DNC Convention Protestors. “Joyful Warriors” or Crazed Mental Patients?

August 20, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrat nominee for President, has recently begun to refer to the Democrat ticket as “joyful warriors.” The phrase coined from remarks made by her running mate Tim Walz praising Harris during a rally saying, “thank you for bringing back the joy.” This is an interesting phrase to represent the Democrat ticket when one considers that study after study has determined that liberals enjoy poorer mental health than conservatives.

According to a study reported in the Columbia Magazine, “American adults who identify as politically liberal have long reported lower levels of happiness and psychological well-being.” And a group of Columbia epidemiologists found evidence that “the same pattern holds for American teenagers…while the rates of depression have been rising among students of all political persuasions and demographics, they have been increasing most sharply among progressive students…”

The authors speculated that the reason for the increased mental health issues could be “left-leaning teens may have been affected by Donald Trump’s election as president, the US Supreme Court’s subsequent lurch to the right, rising socioeconomic inequality, and worsening political polarization.”

This is an interesting hypothesis because it reflects the lack of medicine and science associated with psychiatric mental disorders. It’s hard to imagine that medical doctors would diagnose cancer or other diseases based on political events of the day. Try and visualize the absurdity of it… “yep, Congress just passed the Highway bill so it’s possible you have diabetes.” But this is exactly how mental disorders are diagnosed, and Harris is a big supporter of mental health parity – mental disorders that are covered by insurance companies as equal as medical conditions.

The Democrat nominee’s 2022 remarks at the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. reflect what she knows about mental health. The Vice President explained that “on the issue of mental health, you know, one way to think of it is this: If you knew someone who broke their arm, you would help them. You would make sure they went to the hospital to get a cast…”

The problem with the Vice President’s understanding of mental illness is that it is not based in science or medicine. Every mental disorder within the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM) is made up of list of behaviors…not objective, confirmable, abnormalities.

Using Harris’s broken arm scenario in a real medical emergency an X-ray would be taken (objective), see the bone broken in the X-ray (confirmable) and the broken bone needs to be corrected (abnormality). There is no test known to man to objectively diagnose a single mental disorder. And, worse still, depending on the doctor, any number of psychiatric diagnoses could be made because there is no objective test (X-ray, blood work, urine sample, etc.,) that can diagnose any known psychiatric abnormality. So, based on the list of behaviors in the DSM, voila, you have a mental disorder.

And while polling people about their mental well-being is interesting, what is never part of the equation is whether the person being polled has taken any psychiatric medication, which medication(s) and for how long. The drug intake will make a difference in the behavior of those being quizzed. Afterall, remember that antidepressants carry the black box warning, the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) most serious warning, for suicidal ideation. And most of the depression drugs carry known adverse effects that include mania, psychosis, abnormal behavior, agitation, aggressiveness, hostility, and depression.

It’s been reported that tens-of-thousands intend to protest a variety of issues at the DNC Convention in Chicago this week, including those protesting for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, abortion/ “Reproductive Rights” and LGBTQ+ rights.

While it’s still early in the Convention, small protests have occurred outside, and one cannot help but wonder what part mental illness may be playing. Considering the studies that suggest liberals suffer greater mental health issues, one might also conclude that it is liberals that will be protesting at the DNC. If true, and many of the protestors are unhappy, angry, and medicated, what can be expected when the larger protests begin later in the week. If it becomes an unhinged free-for-all, did the mental health status play a role? It’s anyone’s guess.

One thing is sure. The Vice President stands firm on her support of mental health services. For example, last January Harris announced an additional $285 million in funding for schools to hire and train mental health counselors. In announcing the increased funding, though, the Vice President said “the No. 1 killer of our children is gun violence…” This is not accurate.

The No.1 killer of children in the U.S. is abortion by a large majority. In fact, according to Pew Research, the most recent data on child gun deaths for 2019-2021 is 2,590, while at the same time Pew reports that in 2021, alone, there were more than 625,000 abortions performed in the District of Columbia and 46 states.

Nevertheless, everyone can agree that even one child death from gunshot is too many and help to deal with trauma experienced from weapons violence should be available to all. The problem, of course, is whether mental health “treatment” in the form of mind-altering prescription psychiatric drugs is helpful, given that it does not “treat” any known abnormality.

Perhaps Vice President Harris will make new mental health policy part of her convention platform and speak of it during her nomination speech. Maybe Harris’s mental health polices will make a difference among depressed liberals and they will become the “joyful warriors” Harris envisions.

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