangerous, politically correct liberals that Fox had been warning them about for 20 years?
If that was the case, then they should have been gratified when Americans began turning to mental-healthcare providers to help them deal with their increasing anxiety. According to a July 2018 report from the Canadian Broadcasting Company,
What's been called "Trump Anxiety Disorder" has been on the rise in the months following the election, according to mental-health professionals from across the country who report unusually high levels of politics-related stress in their practices.
And while some right-wing pundits were happy to rename it “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Trumpsters were often waiting in line to see the same mental-health professionals.