It started when they closed the mental asylums. They closed the mental asylums because they needed money for the feed, house, and school the [fill in racial group] programs. Too expensive to do both. And confined mental patients don't vote.
Was the phrase “the insane mental patients are running the asylum” used before or after they closed the asylums?
Confined mental patients voted in Illinois... the asylum and local retirement homes were always included in the stops Democratic Party committeemen went to register voters and such.
“hey closed the mental asylums because they needed money....”
A book called “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was published in 1962.
“The novel constantly refers to different authorities that control individuals through subtle and coercive methods. The novel’s narrator, the Chief, combines these authorities in his mind, calling them “The Combine” in reference to the mechanistic way they manipulate and process individuals. The authority of The Combine is most often personified in the character of Nurse Ratched who controls the inhabitants of the novel’s mental ward through a combination of rewards and subtle shame. Although she does not normally resort to conventionally harsh discipline....”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo%27s_Nest_(novel)
“Leon Eisenberg lists three key factors that led to deinstitutionalisation gaining support. The first factor was a series of socio-political campaigns for the better treatment of patients. Some of these were spurred on by institutional abuse scandals in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Willowbrook State School in the United States and Ely Hospital in the United Kingdom. The second factor was new psychiatric medications made it more feasible to release people into the community and the third factor was financial imperatives. There was an argument that community services would be cheaper.Mental health professionals, public officials, families, advocacy groups, public citizens, and unions held differing views on deinstitutionalisation.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinstitutionalisation