Today’s Left Projects Its Mental Disorders Onto The Right – The Federalist

In response to Iowas recent legislation banning males from participating on female sports teams, a March 3 article at CNN accused Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds of using transphobic language to justify the need for the ban. After Texas Gov. Greg Abbotts order rightly labeling the genital mutilation of minors as child abuse and urging such abuse to be reported, a Feb. 26 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times described the move as a toxic cocktail of what about the children? hand-wringing, unregenerate transphobia and MAGA-friendly demonizing of medical expertise.

MSNBC talking head Joy Reid brought far-left Democrats on her show on Feb. 22 to call homophobic and transphobic Floridas bill banning public schools from teaching sexual orientation or gender identity to kindergarteners through 3rd-graders.

Its a common tactic from those on the left: accuse their political and ideological opponents of suffering from various phobias or disorders, whether it be homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, or Asian phobia. Its a clever rhetorical move: if your opponents opinions are not motivated by reason and argument, but irrational fear, then you dont need to acknowledge or refute those opinions.

In this game, the problem isnt the argument, but the person, who is caricatured as bigoted, racist, or sexist. And if your interlocutor is that irredeemably evil, the solution isnt to debate such a person, but to ridicule and silence him.

Of course, this is not arguing in good faith. It is instead one of the oldest logical fallacies in the book: the ad hominem, in which one party seeks to delegitimize the other (and his position) by attacking him. But theres also a deep irony that this tactic is so frequently employed by leftists, for it is many left-wing policies that promote and engender various psychological maladies.

Consider for example the way our academic institutions have groomed younger generations to view themselves as so weak and vulnerable that even encountering an alternative opinion is viewed as a threat to their emotional well-being. The slogan that words are violence has migrated far beyond college campuses into corporate media and the way many on the left understand debate. Students at institutions of higher education from the University of North Texas to Middlebury College to Evergreen State College have aggressively and often violently expressed their unwillingness to have conservative voices on campus.

These students are the next generation of our cultural elite, beginning to dominate not only academia, but media, entertainment, government, and corporations. Their demand for safe spaces, where they will never be confronted with ideas that might question or criticize their identities and life decisions, have seeped into the federal government. Their belief that offensive free speech should be limited is becoming more widespread, as calls for restrictions on hate speech grow yet what constitutes hate seems to be anything that might refute their racial, sexual, or gender ideologies.

This points to another trait encouraged by leftist elites: narcissism. Media and prominent publishers offer endless content promoting the idea that those of supposed victim classes (be they racial, gender, sexual, or anything else) have every right to obsess over their alleged victimization and demand redress and special treatment. It doesnt matter how tenuous such claims of oppression may be and most are, given they are vocalized by those with elite status, making good money in the freest country in the world. These ersatz victims constantly complain that no matter how much our society favors them, it is never enough.

Finally, we must mention the rise and normalization of alternative sexual identities, with an ever more confusing list of genders. We are expected to know (and respect) a risible number of pronoun options that have no connection to reality.

Not long ago, believing yourself to be a different sex than you are was considered a mental disorder that required medical treatment. Now, leading federal officials identify as transgender and businesses are exhorted to encourage trans-friendly workplaces.

Yet simply claiming to have a new gender identity doesnt make it so, given the chromosomal and teleological nature of our bodies. And as Federalist contributor Walt Heyer regularly notes, championing transgenderism, especially for youth, aggravates rather than relieves mental illness.

None of these are simply conservative critiques. We know Gen Z has the worst mental health of any generation in America in what many scientists and pundits are calling a public health crisis. Researchers and reputable surveys have tracked the rise in narcissism among younger Americans, with the addictive, self-worshiping qualities of social media playing a significant role. And medical professionals not subservient to the LGBT lobby have warned of the damage caused by puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical mutilation, including potential sterility, sexual dysfunction, thromboembolic and cardiovascular disease, and malignancy.

Its enough to ask the question: which ideologies actually encourage mental illness? For as much as the left accuses the right of suffering from a groundless, admittedly creative list of phobias, leftist institutions are the ones promoting mental illness in America.

Students are coddled into believing their identities and actions are sacrosanct (unless, of course, they are conservative), never to be questioned or critiqued. The media multiply victim narratives, kindling a tribalistic narcissism that expects special treatment. And our young are told the feelings of disorientation and depression caused by societal change and normal hormonal changes during adolescence are best addressed by radical, damaging medical abuse.

The lefts ideological platform has mainstreamed a variety of mental illnesses, some of which were acknowledged as such until the aggressive politicization of psychology and sociology over the last couple of generations. The result will be generations of Americans ill-equipped for the responsibilities of civic life, as well as a substantial drain on our economy, given this weak-kneed, narcissistic, gender-dysphoric class will likely require medical care and other subsidies for the entirety of their lives.

Indeed, even their talk of phobias allegedly ubiquitous on the right is a component of this mental derangement. It is what First Things editor R. R. Reno calls bigot-baiting, when the media and academia warn their left-wing base that conservative bigots and their various phobias present an existential threat to leftists well-being.

The irony and hypocrisy of all of it would be funnier if it wasnt harming our nation and our neighbors, who need the mental strength and emotional intelligence to combat the multitudinous domestic and foreign threats that we currently face. Do China or Russia care about safe spaces? For the sake of the country, its time to put the phobias, real and imagined, to rest.

Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He has a bachelors in history and masters in teaching from the University of Virginia and a masters in theology from Christendom College. He is the author of The Persecuted: True Stories of Courageous Christians Living Their Faith in Muslim Lands.

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Today's Left Projects Its Mental Disorders Onto The Right - The Federalist