Why leftism as a mental illness is a ‘comforting fiction’



As the divide between the right and the left continues to deepen, BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre explains that Americans are writing off what they don’t understand about each other as a “form of mental illness.”

“This is understandable when it comes to horrific crime. Someone like a serial killer is so violent and twisted that it's hard for us to comprehend their actions, and there is certainly a fair amount of mental illness that plays a factor,” MacIntyre says. “But today people often use this explanation when it comes to political disagreements.”

“Abortion, hatred for Christians and white people, the mutilation of children to turn boys into girls — these beliefs are so horrible that they can only possibly be explained by a malfunctioning brain,” he continues. “Of course, that's not the only explanation.”


“The other option is that some people have a very different set of values that drive them to pursue goals that we view as evil. The average American would like to avoid this truth, because it comes with an unnerving conclusion: Your political enemies aren't crazy; they are sane people who hate you and want to hurt you,” he adds.

MacIntyre explains that believing that a radical leftist who wants to mutilate children is mentally ill “is far easier than addressing the alternative.”

“The idea that half of America is crazy because they don’t share your political views is obviously absurd," he says. "The truth is much darker. We’re at least two societies, with mutually exclusive understandings of morality and purpose, trapped in one country.”

“The theoretical neutrality of the liberal system allowed this drift to occur under the surface, but the differences have become too extreme to ignore. Both sides have their own internally consistent understanding of the world, but they’re entirely incompatible with each other,” he explains.

“One side is going to win and one side is going to lose, and the winning side is going to impose its way of life on the other. There is no way to avoid this reality,” he continues. “And obscuring the truth with comforting fictions about mental illness only ensures that you’ll be on the side that loses.”

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Your enemies aren't mentally ill. They apparently just want to kill you.



In our modern world, it is very common to conflate motives we do not understand with some form of mental illness. This is understandable when it comes to horrific crime. A serial killer is so violent and twisted that it is hard for us to comprehend his actions, and there is certainly a fair amount of mental illness that is a factor.

Today, however, people often use this explanation when it comes to political disagreements. Abortion, hatred of Christians, the mutilation of children — these beliefs are so horrible that they can only possibly be explained by a malfunctioning brain. But that is not the only explanation. The other option is that some people have a very different set of values that drive them to pursue goals we view as evil.

Our differences are not based on mental illness but fundamental beliefs about right and wrong.

The average American would like to avoid this truth, because it comes with an unnerving conclusion: Your political enemies are not crazy; they are sane people who hate you and want to hurt you.

As sophisticated and modern people, we tend to avoid language that implies some form of objective metaphysical truth. Evil is a concept that conjures up images of old churches, judgmental Sunday-school teachers, and medieval peasants trying to explain a drought.

We have the technology and understanding to explain everything in the world around us. Explanations that call on unseen forces or divine intervention are no longer required. In this thoroughly materialistic view, humans are simply animals with more sophisticated brains. Any undesirable behavior, therefore, can be understood as a malfunction of that brain.

There is no evil; there is only mental illness.

Modern Americans are universalists in a very strange sense. We assume that our values, beliefs, and customs are the default for all humans everywhere. Americans believe that all our assumptions about the way life ought to be lived are arrived at through individual human rationality, so if another person has a functioning brain, he will, of course, come to the same conclusion.

When we are confronted with someone who has very different understandings or goals, it is assumed that something has happened to his faculties of reason.

We try to argue with these people in hopes that rational debate will help them see the error of their ways. If debate does not work, we begin diagnosing the dissenting individual with all kinds of pathologies that explain why he doesn't see the world the way we do. The explanation for divergent morals or goals is always a defective mental process, never a genuine difference in how we view the world.

The obsession with material explanations accounts for half of this phenomenon, but the other half is explained by our desperate need to avoid real conflict.

One of the major selling points of liberalism was the reduced need for violent conflict by removing existential questions from the political arena. Who is right about God? What is the ultimate good? To what end should we orient our society? These are all important but dangerous questions. The answers are exclusive and all-encompassing.

These are the things that people are willing to kill and die for, so better to make them off-limits and focus on something everyone can agree on — making more money and increasing the standard of living.

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The desire to end the terrible wars that were fought over religion or identity is entirely understandable, and it is difficult to argue that the focus on economic cooperation did not produce significant benefits, but this was always a trade-off that could never last.

