Davin News Server

Missouri State Fair in August 2013.

Here's a summary of what happened:

The Incident: During a bull riding event, a rodeo clown, later identified as Tuffy Gessling, performed a skit where another man 
wore a mask resembling President Barack Obama. The announcer, Mark Ficken (then president of the Missouri Rodeo Cowboy 
Association), made comments over the loudspeaker, reportedly asking the crowd if they wanted to see "Obama run down by a bull." 
Spectator videos showed the clown taunting the masked figure and the crowd responding enthusiastically. Some accounts said the 
masked figure had a broomstick propped up his back, simulating an animal's tail.

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Kinda pales in comparison to Trump's head being chopped off and held by Kathy Griffin.

And what about the play depicting Trump being stabbed to death?

Hey... what about the TWO attempts on Trump's LIFE??!!

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Controversy and Reaction:

The act quickly drew widespread condemnation from politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Missouri's Democratic 
Governor Jay Nixon and Republican Lt. Governor Peter Kinder.

Fair officials and the Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association issued apologies, calling the performance "inappropriate and 
disrespectful" and stating it did not reflect their standards.
The clown, Tuffy Gessling, was permanently banned from the Missouri State Fair. Mark Ficken resigned as president of the Missouri 
Rodeo Cowboy Association.

Clown's Defense: Tuffy Gessling defended his actions, stating that "nothing racist was ever implied" and that comedians 
frequently use political figures for humor. He claimed to have done similar acts with masks of other presidents like George W. 
Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan without facing such backlash. He lamented that "a lot of people have lost their ability to 
laugh."

Impact: The incident sparked a national conversation about political satire, free speech, and racial sensitivity, particularly in 
the context of publicly funded events. The Missouri State Fair and the rodeo association later stated that personnel and 
performers would undergo sensitivity training.

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"Trump Derangement Syndrome" Is a Real Mental Condition

All you need to know about "Trump Derangement Syndrome," or TDS.

"Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is a mental condition in which a person has been driven effectively insane due to their dislike 
of Donald Trump, to the point at which they will abandon all logic and reason."

Justin Raimondo, the editorial director of Antiwar.com, wrote a piece in the Los Angeles Times in 2016 that broke TDS down into 
three distinct phases or stages:

"In the first stage of the disease, victims lose all sense of proportion. The president-elect's every tweet provokes a firestorm, 
as if 140 characters were all it took to change the world."

"The mid-level stages of TDS have a profound effect on the victim's vocabulary: Sufferers speak a distinctive language consisting 
solely of hyperbole."

"As TDS progresses, the afflicted lose the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality."

The Point here is simple: TDS is, in the eyes of its adherents, the knee-jerk opposition from liberals to anything and everything 
Trump does. If Trump announced he was donating every dollar he's ever made, TDS sufferers would suggest he was up to something 
nefarious, according to the logic of TDS. There's nothing - not. one. thing. - that Trump could do or say that would be received 
positively by TDSers.

The history of Trump Derangement Syndrome actually goes back to the early 2000s - a time when the idea of Trump as president was 
a punch line for late-night comics and nothing more.

Wikipedia traces its roots to "Bush Derangement Syndrome" - a term first coined by the late conservative columnist Charles 
Krauthammer back in 2003. The condition, as Krauthammer defined it, was "the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people 
in reaction to the policies, the presidency - nay - the very existence of George W. Bush."