Derangement

 It has come to my attention that it is now considered perfectly acceptable, indeed laudable, in polite society to call for the assassination of Donald Trump – you know, that chap who recently secured a landslide victory in the U.S. elections, thanks largely to rising support among Latinos, African-Americans and even Arabs. Apparently he should be killed because (a) He is well fascist, innit? (These people wouldn't use such a vulgar turn of phrase, but it perfectly expresses the depth of their political analysis), and (b) If we don't kill him, he'll kill us (You know, like he did last time he was in power – remember when he killed us all?). Like so much these days, this takes me back to the seventeenth century, when various forms of religious mania swept the land, many of them driven by the maniacs' absolute conviction that they were of the Elect, therefore self-evidently Right, and therefore Justified in whatever they did or said, up to and including murder. 
We live in different times now, but it would be nice if the American Psychiatric Association urgently updated its manual to include Trump Derangement Syndrome (with a retrospective mention, perhaps, of Covid Derangement Syndrome and Brexit Derangement Syndrome). A mad world, my masters.