We may like to pretend that we are too advanced and sophisticated to get hung up on these primitive concerns, but under the surface, they continue to define us. Those conflicts do not disappear, and when they re-emerge, you have stripped your civilization of the tools needed to identify and address them, which is exactly what we are seeing now.

Americans no longer have the moral language to discuss good and evil, so they simply apply a clinical diagnosis to their opponents instead. Believing a radical leftist is mentally ill is far easier than addressing the alternative. If the progressive is a perfectly sane person and still wants to take your son if you do not chop off his genitals, then the calculus for what must be done changes radically.

Differences of opinion can be navigated as long as two parties share the same moral assumptions and the same goals. But if there is a fundamental difference in what is considered good or evil — if two groups seek radically opposed outcomes — then no amount of rational debate will ever resolve the core issue.

If our differences are not based on mental illness but fundamental beliefs about right and wrong, then a disturbing conclusion emerges. When rational debate is no longer an option, then the only solution left is the same one our unsophisticated ancestors came to for centuries — one group must win and the other must lose.

In the best scenario, this means an exercise of power from the winning side that allows it to rule over the other, forcing its way of life upon the defeated foe. In the worst scenario, this means violence and war until one side is no longer willing to fight to defend its way of life.

In either case, this is a return to an existential understanding of politics. The stakes are no longer higher taxes or lower taxes, but survival.

It should be said that mental illness is real and can be a factor in some political trends, but the idea that half of Americans are crazy because they do not share your political views is absurd. The truth is much darker: We are at least two societies, with mutually exclusive understandings of morality and purpose, trapped in one country.

The theoretical neutrality of the liberal system allowed this drift to occur under the surface, but the differences have become too extreme to ignore. Both sides have their own internally consistent understanding of the world, but they are entirely incompatible with each other.

One side is going to win, one side is going to lose, and the winning side is going to impose its way of life on the other. There is no way to avoid this reality, and obscuring the truth with comforting fictions about mental illness only ensures that you will be the side that loses.

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Austin’s ‘Property of Allah’ shooter is immigration failure made flesh



Being president of the United States is a job unlike any other. Wise leadership often goes unnoticed because the public never sees the disasters it prevented. Feckless leadership leaves a paper trail of avoidable tragedy — and nowhere does that trail run clearer than immigration.

The mass shooting over the weekend in Austin, Texas, offers a grim case study. Ndiaga Diagne opened fire at a popular bar near the University of Texas, killing two people and injuring 14 others before police killed him. The story of how he entered the country, stayed, and ultimately gained citizenship reads like a checklist of missed opportunities for enforcement and vetting.

A government that takes national security seriously screens more aggressively, removes violators faster, and treats immigration law as law — not as a set of suggestions.

Diagne, a 53-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Senegal, moved through an immigration system that repeatedly rewarded leniency and procedural box-checking over basic security judgment. As the U.S. hardens its defenses amid escalating conflict with Iran, the country should confront these shortcomings and adopt reforms that put Americans’ safety first.

A path to citizenship full of red flags

Diagne’s record raises questions that any serious system should have addressed long before he was granted citizenship.

He entered the United States on a B-2 tourist visa on March 13, 2000, during the Clinton administration. A year later, New York City police arrested him for illegal vending. That offense alone might not have warranted major action, but it marked the beginning of a pattern. Reports also suggest he overstayed his visa, since tourist visas for Senegalese citizens typically allow a stay of six months.

By 2006, during the George W. Bush administration, he adjusted his status to lawful permanent resident through marriage to a U.S. citizen. In April 2013 — during the Obama administration — he became a naturalized citizen, despite earlier signs of disregard for immigration rules and later arrests in New York between 2008 and 2016. Some of those matters remain sealed, and public reporting about the underlying conduct varies, but the volume alone should have triggered deeper scrutiny at every stage.

Reports also describe Diagne as emotionally disturbed. He reportedly applied for asylum years after becoming a citizen — a move that makes little sense on its face and raises further questions about stability, intent, and how carefully officials reviewed his file over time.

The attacker’s presentation added another disturbing layer. He wore a hoodie emblazoned with “Property of Allah” alongside an Iranian flag. Reports about images from his home also claim he kept pictures of Iranian leaders. Even if investigators ultimately draw a different conclusion about motive, the optics underscore the obvious point: When the system admits, legalizes, and naturalizes people with glaring warning signs, the country absorbs the risk.

