From John Ray's shorter notes
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24 Mar 2024
New Research, Psych Experts Call Left-Wing Leaders ‘Psychopathic’
I have previously put up an extensive survey of the evidence for Leftism being psychopathic:
http://jonjayray.com/psycho.html
The psychopathy is sub-clinical, meaning that its sufferers do not normally get locked up or medicated. Depending on how you define it, sub-clinical psychopathy is probably widepread, meaning that not all sub-clinical psychopaths are focused on politics. But people who are heavily focused on Leftist politics do appear to be psychopathic to a significant degree
The Biden administration – which insists Donald Trump’s reelection would be very bad for America – enthusiastically supports amputating the breasts and sexual organsof thousands of troubled children, is obsessed with ushering as many millions of illegal aliens (including terrorists, fentanyl smugglers, MS-13 gang members, child sex traffickers and legions of surly, military-age Chinese men) as possible into America, and – just to pick one of many examples of bureaucratic insanity – recently demanded, via its FAA, that U.S. airlines employ more people, including pilots, with “severe intellectual” and “psychiatric” problems.
It’s increasingly clear that many of America’s current leaders are, to put it plainly, stark raving mad.
But stating this is not an exercise in hurling nasty epithets at one’s political opponents, as the left does continually.
Rather, what follows is a brief but serious look at the proposition that America’s current leaders are genuinely insane – in a clinically diagnosable way. This is about rampant Borderline Personality Disorder, Malignant Narcissistic Personality Disorder and other scary-sounding conditions whose clinical symptom-pictures perfectly match many of today’s leaders.
Of course, many cases of what the secular psychiatric world labels “mental disorders” ultimately boil down to individuals who, one way or another, have fallen into the grip of dark spiritual forces.
Yet it’s illuminating to briefly explore how current research in psychiatry, a field ironically dominated largely by the left, nevertheless has concluded that leftist radicals and leaders are, more often than not, certifiably crazy.
For example, in a groundbreaking study published in March 2023, titled “Understanding left-wing authoritarianism: Relations to the dark personality traits, altruism, and social justice commitment,” authors Dr. Ann Krispenz and Dr. Alexander Bertrams found that left-wing extremism is closely associated with “psychopathic tendencies.”
“Narcissistic individuals and those with psychopathic tendencies are more likely to strongly endorse left-wing antihierarchical aggression,” summarized the widely cited PsyPost website, which reports the latest research on human behavior.
“Individuals with dark personalities – such as high narcissistic and psychopathic traits – are attracted to certain forms of political and social activism which they can use as a vehicle to satisfy their own ego-focused needs instead of actually aiming at social justice and equality,” the authors explain.
Stated simply, left-wing psychopaths pretend to care about “social justice and equality,” but in reality are just feeding their massive “ego-focused” lust for power, glory and revenge, the authors say.
“In particular,” they add, “certain forms of activism might provide them with opportunities for positive self-presentation and displays of moral superiority, to gain social status, to dominate others, and to engage in social conflicts and aggression to satisfy their need for thrill seeking.”
Likewise, retired psychiatrist Brad Lyles, M.D., explains that “one way of understanding the increasingly outlandish beliefs and behaviors of the left is through the lens of Borderline Personality Disorder. The Borderline diagnosis,” he notes, “is among the most infamous diagnoses in psychiatry. It is the diagnosis that keeps therapists up at night, covered in sweat, fearful of every encounter with this sort of patient.” Lyles writes:
Understanding the long-researched processes driving Borderline Personality Disorder provides unique insights into the processes driving the more extreme politics of the left. The Borderline model explains not only the often inexplicable behaviors of the left – but also why the left is so legitimately dangerous.
The most dangerous feature of the Borderline model – and the process most dangerous in our politics – is “psychological” projection, as distinct from the “political” variety.
Psychological projection hardens a patient’s mere belief or suspicion that the OTHER (person, organization) is bad into a CONVICTION the other person is bad. In particular the patient KNOWS the other person is bad.
On the contrary, political projection – “accusing the other guy of what you are doing” – is merely a STRATEGY. A prominent – and execrable – example would include the three years Democrats accused President Trump of “colluding with the Russians” while they themselves were in fact colluding with the Russians.
Psychological projection is not a strategy. It is a threat.
With psychological projection there are no gray areas in the belief structure: The other person is ALL BAD. There is no circumstance in which a person (or political party) is understood to possess a combination of both good and bad features.
This “ALL BAD” belief structure is what the late Pulitzer-winning columnist and trained psychiatrist Charles Krauthammer was getting at when he famously wrote,“To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.”
Of course, it’s this same “conservatives are evil” belief that underlies the left’s continual and epically deranged comparison of President Donald Trump with Adolf Hitler, hands-down the most reviled, genocidal mass murderer in world history. Yet top Democrat politicians including Joe Biden – as well as the “mainstream” media – have continually likened Trump to Hitler since before he was elected president in 2016 and continuing to today, eight years later.
Yet if Trump really is another Hitler, where exactly are all of his Hitler-like policies and actions? After all, the man was president of the United States and leader of the free world for four extremely important years. So, what are all these evil practices that justify such a comparison?
In reality, of course, Trump’s policies were right in line with the values and sensibilities of the vast, center-right American middle class that has long constituted this nation’s moral, economic and spiritual backbone. America’s economy was stable and strong under Trump, unemployment was at historic lows, perverse trade agreements were replaced with fair, pro-American ones, border enforcement was a priority, America’s military was being rebuilt, and the world was free of major wars due to Trump’s personal strength and leadership.
Meanwhile, the current president, Joe Biden, having degraded and just about destroyed America in every conceivable way, has sunk to the level of a third-world dictator by casting hundreds of American patriots into prison, destroying their lives and their families, all for protesting his theft of the 2020 election.
