Most “mentally ill” people are on the political left, Harvard professor Arthur Brooks explained last year. In 2016, the American Journal of Political Science reported that liberal political beliefs are linked to psychoticism. A decade earlier, radio legend Dr. Michael Savage released his eyebrow-raising book Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder. But could it really be that there’s an association between ideological orientation and psychological disturbance?
Or does the impression that liberals are more “mentally ill” exist only because, well, they are?
Commentator Jim Davis, who boasts a degree in statistical analysis, knows where he stands. He addresses the MUSS (Made-up Sexual Status, aka “transgender”) agenda in particular, calling that phenomenon “a leftist malady.”
The Case
Writing Friday, Davis first cites a reportedly real internet post (below) from a mental-health practitioner. “I have been a therapist for over 30 years,” it states. “Nearly 90% of my patient load are liberals.”
Big and definitely true. I would argue that 90% of therapists are probably liberals too. They encourage each other’s victim mindsets.
— Naomi Seibt (@SeibtNaomi) July 9, 2024
Buttressing this, Davis then informs that his “sister is a psychiatric nurse practitioner.” He continues:
She is board-certified, with a DEA license and 35 years of experience. Not only can she counsel patients, but she may also prescribe anything she feels that they need, including narcotics. Her findings over those 35 years are pretty much identical to those of [the aforementioned poster]….
In fact, she says the LGBTQ community is loaded with mental illnesses, including personality disorders (PDs) such as narcissistic, sociopathic, Machiavellian, and dissociative, as well as many other disorders, such as depression and anxiety. Alcohol and substance abuse is also rampant in the LGBTQ community.
But she says the most concentrated incidence of mental illnesses and substance abuse is in the transgender and queer subcommunities: the “TQ” in LGBTQ.
Davis adds that there’s also a mountain of peer-reviewed studies supporting the above observations. See, “here, here, here, here, here, … here, and here,” he writes, providing examples.
Children as Guinea Pigs
Davis then presents an interesting theory about the MUSS-child phenomenon. Quoting another observer, he relates:
Transing [transitioning] kids is just a way for their left-wing parents to demonstrate to their friends that they’re sufficiently left-wing. A virtue signal of sorts. ‘Trophy brides’ and buying an expensive sports car when you hit middle age fall into the same category ….
I look forward to the day when this period is described by medical historians as the Josef Mengele Era of medical and psychiatric care. The entire LGBTQ agenda, 100% accommodated by both medicine and psychiatry, is a massive experiment in ‘give them exactly what they say they want, good AND hard.’
And children are now becoming their guinea pigs.
While this holds some truth, the problem is that a reader could infer that these left-wing parents are consciously phony. This is not generally the case. Rather, at issue is something more like a mass delusion.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something,” Upton Sinclair once wrote, “when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” It’s even more difficult when also depending on it are the man’s social standing, reputation, and friendships.
That is, while a psychopath will have no compunction about being blatantly phony, less-abnormal abnormal people are more complex. They don’t like feeling like phonies; they want to be good people. So what do they then do when facing profound social pressure to embrace lunacy?
They rationalize. They check their reason at the door and convince themselves, “Yeah, ______ actually does make sense.” It’s not really that hard to do, either, as there can be specious reasons for believing most anything.
The Aliens Among Us
And among left-wingers, it is often the case that their social approval (and sometimes salary) depends on embracing woke fads. Just consider the entertainment set. Celebrities such as Charlize Theron and Cher have homosexual, MUSS, and “non-binary” children, American Thinker points out. Why, actress Marcia Gay Harden has three sexual devolutionary kids. Fellow actress Megan Fox has her beat, though, with her trio of sons. All three are MUSS-oriented — i.e., pretending to be girls.
Now, asks Davis rhetorically, “what are the odds against Marcia Gay Harden and Megan Fox going 6-for-6?” Regarding Sexual Identity Disorder (aka “gender dysphoria”), note that it’s vanishingly rare. Social contagion/pressure phenomena and bad parenting, however, are not.
Related to this, research has shown that most mothers of MUSS boys are mentally ill themselves. Related to that, a 2021 study found that a majority of young, liberal, white women have diagnosed mental problems. And transitioning away from the MUSS issue, I’ve in the past related my own ideology/mental illness-correlation observations.
Back when I worked with kids, I noted that the best behaved children generally had three commonalities. They had politically conservative parents, stay-at-home moms, and some kind of active church life. In contrast, I don’t remember even one child diagnosed with ADHD (associated with behavior problems) who was not from a liberal home.
