Confronting Trump Derangement Syndrome Victims

by Pat Fish

Jun 18, 2025

Making the secret sign. AI Artwork by Pat Fish.

The Ichthus Symbol

It is said that Christians in the early times, when they were being persecuted in the Middle East by the Roman Empire, would casually draw a crescent in the dust on the ground and if the person they were speaking with also did so, forming the second half of the ichthus symbol, they knew they could recognize a fellow believer.

The ichthus, a simple fish-like symbol formed by two intersecting arcs resembling a crescent or curved line, was used by early Christians to identify themselves to one another discretely, without attracting attention from persecutors.

The ichthus symbol, derived from the Greek word for fish ("ichthys"), was an acrostic for the phrase "Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter" (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior). It emerged as a Christian symbol in the 2nd century and was used widely by the 3rd and 4th centuries

I bring up this oral tradition because as American society devolves into two polarized sides many sensible citizens with a conservative viewpoint are rightly fearful that revealing their political preferences will cause them to be ostracized.

Many SB Current readers will recognize in themselves a tendency to use covert conversational cues to determine the attitude of the person they are speaking to. If we dare broach any political subject at all. We have all had the experience of saying something we considered innocuous and having our dialogue participant undergo a zombie transformation: the Trump Derangement Syndrome kicks in, their eyes glaze over, and the invective begins to spew. And just like that, friendships decades old can be severed.

I have a sense that in previous times, say the 1950s, if Dave and Bob had a few too many beers at the neighborhood barbecue, they might raise their voices and argue politics, and the wives would watch and shake their heads and be amused. And the next day both men would be out mowing their respective lawns and wave at each other. Over it.

At the recent excellent talk by columnist Andy Caldwell hosted by the Santa Barbara Republican Club I participated by making name tags at the check-in table. And I was very interested to listen to a woman explain that she’d like to join the organization, but she was very concerned that if she did her name and affiliation might be somehow revealed. She said she’d already lost many friends who would no longer speak to her because of perceived political differences, and she felt she needed to hide her stance.

I completely understand. She fears doxxing, the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual, usually via the Internet and without their consent. And I doubt anyone reading this has not lost a friend in the last few years to a political difference of opinion.

I don’t know if it goes both ways. If someone told me that they were a Bernie Bro, or that Biden was “sharp as a tack,” or men can be women…. I just feel sorry for them. But I don’t hate them for their delusion.

Losing “Friends”; Making Enemies

On the other hand, I am loath to tally up how many former friends and clients have told me that something I said tipped them off that I am a racist fascist and so this is it, call it quits, “You are dead to me.” My favorite was a (now former) friend of five decades who frothed that Trump would’t dance with me at his Inaugural Ball. Well, dang. My dreams dashed.

When my tattoo studio was shut down in March 2020 in response to the arrival of the Plague (“two weeks to flatten the curve and slow the spread” that turned into 18 months of purgatory) my first impulse was to buy a new Gadsden flag to put in my front window. Thankfully, by the time Amazon delivered it I had realized that no good could come of it, and a brick through the window was entirely possible.

In June 2020 when the BLM protesters massed on Cabrillo Blvd in front of the last remaining Sambo’s restaurant and demanded that they remove the “racist name and logo,” the new owner who inherited it from his grandfather Sam Battistone (Sambo being a contraction of his name and that of co-founder Newell Bohnett) rolled over and renamed it Chad’s, after himself. Their logo for over 60 years was a small Indian boy in a turban being chased by a tiger. A rather pink Hindu, not “Little Black Sambo” but the scion of the once mighty restaurant dynasty was mau-maued into submission, and a preppy generic sign rose on the roof.

We watched our elected officials “bend the knee” to “defund the police” protesters, and murals glorifying Saint Floyd go up on building walls. We watched the teachers demand raises in pay, even though their union was the one that enforced the school lockdowns that have had such tragic negative consequences for the public school students (not the private, though. As we all well know).

All Evil is Local

These things have happened because the people who are Right are all too aware that the Demonrat Left holds full control of our local Government: City Council, Board of Supervisors, School Board… and wants a Sanctuary City with convoluted roadways and the closed downtown State Street Death Alley and hotels for the homeless and no oil. And although the mass of citizens in interior California vote Red, it is the Blue coast that has the population numbers. It certainly discourages voting when the power structure is controlled by the unelected bureaucratic Deep State that prioritizes the preservation of its payroll and pensions above all else.

I have long believed that the CCP cleverly concluded decades ago that the best way to undermine the USA is through a race war. They are immune to guilt over the American Original Sin of slavery, being a homogenous society of Han people, except for the pesky Uyghurs and now the evolved Falun Dafa, who they have made slaves in current times. So, through media manipulation they have caused racial hatred to take over our national dialogue, eclipsing the true social division which is the class war. Oh, and now add the sex war, making the blurring of gender ideology a priority creed of belief.

So, what’s my point here?

Time to “Out” Yourself

It is time for people who are Right to be proud of saying “America First” out loud. To stand up for our country. And we have no time to lose. The legacy media still controls the minds and passions of the masses, and those who took the Plague Jab are seeing their physical and mental health undermined. Those parents who went along with having their children jabbed, or worse, having mutilated their offspring’s’ bodies with “gender affirming care,” will be the last to ever be able to admit they were duped. All the ones they put first in line for the shots, the first responders, medical and military, all those vital people are only now seeing the catastrophic effects of the spike protein, and with good reason ought to be saying they are mad as hell and are not going to take it anymore.

And maybe, just maybe, the Santa Barbara Current is part of that sea change in awareness. With every column that reveals local fraud, or details the misbegotten priorities of those politicians who have forgotten that they are in office to serve the public, people are getting clued in.

DOGE at the national level is lifting the curtain to reveal how much worse it has been than any of us had any reason to know. But all politics is local. And if we are to make the necessary changes, we need to be willing to identify ourselves in public and strengthen by association with others who also see the truth. Go ahead and risk outing yourself, you may find you are among like-minded people who are relieved to find a new friend.