Therefore, seeing as Biden’s has been hands-down the worst administration in American history, the playbook governing leftwing power politics demands that Trump simply must be Hitler – period – or else the Democrats will lose power. And that’s not an option for them.
Expert diagnoses Obama
But hold on. Can all this really be true? Is it actually possible that many of America’s top Democrat leaders are ruthless psychopaths?
Let’s rewind a few years and briefly focus on Barack Obama, since much of today’s societal madness began or accelerated because of him, and a great many people believe Obama is calling the shots in Washington, D.C. today. And of course, Obama’s wife Michelle is increasingly considered a top contender for becoming the Democrats’ presidential candidate later this year.
Many Americans believe, and some widely respected voices have said so publicly, that Barack Obama is a “sociopath” or “psychopath.” (For the record, though numerous psychology articles attempt to differentiate between “sociopathy” and “psychopathy,” in the end the analysis always boils down to the two being essentially the same, with “psychopaths” just being a little worse than “sociopaths.”) In 2016, Dr. Ben Carson referred to Obama on camera as a “psychopath.” The aforementioned columnist-author Charles Krauthammer, a psychiatrist by training, dubbed Obama a “narcissist” who “talks like the emperor, Napoleon.” Pulitzer prize-winning columnist George Will wrote about “Barack Obama’s intellectual sociopathy.” And so on.
Closely consider this typical description of sociopathy: “Sociopaths are often well-liked because of their charm and high charisma, but they do not usually care about other people. They think mainly of themselves and often blame others for the things that they do. They have a complete disregard for rules and lie constantly. They seldom feel guilt or learn from punishments.” Remind you of anyone?
During the Obama administration, this writer communicated frequently with veteran forensic psychiatrist Lyle Rossiter, M.D., who suggested a slightly different diagnosis for Obama, but similar to “sociopathy” – namely, “Malignant Narcissistic Personality Disorder.” The modifier “malignant” signified the version of “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” that may cross over into criminality, he explained.
Rossiter, who has since passed away, had been retained as an expert in more than 2,700 civil and criminal cases and was a genuine world-class authority in forensic psychiatry, which is the intersection between criminal behavior and mental disorders. He carefully reviewed with me a list of some of the major symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, comparing them with Obama’s behavior as president. Here are a few of the key markers:
1) a grandiose view of one’s achievements (everything with Obama was “historic”),
2) an utter inability to handle criticism (everyone criticizing Obama or his policies was attacked as an “extremist” or “racist”), and
3) lack of genuine empathy. (For just one example, Obama gave a televised speech on the day of the Fort Hood terror attack in which a Muslim U.S. Army major shot 45 Americans, 13 fatally.
With the entire nation reeling in total shock and horror, and yearning for strong, reassuring words from their commander in chief, Obama instead engaged in small talk and an inane “shout-out” for two full minutes before even mentioning that the worst terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11 had occurred just hours earlier.)
Now fast-forward to today. From President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to the presidential Cabinet – including in particular Attorney General Merrick Garland, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra – all of these people lie literally all the time. It’s what they do for a living. And to all appearances, they do so easily, reflexively and without conflict or conscience.
Even Karine Jean Pierre, whose daily job is to tell absurd and embarrassingly obvious lies to the nation in order to put a good face on the most destructive, corrupt and mentally incompetent president in U.S. history (not to mention the head of a crime family) has publicly described herself as a “historic figure,” as the first black lesbian ever to serve as White House press secretary.
Democrats twice as likely as Republicans to be mentally ill
Interestingly, it’s not just the left’s leaders who are “mentally ill.” Gallup pollsters conducted an extensive study involving more than 4,000 interviews conducted over the course of four years, which concluded that Republicans had “significantly” better mental health than Democrats.
Likewise, a SurveyMonkey survey commissioned a few years ago by the left-wing news site BuzzFeed (which has since shut down) found that Democrats suffered significantly more mental illness than Republicans. In fact, Democrats were found to be twice as likely to have been diagnosed with a mental disorder as Republicans in almost every category, from anxiety, depression and PTSD to bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and narcissistic personality disorder.
Yet, it is the left that is continually accusing Donald Trump and his supporters of being deranged, delusional and engaging in projection – accusing others of the very evil of which they are guilty.
Recently a “gender-affirming” psychologist, Dr. Harriette Wimms, gave an extraordinary demonstration of projection, a favorite tactic of the left: At the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s 27th annual training symposium in Montreal, Canada, Wimms, who is the clinical director for the Village Family Support Center in Baltimore, Maryland, announced that parents who oppose cutting the breasts and/or sex organs off of their precious children – wait for it – have a “mental illness.”
Yes, there is a lot of “mental illness” in America today. And as mentioned earlier, most serious psychiatric diagnoses in the “sociopath,” “psychopath,” “malignant narcissist” arena really amount to very dark and demonic spiritual conditions being described through a secular, non-theistic lens.
Meanwhile, the general population also sadly includes large and growing numbers of genuine casualties of today’s deranged, sociopathic leadership, whether in government, education, medicine or culture – especially among the youth, where depression, delusion, anxiety and suicide are rampant.
They are true victims.
But as for the increasingly totalitarian ruling elites themselves – from the “let’s cut off kids’ body parts and engineer a massive foreign invasion of America” Biden administration to the “let’s terrify everyone about global warming and insist they eat insects while we dine on steak” globalist crowd?
They’re just evil.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/03/new-research-psych-experts-call-left-wing-leaders/
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This note originated as a blog post. For more blog postings from me, see
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TONGUE-TIED,
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AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. I update those frequently.
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