Study of the Soul
It may be hard to imagine that mere “politics” could be associated with a higher incidence of mental illness. That is, until realizing that personal politics is downstream from your mind’s “culture” — and that “mental illness” often isn’t “illness.”
As family psychologist John Rosemond once pointed out, years ago we viewed bad behavior as a moral problem. Now, he said, we generally consider it a psychological problem. And this itself is a problem.
“Psychology” is a Greek world meaning “study of the soul.” Yet ironically, its modern practitioners treat man like a soulless organic robot who doesn’t misbehave but malfunctions. Thus is everything we once called a sin now re-categorized and diagnosed as a disease or condition of the brain. You’re a misbehaving child? You have ADHD. Killed your husband? Could’ve been PMS. You drink too much? That’s a gene. Homosexuality? That’s a gene, too.
Of course, bona fide mental illness surely exists, and people are born with certain tendencies and weaknesses. But what they believe really does matter. And this is why, rather then referencing psychology and its “disorders,” the Truth here is better found via theology and its concept of disordered thinking.
Follow Orders (the Right Ones)
While this sounds similar to “disorders,” it refers to thinking contrary to the moral order. And deviating from the moral order does lead to problems. This is why Aristotle, I believe it was, said that living a moral life is a prerequisite for happiness.
To analogize the moral-rules imperative, imagine being oblivious to the rules of human nutrition. We then might mainline junk food or even ingest those pretty but poisonous, attractive red berries. Bad health or even death could result. Likewise, being oblivious to moral rules allows for the ingestion of moral/spiritual junk food or toxin. Some call this sin, which is psychological poison. The result is the same, too: ill psychological health (and unhappiness).
Of course, we can’t know the moral rules without acquaintance with Truth (objective, universal, and unchanging by definition). And Truth implies God’s existence.
This reveals why leftists are bedeviled by “mental illness.” They’re much more likely than conservatives to reject God and Truth; they’re moral-relativists/nihilists almost to a man. They thus are more likely to ingest that psychological poison.
In fact, if the problem were to be found in a sane-world DSM, perhaps in an alternate universe, it might be called Deity Deficit Disorder.
This article was originally published at The New American.
I love it, the truth for everyone to read. Thank you for depicting it in such a secular, yet 'Deistic' manner.
Posted by: BK | January 05, 2025 at 03:36 PM
Ever since I was in High School Starting in 1972 I noticed a number of things about the People that called themselves "Liberals" back then. First off they were all "Fad" followers. Not people who initiated a New Style, Look, or way of Talking, but people quick to latch on to someone else's New Style, Look, or way of talking feeling it made them Look Cool and they were on the In crowd. I found them to be pretentious, Phony, Generally Weak Minded and people who weren't very Deep or Critical Thinkers. When Called out on their Actions they were always extremely Defensive and Hostile. Mainly because they never had the ability to back up any of the Things they claimed they Believed in or even remotely explain why they believed in "whatever'. It was always because someone else did
I can see how as the years and decades have passed how those immersed in Liberal Orthodoxy, gravitated to Marxist Orthodoxy, then became Socialists, Fascists and Communists. All are total "LEFT WING" orthodoxies that get progressively more Totalitarian and Dictatorial, the further down the road you go. There is never any tolerance for anyone who would dare to Question the Orthodoxy of the Leftist, no matter where on that road to Totalitarianism they are. So rigid are they in "Feeling" they are correct in their Views, despite all the Evidence right in front of their own faces that they are not. I can see why their Brains and their Feelings would short Circuit, and they have! In the end, it's obvious that those on the Left just cannot deal with Reality and it goes a long way to explaining why so many of them in their 70's, in fully grown adult Bodies, have the Simple Mind of a 12 year old. A 12 year old Brain is marvelous when the person living with it is around that 12 year old age Physically. It is an earth Shattering Bore and Very Tedious when that 12 year old Brain is in the head of Someone in their Seventies who has Lived a Life.
Posted by: Crecerelledeux777 | January 05, 2025 at 05:39 PM
the problem in this nation is the mentally ill demand we affirm their mental illness as 'normal' and act as if it is normal. if not, every federal alphabet agency will find some way to come after you for the crime of thinking for yourself and acting accordingly.
Posted by: beau | January 07, 2025 at 10:44 AM