None of this looks like a one-off error. It looks like a culture of permissiveness — a system that too often treats enforcement as optional and vetting as a formality.

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piranka via iStock/Getty Images

We’ve seen this pattern before

Austin did not occur in a vacuum. The 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attack left 14 people dead and 22 injured at a holiday party. One perpetrator, Tashfeen Malik, entered the U.S. on a K-1 fiancé visa during the Obama administration. Investigators later said she pledged allegiance to ISIS online before the attack.

San Bernardino revealed the same basic weakness: immigration pathways that assume good faith, overlook warning signals, and fail to connect the dots until bodies lie on the ground.

Now place those lessons in the current context. Iran’s regime has built its influence by exporting terror through proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas. As U.S. and Israeli strikes pressure Tehran, the regime’s remaining options include asymmetric retaliation. Domestic security officials should treat that risk seriously, especially after reports that the Biden-Harris administration released more than 700 Iranian nationals into the interior. Even if only a tiny fraction pose a threat, the consequences could be catastrophic.

America cannot afford “sleeper” operatives posing as refugees or asylum-seekers from terrorist-sponsoring regimes. A government that takes national security seriously screens more aggressively, removes violators faster, and treats immigration law as law — not as a set of suggestions.

Democrats have opposed border security, tougher deportations, and reforms such as the SAVE Act. They dress up their opposition as compassion. In practice, permissive policies expand the pool of illegal residents, increase pressure for amnesty, and reshape political incentives through reapportionment and election machinery. Americans pay the price. The dead in Austin and San Bernardino paid the price.

Americans should say, with one voice: No more.

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Enabling ‘delusion’ continues to cause more innocent deaths



When Robert Dorgan’s ex-wife and son were watching a hockey game between Coventry and Blackstone Valley schools in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the trans-identifying ex-husband and father allegedly opened fire on them — killing them both before fatally shooting himself.

While disturbed by his suspected actions and devastated for the family, BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales is not surprised by the alleged attacker’s identity.

“Once again, in a case of strange deja vu, we have a story about another deranged trans person who [allegedly] carried out another shooting. Two people were killed, three others injured, during a youth hockey game in Rhode Island,” Gonzales reports on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

The alleged shooter was going by the name Roberta Esposito.


“Apparently you can change nationalities too. You can just flip from white to Latino, I guess. So, he looks about how you would expect. Very beautiful, gorgeous, feminine dude. ... Now, you’re going to be shocked to hear this: history of family disputes,” Gonzales says.

“Now that family have two family members who will never come back because we’ve decided as a society to pretend like we shouldn’t treat clear mental illness and delusion — like, we should just enable it,” she continues, pointing out that other mental health conditions don’t receive the same treatment.

“If you have an alcoholic, people are like, ‘You should stop drinking.’ If you have a schizophrenic, they’re like, ‘We need to get you help because what you’re doing is not normal.’ You have a dude who wants to cut his d**k off, and you’re like, ‘Very brave,’” she says.

“When are we going to decide that enough is enough?” she asks.

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The new activism looks a lot like mental illness



Anti-ICE rebels aren’t simply “protesters.” Protest is public dissent: signs, slogans, marches, chants, petitions. It aims to persuade. It does not ram police with cars, swing fists at agents, loot businesses, or try to provoke violence.

When anti-ICE activists get detained or arrested, many shout “First Amendment” as if those two words erase everything that happened before the cuffs went on. The First Amendment protects speech, publication, and peaceful assembly. It does not give anyone a license to threaten people, incite lawless action, commit assault, trespass, vandalize property, or participate in criminal conspiracy and intimidation.

Clinical language can clarify motives, but it should not excuse crimes.

That distinction matters because many of today’s mobs don’t merely “speak.” They physically interfere with law enforcement. They obstruct operations. They harass officers and targets. They try to create fear.

We used to teach children to respect the rule of law and the people tasked with enforcing it. Today, many activists treat authority as the enemy by definition, and they feel entitled — sometimes obligated — to attack it.

Not every person in a crowd acts from the same motive. Still, the behavior patterns repeat often enough that clinical language can help explain what we’re seeing. I have divided these anti-ICE “rebels” into seven categories — not as formal diagnoses for individuals I have not examined, but as recurring profiles that show up in chaotic group behavior.

