The term, "TDS"

TiredThinker March 06, 2025 at 04:41 1175 views 6 comments
Has anyone else heard this term? And is it used a lot? A coworker used the term when I gave them my take on the Zelenskyy and Trump meeting. I guess it means people either love or hate Trump no matter what he does?

Comments (6)

jgill March 06, 2025 at 05:38 #974202
Paine March 07, 2025 at 00:48 #974395
Look up the Overton Window and see how what is repulsive at one time becomes "normal" in another.

Your coworker is pushing you out of the conversation because they are confident about their location within.
TiredThinker March 07, 2025 at 04:25 #974425
Reply to Paine

What do you mean they are confident about their "location" "within"? Location within what?
jorndoe March 07, 2025 at 05:38 #974436
Reply to TiredThinker, presumably in their Overton window. Can't speak for Reply to Paine though.
Paine March 07, 2025 at 18:29 #974518
Reply to TiredThinker Reply to jorndoe
jorndoe is correct in that the 'window' is described in this way:

Quoting J. Lehman
The Overton Window is a model of policy change, and Joe was the first one to articulate it to me. In his view, ideas become policy only after they move from being unthinkable notions that cannot become law to becoming popular ideas that elected officials are eager to ratify into law. This can take days, or decades. The purpose of a think tank, and other “secondhand dealers in ideas” to use F. A. Hayek’s term, is to make the case for ideas that are politically impossible until they become politically inevitable. A window of public opinion shifts to surround some ideas and to leave others behind. Think tank research, analysis, testing and debate can shift this window.


But your coworkers dismissal of your dismay is also a normalization of rhetoric that was previously considered unacceptable.
Nils Loc March 07, 2025 at 19:06 #974522
Quoting TiredThinker
I guess it means people either love or hate Trump no matter what he does?


TDS always sounds like it should describe die hard Trumpers, or Trump himself, rather than detractors. If absolute opposition to Trump is irrational, then why is total and slavish endorsement not a form of derangement?

We can diagnose two forms of TDS. The red version of TDS is the one destabilizing the country/economy, as it is causing blue TDS. Just throw it back and tell Trumpers they are also suffering from TDS. TDS springs from patient zero: TRUMP.