Liberalism often exhibits the classic symptoms of Munchausen Syndrome, a mental disorder whereby caretakers further enfeeble the chronically enfeebled as a means to power and privilege.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) describes Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another (FDIA) as a psychiatric disorder most common among mothers who intentionally harm or describe nonexistent symptoms in their children to get the attention given to the family of someone who is sick. The disorder was formerly known as Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSbP/MSP).

FDIA is considered a form of abuse by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. However, cases have been reported of adult victims, especially the disabled or elderly.

The Cleveland Clinic’s web page lists the common symptoms of FDIA: the person is often a parent, but may be an adult child, spouse, or caretaker of a disabled adult; appears quite concerned (some would say overly concerned) about the designated patient; is very friendly and cooperative with health care providers.

This description fits the Democrat Party like a bespoke suit. 

For example, the cozy relationship between Democrats and big health care providers demonstrates the classic I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine bond.

One goal of ObamaCare was to compel the private companies of the U.S. health industry to become adjuncts of the federal government.

Health care providers endorsed the law and traded $155 billion in cuts to hospital reimbursement for the payola of more government-insured (and taxpayer subsidized) patients.

Meanwhile, to hell with health care consumers saddled with higher deductibles, higher co-pays, higher premiums, and fewer heath care choices.    

So too, Democrats never tire of hectoring Blacks, women, gays and other carefully delineated minorities that they are victims of malevolent economic and social forces that only Democrats can thwart.      

The strategy is to parley the good will their utopian schemes generate among these victim classes, media, academia, organized labor, government bureaucrats, and the casual voter swayed by platitudes and sound bites into wins on election day.

Without this coalition of the dependent the Democrat Party would cease to exist. 

Time and again, Democrat policies launched with great fanfare (Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society”) to assist the disadvantaged have resulted in their disadvantage.  

For example, while President Obama’s proposal to raise the federal minimum wage from the present $7.25/hr. to $10.10/hr. makes a great sound bite, it’s certain to harm its putative beneficiaries.     

In June, the Los Angeles City Council approved a rise in the minimum wage from the current $9 an hour to $15 an hour by 2020. Mayor Eric Garcetti, a Democrat who pushed for the increase, predicted net job growth and, most importantly, “poverty alleviation.”

The increase was opposed by small businesses and the region’s Chamber of Commerce, which said it will hurt stores and restaurants and cost the city jobs.

Well, early reports from the real world don’t bode well for unskilled workers.

The Wall Street Journal reports that on the August call with securities analysts Wendy Company CFO Todd Penegor talked about the pressure to pay higher wages and said that “we continue to look at initiatives and how we work to offset any impacts of future wage inflation through technology initiatives, whether that’s self-order kiosks (and) automating more in the back of the house in the restaurant. And you’ll see a lot more coming on that front later this year from us.”

Entrepreneurs aren’t in business to lose money.

The Boston Consulting Group predicts that investment in industrial robots will grow 10 percent a year in the world’s 25-biggest export nations through 2025, up from 2 percent to 3 percent per year now.

The investment will pay off in lower costs and increased efficiency.

Robots will cut labor costs by 22 percent in the United States. Only 10 percent of jobs that can be automated have already been taken by robots. Boston Consulting predicts that by 2025 machines will have more than 23 percent. 

One needn’t be a Harvard grad to foresee that the days of young (often Black or Hispanic) unskilled workers are numbered.

Wendy's CEO Emil Brolick laments " that.... some of these increases will clearly end up hurting the people they are intended to help. And we continue to believe that one of the great opportunities you have in a business like ours is that an entry-level person… can rise to become a manager in a restaurant, and have an income above the median household income in the United States of America.”

The political strain of FDIA infects the economy from energy (the negative effects of President Obama’s energy policies on jobs and energy prices), to state licensing boards (license to braid hair?), to local red tape throttling small business startups.   

Just another road to liberal hell paved with liberal good intentions

The baffling question is why victims of the disorder have not summoned the courage to cry, “Please stop helping us!”