Unbridled schadenfreude over the misfortunes of those perceived as enemies—coupled with a scary lack of empathy.
A propensity toward violent words or actions that seem wholly out of proportion to a situation, which often spirals into uncontrollable rages.
An inability to see nuance, accept compromise, or wholly understand the needs of others.
These are the classic symptoms of someone suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). We typically associate this psychological problem with combat veterans or victims of violent and/or sexual crimes, but we know PTSD is more common than we realize and can afflict those with issues around difficult relationships and troubled childhoods. Life can be very challenging for many, and illness, long-term unemployment, homelessness, and a host of less catastrophic events can wreak havoc on one’s coping skills and spiral into anger directed at any and all.
Does this sound like a particular group of people we all know—and many times fear?
The question we might ask today, given the unreasoning and unending rage that seems so prevalent among an unlovely slice of Democrats today, is whether we are seeing more than political and social difference here with so many formerly reasonable Americans. Are we, in fact, seeing mental health breakdowns when this sub-group of the terminally infuriated engages violently, screams uncontrollably, or weeps piteously when someone has the audacity express an considered opinion or moral value contrary to their own?
Research shows that images and phrases alone can trigger an episode of PTSD, so perhaps we have some ready evidence to support this theory: Just pop a video clip on social media or television news of President Trump speaking and watch the TDS morph into a near-homicidal madness that seems disconnected from the normal disagreements we Americans expect over policy and perspectives. I was not, for example, at all a fan of Kamala Harris during the 2024 election, but I was not cursing, weeping, or fantasizing about her assassination when I saw or heard her—unlike today’s rather large cohort of Leftists who are positively giddy at the prospect of Donald Trump’s painful demise. If Harris had won in 2024, I guarantee that I would have been very worried about the future of our nation, but I would not have been posting episodes of psychotic rage on TikTok—as so many do today.
I must admit that I have been growing more and more uneasy about the seething, frothing, and inflammatory anger of so many on the political and cultural Left, who today seem to be embracing positions and strategies that are increasingly punitive and detached from any desire to search for common ground with those who are not as extreme as themselves. The wild and performative social media posts, the angry rejections of loving family, the confrontational attitudes displayed toward those who are clearly not being combative at all, the attraction to extreme body modification (whether it be plastering on tattoos, piercing body parts one should probably leave in peace, or seeking powerful hormonal treatments and surgeries in a fruitless quest for gender “affirmation” that is actually a disassociation from reality), all in conjunction with endless vows to harm those whose only sin is holding different values and opinions, are starting to seem like symptoms instead of political statements. A lot of the language and behavior from Democrats today isn’t even politics; it is much more akin to domestic terrorism in both word and deed.
Are many of today’s Democratic Socialists truly any different from a PTSD-ridden individual who flies into a rage over so many of the normal pressures of daily life—and lashes out? Believing themselves to be victims of some outrageous injustice—perhaps due to an overpriced college degree that has left them unfit for stable and remunerative employment—these angry individuals cannot conceive of any possibility that they might be the cause of their own problems. Their inability to process and overcome the negative experiences in their own lives (which everyone has to do at some point) might, in fact, be impeded by the crushing guilt foisted upon them by parents, professors, and social media scolds regarding their so-called “privilege” that, perversely enough, actually precludes personal responsibility. After all, as this twisted logic runs, if I am privileged, my unhappiness must be a result of outside forces that have oppressed me, right?
The move toward hard and angry political tactics by America’s Marxists could be, in reality, a manifestation of the classic “fight or flight” reaction we associate with combat veterans instead of the educated and coddled whose biggest daily battle might be navigating the drive-through at Starbucks on their way to a “No Kings” rally. The blind hatred of the radical Left is now considered a reasonable response to the world as long as the right groups and policies are detested: police officers, Christians, Jews, White men (definitely), White women (unless they properly abase themselves), anyone who is boringly heterosexual, national borders, traditional families, fossil fuel production, employers (except government or higher education, of course), and anyone who ever attempts to reason with their many hatreds.
We are now, in many circumstances, no longer having discussions; we are being berated and abused by people who would not be the least bit sorry to see huge swathes of the American population in unmarked mass graves. The free and easy manner in which these troubled souls express the most violent fantasies—and increasingly act upon them—is far more reminiscent of the Brownshirts that terrorized the people of Germany in the 1930’s or the disgruntled bigots of the KKK after the American Civil War.
Free speech has not ever been extended to cover threats and intimidation, but extremists have always been happy to twist tolerance into a bludgeon. We cannot permit the PTSD of the few to control the actions of the many. To do so would be to surrender our most precious freedoms to a mob that wishes for nothing less than the destruction of America.