Millions of Americans spent the majority of 2017 hoping and waiting for millions of other Americans to grow up, particularly members of the mainstream media. If the early results are any indication, millions of Americans will spend 2018 in the exact same posture.

Whether you love President Donald Trump or hate him, it’s past time to acknowledge the unpleasant, complicated truth: Trump is both historically unpopular and the legitimate president of the United States. And he is both for good reason. Why is it so difficult for people to concurrently believe both facts?

Based on the first half-month of 2018 discourse, we seem doomed to another year of widespread Trump Derangement Syndrome in the political class and the mainstream media. We’ve already seen numerous media cycles dominated by major stories so ludicrous they were once relegated to the tabloid-y fringes.

Take Fire and Fury, the gossipy look inside the Trump White House offered by the dubious author Michael Wolff. Both the Washington Post and Slate published critical pieces enumerating the issues with his historical body of work as well as his tell-all about the current administration. While it’s easy to believe Trump and his scary band of misfits are constantly embroiled in chaos and back-biting, there’s a reason even left-leaning institutions were poking holes in Wolff’s anti-Trump fan fiction.

Cable news ran wild with Fire and Fury despite obvious credibility issues. Things got so tilted a Twitter user posted an absurd “excerpt” about Trump spending hours watching a custom-made, all-gorilla channel on his television and thousands of presumably literate people believed the satire or found it mostly plausible.

A great example of why you should be skeptical about the wisdom of the Internet.

If you found the tweet even semi-believable, then there are only two explanations: You’re either a stupid person or you’re a smart person who’s been driven some shade of deranged by Donald Trump.

And then there’s the fever dream in which establishment Democrats saw Oprah Winfrey as their presidential savior.

After Winfrey’s speech at the Golden Globe Awards, many supposedly serious political commentators were either discussing or openly lusting after an Oprah-led 2020 ticket. CNN helped launch the speculation by citing two sources close to her who said she was considering a run at the Oval Office. MSNBC took the baton from there and posted Oprah-centric segment after Oprah-centric segment.

Here’s one of the once-venerable New York Times’ contributions. Here’s the Washington Post’s. The upstarts at Vox, who can churn out Democratic-establishment clickbait with the best of ’em, got in on the action too.

The hysteria reached such levels that multiple outlets (e.g. Politico) ran actual polls assessing the media mogul’s presidential viability.

We’re not talking about low-level political wonks throwing around the idea of a widely popular, total neophyte running for POTUS as a mental exercise. All it took was billions of dollars in net worth and a good speech—to a partisan and receptive audience—for the biggest media empires to effectively create a presidential campaign rumor out of thin air. CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico and others dedicated hours of video and a barrage of stories to legitimize the idea before Winfrey even said whether it was one worth legitimizing.

Winfrey may or may not be a good pick for president. Her business credentials and political experience are at least as good as Trump’s were in 2015 and her temperament is clearly superior. I’m not so sure “better than Donald” is the bar we want to use for this particular office, but that’s another matter. Oprah’s ultimate qualifications aren’t the point.

More should be required of a person — any person — than gobs of cash and an uplifting moment at an awards show before he or she gets discussed as a serious American presidential candidate by the country’s most influential media conglomerates.

Of course, the surest sign of Trump Derangement Syndrome’s persistence is, ironically, the widespread and sincere questioning of the president’s mental competence.

This is really still happening. As in right now, probably on a cable news station.

You and I might find Trump’s behavior shameful and gross. We might find his political agenda or his public communications unpresidential and repulsive. Depending on your politics, it’s fair to characterize the Trump Administration as dangerous and mean spirited. Regardless of your politics, it’s fair to characterize it as unorthodox, turbulent and frequently incompetent. And sure, guzzling Diet Coke, wolfing down McDonald’s and limiting your exercise to golf do not make for a healthy lifestyle.

However, barring more compelling public evidence or personal knowledge, there’s no rational reason to challenge Donald Trump’s mental capacity. Doing so is irresponsible, especially if you’re a medical professional who hasn’t examined the president directly.

The media figures doubting the president’s mental capacity are the same ones who pushed Michael Wolff’s book to the top of best-seller lists. The same ones who spent almost a week trying to shove Oprah Winfrey into the 2020 presidential fray because she got a standing ovation from Hollywood. The same ones who will chase down any rabbit hole if it promises to produce a remedy to what ails them — President Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, real stories with important real-world consequences that could be pivotal in 2018 midterms and the 2020 general election get relegated below the fold or fall of the radar entirely. We’ve already tried the narrow, obsessively anti-Trump approach. It didn’t work in 2016 and it didn’t fare much better in 2017.

It seems like 2018 is going to be another long year.