It might be time to reject the hard-core progressive socialists as bad for mental health. Progressive socialists, extreme liberal, leftists, all terms used to describe the extreme "leftists," follow their beliefs and gods as a religion and employ tactics used by history's fanatics, intolerance, illegalization, marginalization and cancellation, which is nothing more than the modern word for shunning, excluding dissenters.
In the US it seems that about 30 to 35 percent of today's Democrats are part of this extreme group and ultimately may be people everyone else chooses to avoid because their endless criticism, intolerance, labeling and black/white thoughts amount to little more than bullying and abuse with the known negative impacts on mental health.
What does this have to do with health insurance? It's important to note that most psychologists and social workers and assorted individuals providing therapy identify as democrats but are not supposed to self-disclose in order to protect themselves and the people they counsel. That's been the case for a long time, but with this new breed of liberal, it's not merely a so-what moment if you are unlucky enough to deal with an extremist liberal because the absolute rejection of any view but their own may jeopardize your mental health or your progress. Politics has destroyed relationships, ended friendships and infiltrated schools and even counseling services.
The outspoken progressive socialists are lecturers and scolders, not teachers or tolerant listeners. They silence, demean and illegalize views that are not their own and for many present a clear and present danger to ourselves and our well-being. They present their opinions as fact, their ideas with piles of debatable statistics, their hunches as truth and leave no room for dissent.
The danger of today's progressive socialists is they believe they have the moral high ground and are willing to publicly advocate for their opinions and berate, demean and marginalize all others as wrong.
I am an old-time liberal and I fully reject what's being peddled by Democrats today. After years of the strange allegations that I deny climate change if I don't agree with the AOC's Green New Deal, that I must be an anti-vaxxer if I don't believe that the COVID vaccine should be mandated, that I must be a racist Nazi if I disagree in limiting Supreme Court justice selection only to a black woman, that I must be a racist if I vote for any Republican, I can honestly say that I now totally reject this group as they reject "others" like me.
With the big push today that "counseling" is the answer to everything, and the long-time disclosure that most therapists identify as liberals, it's critical that parents and individuals seeking counseling recognize that the brazen openness with which these progressives spout their views may very well influence your provider choice, especially if you do not identify as a progressive socialist.
This is an important criterion to include in your consideration of therapist choice along with education, specialty, availability, if you hope to achieve the goals for which you turned to counseling to begin with.
The good news is that the extreme leftists are easy to spot because of what I call the blurt factor. Certain that they are the moral high ground and correct, most often they can't resist revealing their views. This is good news because it doesn't take long to identify them and you don't have to suffer their abuse, putdowns and false allegations before saying, "Goodbye."
Here I offer some of the observable signs I've witnessed to spot liberal extremists or democratic socialists that often emerge as part of their blurt factor that can help others avoid them and their intolerance.
First, if the individual has a sense of humor, that humor often focuses on Donald Trump or has a made-up accent reserved for representing the uneducated "everyone else: besides them.
Second, if you express an opinion on anything that differs from their view you will be met with silence or a request for examples. The second play, the request for examples is a loser's game because if you muster up examples, do their research for them, those examples will be dismissed as a one-off or as a conspiracy theory.
Third, they pepper their conversations with words that are designed to make you defensive by painting everyone different from them with the same brush as racists, climate deniers, anti-vaxxers, whatever name-calling term they're partial to. This play is designed to turn everyone who believes differently from them into apologists, "I'm not a …."
Fourth, they will dismiss your objections to their black/white views. For instance, if you bring up their party's anti-Semitism, they'll distinguish that as either some mentally ill person who happens to vote Democrat, or more dangerously in the case of persons of power like Representatives AOC who this week lied and accused Israel of putting children in cages, they'll recite that they're anti-Israel, not anti-Jew. They'll then tick off every extremist "other" who's done anything in the Republican Party or who identifies as Republican and assume that that is representative of all "others."
Fifth, they will steer you to their world view regardless of what topic you're discussing. If you're discussing shopping, it better be Target and not Walmart. If you're talking food it had better be about vegetarian options and not about steak restaurants.
Sixth, when all else fails, they will argue that their choice is better than the alternative, usually invoking Trump again.
If you are not an extremist, likely you'll feel uncomfortable, insulted and marginalized by their approach, a pretty "normal" reaction to endless bullying. This article is about the good news with these endless moral judges, you can spot them because they simply won't be able to contain themselves and will employ their disapproval strategies in whatever context you deal with them and you can decide whether you will take it or leave it.
