Does the Media Exhibit Symptoms of Oppositional Defiant Disorder?

After work today, I was sitting around trying to think, what, if anything was there to put pixel to screen about today.  It’s Day 3 of the Trump Administration.  It’s 2017.  News moves way too fast to get all that upset about.  Kellyanne Conway’s memorable “alternative facts” line has already been viral and will soon be forgotten.  The media’s orgiastic celebration of the various Women’s Marches has now devolved into questions of “what next?” for that “movement”.  This morning I had a bit of a snit about the New York Times’s headline “News Analysis:  Rocky First Weekend for Trump Troubles Even His Top Aides”, but as asinine as that premise is, it is so clearly premature, exaggerated and flat wrong, that it demeans analysis.  What to do, what to do?

The thought then occurred to me, “oppositional defiance”.  In front of the CIA, President Trump acknowledged that he has a “war” against the “dishonest media”.  Each morning in my Apple News feed I am bombarded by headlines like the New York Times one above, or, from whatever “Mic” is, this beauty “Can Donald Trump be impeached? Here’s what experts have to say.”  The majority of the political headlines I see are gloomy, dark, and defiant.  It dawned on me, then, this is the behavior of a teenager! 

I first want to say that I acknowledge that Oppositional Defiant Disorder is a recognized mental condition.  I have sympathy for the children and parents or guardians that struggle with it. 

A few years ago I recall often seeing a late-night infomercial discussing Oppositional Defiant Disorder and offering a free video to help parents reform the behavior of their child.  Having remembered those commercials, and feeling the way I do about the state of many of today’s political headlines, I decided to check out Wikipedia for the definition of Occupational Defiant Disorder.  Could it be that most of the media that I’m seeing exhibits the symptoms from the infomercial that I remembered? 

According to Wikipedia,  “Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is defined by the DSM-5 [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition] as ‘a pattern of angry/irritable mood, argumentative/defiant behavior, or vindictiveness lasting at least six months.’” 

It seems to me there is a pattern of behavior.  Since Trump announced his candidacy for President there has been ill-informed, loud opposition to him from the mainstream media.  Focusing on past deeds and campaign missteps rather than his call for change and ideas for bringing back jobs to an America wrongly deemed post-industrial by a lazy, snobbish Ivy League class of leaders and journalists, the media became more and more angry/irritable as the now President Trump out-classed and winnowed the field of 16 Republican candidates for the Presidency. 

Argumentative/defiant behavior became more apparent as President Trump continued his call for economic change against one of the most formidable establishment-emblematic candidates ever nominated by a major party, Mrs. Hillary Clinton, a former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State who would ensure that the policies of ever-increasing globalization would continue unfettered, regardless of its effect on the lives and jobs of ordinary Americans. 

Mr. Trump having won the Presidency despite their best efforts, it seems the media has now, really as it has all along, exhibited vindictiveness.  Rather than credit candidate Trump for having spoken to the economic needs of everyday Americans, the media embraced first an absurd dialogue that “white nationalists” were behind his victory.  That failing they decided that Russian hacking must be to blame.  Never mind that the wrong the media complained about, the hacking of emails at the Democratic National Committee and the substance of those emails, would not have gained widespread notoriety unless the media itself was complicit in publishing the emails posted on Wikileaks.  Now, the media seeks to delegitimize President Trump by playing to his vanity and teasing him about the size of his Inauguration Day crowd, knowing full-well that he would respond to its taunts and look petty.  All of this seems pretty vindictive to me.

The good news for the media’s case of oppositional defiant disorder is that there is hope with treatment.  As President Trump’s economic agenda advances, the reality of decent paying manufacturing jobs returning to America may have a positive effect.  Otherwise, my advice to the media, get therapy.