Trump derangement syndrome

Some rebels treat ICE as an extension of President Trump and react accordingly. In my view, this presents as an irrational, disproportionate fixation that can resemble “quasi-psychotic” hostility toward anything associated with Trump — spilling over to people and institutions that have little to do with him, including federal agents doing their jobs.

Celebrity worship syndrome

Some activists take cues from entertainers and influencers and translate slogans into action. This is an obsessive-addictive disorder more than mere fandom. Celebrity messaging can nudge fans from passive agreement to performative activism, especially when the cultural reward system prizes outrage. Public denunciations from stars can energize followers who want to prove loyalty through escalating conduct.

Mad hatters

Some participants display the impulsivity, defiance, and hostility toward authority that clinicians associate with oppositional-defiant disorder or conduct disorder. In its more destructive form, the behavior resembles conduct-disorder traits: aggression, property destruction, and contempt for basic social rules.

Lost souls

Some people arrive lonely, purposeless, or adrift. A mob offers identity, belonging, and a mission. The cause becomes a substitute for meaning, and the group’s adrenaline becomes a substitute for inner stability.

Regressed rioters

Some adults regress under stress and excitement into adolescent defiance — or younger. Think “terrible twos.” They seek confrontation, throw verbal tantrums, and act on impulse, not reason. They perform outrage as if outrage itself justifies whatever follows.

Mr. and Mrs. Personality

Certain personality disorders show up frequently in chaotic movements: paranoia, grandiosity, emotional volatility, hostility, and disregard for others’ rights. These traits can thrive in crowds because the crowd rewards extremity and dilutes individual accountability.

Substance abusers

Alcohol and drugs lower inhibition and increase risk-taking. For some, a riot becomes a party with a political soundtrack — an excuse to seek thrills while claiming a moral cause.

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These categories help explain how a crowd can form so quickly, swing into panic, and turn predatory. People mirror each other. They feed on fear and moral fervor. They swarm, then strike.

Clinical language can clarify motives, but it should not excuse crimes. Anyone who assaults officers, obstructs enforcement, destroys property, or threatens people should face arrest, prosecution, and due process. Speech receives protection; violence does not.

ICE agents enforce federal law. They face danger, hostility, and organized intimidation. A society that treats mob coercion as “protest” abandons the rule of law — and endangers everyone.

Former Vikings player says 'demonic' Minnesota Democrats are upset ICE is 'deporting their voters'



The enforcement of immigration law is ruining the Democratic Party's "plan," according to a former Minnesota Vikings player.

Jack Brewer is an ex-NFL player who spent three years at the University of Minnesota before playing two seasons for the Vikings in the early 2000s.

As Immigration and Customs Enforcement faces near-daily violent resistance in Minnesota, Brewer presented a theory as to why he believes residents are "attacking" law enforcement.

'There is something wrong in Minneapolis. We need a city-wide behavioral health assessment.'

"We're deporting their voters," Brewer stated. "That's part of what's happening, and it's blowing up their whole plan," he said in remarks to Fox News Digital.

The 47-year-old said his work in third-world countries has taught him that immigration policy must be enforced because of different cultural values present worldwide.

"You can't allow people to come into your country who don't carry the same morals and values that you do. That's what's happening. Minneapolis is protecting these thugs. It's unbelievable. These people are demonic."

"The values are not the same," Brewer went on. "You cannot let people come into the United States who come from cultures like that, because they bring their culture with them."

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Photo Courtesy of the Committee on Arrangements for the 2020 Republican National Committee via Getty Images

Brewer also took shots at residents of Minneapolis, where he once played, saying, "There is something wrong in Minneapolis. We need a city-wide behavioral health assessment. People have completely lost reality."

The Texas native said that he hopes President Trump will send the National Guard into the state, calling for curfews and "real consequences" for "attacking law enforcement."

Brewer also commented on Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D), saying his governance has been "absolutely ridiculous."

The football player received a key to the city from Frey back in 2018 but now says he wishes he could "lock" the mayor out.

"I wish I could lock the doors on that city and not let him back in if I had the power," Brewer said. "He tap-dances for Somalis. He does anything to go against the culture of America and Christianity for them."

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Brewer called Minnesota the "capital of chaos in America" in June 2025 and hammered Gov. Tim Walz (D) on Father's Day.

"Tim Walz is the example of a weak, emasculated leader. That is not what God made fathers to be. It's pathetic," he claimed.

The defensive back also said at the time that Democrats had gone "so far left" that they attack anyone within their party who does not agree with their principles.

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