In the first anxious days that followed the American elections, Salon Magazine had an article by Chris Marshall, a senior Democratic strategist who feels justified to think that he has seen enough to be less than reassured by recent events. In fact, he was alarmed. People might think, he wrote, that Trump’s attempt to overturn the result of the election and seize a second term has failed. “Forget it”, they would say. “Can’t happen. Haven't you heard? Trump's losing every single frivolous lawsuit! They're all a joke.”
Marshall is not convinced. “Call me a pessimist”, he writes. “A compulsive doom-scroller. A nervous nelly. A buzzkiller. A realist. Whatever. After decades as a Democratic strategist, working at the center of numerous national and statewide campaigns, I've simply seen too much not to be traumatized with the permanent scars of PTSD (Politically Traumatic Stress Disorder).”
This joking reference, of course, is to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a mental health condition thought to be caused by a traumatic experience. Described in the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), PTSD is seen as a deviation from an imaginary “order”, that is, a statistically established stress-less “normality”.
