A decade ago I began expressing a concern that leftism causes a sort of mental illness. At that time, "Caitlyn Jenner" had just arrived on the scene and the media, its online mobs, and Democrats were all trying to push a form of punishment on people if they didn't fully jump on board with the idea that "transgenderism" is a very real, very respectable and normal thing.
Having seen how the radical left acted during cultural events like GamerGate, and having delved into the madness that was the radical left's embrace of mental illness on social media sites like Tumblr, I began asking out loud if there was something that causes a belief in leftism to drive someone to a certain level of madness.
I continued to ask that question for years, even penning articles showing examples of how insanity gripped leftists, especially young leftists. This includes deforming and uglification of the body and childlike outbursts and tantrums with some resorting to sudden bouts of violence.
We now have two pieces of evidence that indicate that I was onto something.
As Ward Clark reported on Sunday, a Finnish study found that people who identify as "woke" are, in fact, given to unhappy, anxious, and depressed feelings in a big way:
“While critical social justice (or intersectional or ‘woke’) discourse draws mainly from dynamics within American society it has now surfaced in other Western countries as well. The arrival of a critical social justice (often called ‘woke’) discourse sparked much debate in Finnish media in the last couple of years.”
“This debate was largely data-free and it could thus be considered a worthwhile question to study how prevalent these attitudes are. No reliable and valid instrument existed prior to the study to assess the extent and prevalence of these attitudes in different populations, so I set out to develop one.”
In May of last year, I wrote about a study that reached a similar conclusion, with people engaging in leftism suffering from high levels of narcissism and aggressive behavior:
Krispenz and Bertrams went on to explain, a little deeper, the behavioral patterns of those afflicted with this condition. That explanation may cause some of us to snicker and engage in a bit of abnormal behavior ourselves, enjoying some schadenfreude. They say that these forms of activism allow for these individuals to engage in self-promotion and assertions of moral superiority. That, in turn, allows them to attain a certain level of social status and authority within their social circles. They also seek out more social conflict and are more aggressive in that conflict, primarily for thrill-seeking.
(READ: With Mental Illness on the Left Now Proven, We Need to Figure Out if the Chicken Came Before the Egg)
We can take this a bit further using an example from just this weekend. Donald Trump's bloodbath comment sent the media into a frenzy, with reporters and talking heads trying to claim that Trump was saying if he's not elected, then there will be death and destruction in the streets.
He was talking about the job market while discussing China's attempts to build auto manufacturing plants in Mexico, but even when you showed people the context, it didn't matter. Leftists like Joe Scarborough performed the necessary mental gymnastics to make the anti-Trump narrative fit their beliefs, actively embracing a lie to bubble themselves into their own false reality.
(READ: The Media 'Bloodbath' Furor Reveals a Nation That's Been Driven Insane)
Understand that while the subject here is Trump, this ultimately isn't about Trump. This is a precondition to believing a lie you're told, even when the truth is right in front of your face. The question is, when does this precondition happen?
Judging by reports about one of the most demonstrably insane things our culture has embraced, transgenderism, a lot of people who embrace it have incredibly high levels of anxiety, have suffered abuse in the past, or have some sort of mental illness. Leftism seems to prey on these mental and emotional vulnerabilities.
Moreover, our culture seems intent on paving the way for these mental difficulties to be had.
(READ: Our Predatory Mainstream Culture Creates an Assembly Line of Gen Z Women Who Identify As LGBT)
But leftism clearly does more than just attract the mentally ill.
You've heard a myriad of reports about people who were once perfectly fine and of right mind before embracing leftism and then, upon being infected with radical leftism, become creatures of rage, anger, narcissism, and self-damaging in various ways.
Lauren Chen had a video about this two years ago that shows how people go into universities completely normal and come out with insane notions and a body to match.
At this point, the evidence is overwhelming. Leftism, or at least radical leftism, drives people insane. It truly is a mental hazard. Social justice and woke culture create problems in the brain that take a normal person and transform them into something unrecognizable.
Yet, corporate culture and its media push this kind of madness.