The Evidence Is In: Progressivism Is a Mental Illness

American Thinker ^ | 8 Jun, 2024 | Todd Gregory, Erik Gregory

[MtnClimber]

Conservative media provide innumerable examples of Democrats shamelessly exhibiting hypocrisy and engaging in psychological projection — the habit of ascribing Democrats’ behaviors to conservatives (e.g., Trump and the GOP are guilty of engaging in lawfare and election interference, destroying democracy).

In trying to understand the shambolic, emotion-driven mentality of Democrats, it is noteworthy that psychological displacement is also a prominent feature of the progressive mindset. In psychology, displacement is when a person takes a negative emotion (anger, frustration) and redirects the emotion from its original source to a less threatening recipient. An example of displacement would be a work supervisor who refuses to confront a bad, lazy employee for fear of the employee’s reaction, and instead redirects the resentment to a good, high-performing employee whom the supervisor does not fear.

We see psychological displacement when progressives transfer blame for crime from criminals onto cops, with demands to defund, abolish, or even kill (“pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon”) the police.

We also witness displacement when progressive white women or elderly Asians are assaulted or sucker-punched in the face by black males but refuse to blame or otherwise identify their assailants, whom they fear. Instead, in interviews or on social media, they often blame white males, white “racism,” or some other amorphous thing that they do not fear.

With the Israel-Hamas conflict, we are witness to both progressive projection (ascribing Hamas’s empirically self-evident genocidal threats and behavior toward Israel to the Jewish state itself) and psychological displacement.

Highly educated progressive white Jews, in particular, are consciously aware that hundreds of millions of Muslims worldwide wish violent harm upon Jews (based on edicts in the Koran mandating the murder of Jews). This is naturally and understandably fear-inducing for progressive Jews to contemplate.

[nopardons]

BTTT

[blueunicorn6]

No.

Progressivism is the rational realization of a group of cruel and greedy people that they can manipulate mentally ill people to gain power and wealth through something called politics instead of working hard.

[MtnClimber]

Great comment.

[AZJeep]

Even the name is misnomer.
There is nothing progressive in “progressivism”. They are the dinosaurs of the society.
Whatever they do is trying to se us back to middle ages, where the enlightened emperor/king took care about everything!

[avital2]

does your neighbor extend the same courtesy disclaimer??

[mjp]

they also suffer from obsessive wishful thinking trance of utopian fantasies that are unconnected to reality

[Boomer]

While this op-ed weighs heavily into confirmation bias, it also happens to be true IMHO.

Dems/progs/marxists/commies (all the same thing) say and do insane things all the time. Their reality is a full bubble off the real reality. It's like they are dancing to a drum beat normal people can't hear. They are able to justify their insidious actions that would crush a normal person's conscience.

As a thought experiment I wish it was possible to see the world through their eyes for just an hour or so to experience that alternate reality for myself. It might explain a lot of things or it might confirm what I currently believe, that they are indeed mentally ill from birth.

[Does so]

Not at all—and wouldn’t expect it.