Last Sunday actor and director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele, were allegedly stabbed to death in their home by their son Nick. Besides his work in film, Reiner was a political activist and a critic of our President, so this certainly explains Trump’s unhinged post on the Truth Social platform about Reiner’s death.

So as not to be accused of taking the President’s words out of context, the entire post will be entered here.

“A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”

At one level, it’s somewhat hard to know how to respond to this post. I’m sure Reiner made some enemies out there, but so far no one has posted or said anything this callous.

No doubt that at a certain level our President is a narcissist. It seems that he has to interject himself into every historical event or happening. Even back on 9-11, he had to remind us all in an interview that after the Twin Towers fell that he now owned the tallest structure in New York City. But his words there are now a quarter-century old and instead of age bringing wisdom and restraint, it has only enhanced his egocentric rants whether it be in the spoken word or through X and Truth Social.

I will go out on a limb and say that TDS had nothing to do with Reiner’s death, his son was reportedly dealing with drug addiction. Perhaps he was in an altered state because of direct use, or perhaps Reiner and his wife had cut him off financially and this caused him to act out. Most assuredly answers will come in the next few weeks. Yet it remains doubtful that son Nick killed his parents because of their activist politics.

Of course, the President’s reaction to Reiner’s untimely demise contrasts wildly with his reaction to the murder of Charlie Kirk. I will yield, for the sake of argument, that Kirk’s existence has bettered humanity, but I also might argue that Reiner gave Americana plenty of wonderful moments as an actor in say “All in the Family” or more even as a director in movies like “This is Spinal Tap”, “Stand By Me”, “When Harry Met Sally”, “A Few Good Men”, or one of my wife’s all-time favorites, “The Princess Bride.”

A few years back my wife and I attended a special screening of “The Princess Bride” where after the showing its star actor Cary Elwes talked about the filming of the movie and even answered questions from the audience. His first story was about how he injured his leg riding fellow cast member Andre the Giant’s ATV vehicle on literally the first day of filming. He was expecting Reiner to let him go as at that time he was relatively an unknown actor. But instead, Elwes raved about Reiner’s kindness, patience and support to him, and also the rest of the cast, throughout the entire filming.

Turning back to Trump, it seems like he’s not aging gracefully. He is a grumpy old man but not in the cute or comical way as portrayed by Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in the movie of basically the same name. Instead, the President is a bully lashing out at any reporter that dares to not ask him a softball question, most recently calling one a “stupid person” and another “piggy”. This as his social media posts are growing more unhinged.

Yes, Trump is an unconventional leader, not really a politician and for some he answered the call to represent the “common man” that has felt left out of the political process. But being unconventional does not mean he has to divorce himself from the tenets of human decency. He still is the leader of the free world. It is argued here that character counts and this type of behavior is totally beneath what we should expect from the President of the United States.

It seems like Trump Derangement Syndrome can or has taken on a double meaning. Certainly I have been accused of it within my own social media universe in times where I have been critical of him. But I suppose with social media posts like this, that Trump Derangement Syndrome might also merely represent the mental and emotional state of our President.

There seems to be no real solutions to this besides calling him out on this behavior. I keep waiting for our own Utah Congressional delegation to step up but currently the crickets are chirping. Or, as another adage goes, “their silence is deafening.” In the absence of significant members or numbers of GOP leaders calling him out on the carpet, maybe someone in his inner circle could just hide his phone around the bedtime hour. I mean, you have to start somewhere.

Brian E. Preece is a retired social studies educator and coach. As a wrestling coach, he was named as the 2006 Utah Coach of the Year by the National Wrestling Coaches Association. He has also co-authored three books and has been a sports journalist for parts of five decades.