We need to talk about our progressive brothers and sisters’ mental health.

They’re not well.

Like, literally, not well. Even that well-known hotbed of conservatism … Tufts University… says so:

…Many studies that show that conservatives are more likely than liberals/progressives to describe themselves as happy, and this relationship holds when one controls for demographics. In other words, conservatives do not report being happier because they are more advantaged; instead, a conservative who has the same social circumstances as a progressive is likelier to be happy.

And it’s not just Tufts. If you Google, as I did, the phrase “progressives more mentally ill than conservatives” (don’t add quotation marks), you will see many sources with many studies from many different places attesting to this sorry condition for our miserable lefty friends.

Is it any wonder? Really? If you just think about it for a little bit, it doesn’t take long to understand why.

“THE EARTH WILL INCINERATE IN 30 YEARS!”

Imagine believing that. No, really. Imagine it. You’re a dyed-in-the-wool lefty, a real red-diaper baby, maybe you have “intellectuals” as parents, and they weaned you on this nonsense. Since before you could walk, they read you horror children’s stories of how “you’re the change we’ve been waiting for” and “it’s up to you to save the planet (since we couldn’t.)”

No pressure.

You—yes YOU—are responsible for getting the massive federal leviathan to…tax the rich more…or we all die…or…something. I’m not really clear on how this all works, but, evidently, enough people are and, dammit, this army of Greta Thunbergs better get busy, or we’re all dead by 2054, give or take a year.

But no pressure.

“YOU’RE 13 AND FEEL DIFFERENT? CLEARLY, YOU WERE BORN IN THE WRONG BODY!”

And by the way, we need you to save the environment while you’re undergoing sex reassignment surgery and the attendant hormone and other pharmaceutical treatments necessary to turn you into some kind of gender Frankenstein so you can be…truly happy…or something… I’m not really clear on how that works either, but they are, so here we are.

Imagine—again, really imagine it—being told (or having it “affirmed”) that you really were born in the wrong body and that mommy and daddy will help you nip this, tuck that, chop this, add-on that, so you can be…happy. It’s not that you’re just a normal teenager and need your parents’ support to feel comfortable in your own skin until you have matured physically/emotionally/legally such that you can give your informed consent to undergo this medical transformation.

Oh no. It must be done now, not even a few years from now. Right now. Just like saving the planet has to be right now or it will be too late.

“REPUBLICANS WANT TO SHOOT YOU!”

So in between climate protests and plastic surgery, you must survive school. Literally survive it. With “active shooter” drills and everything. And why? Because those eeeeeeeevil Republicans won’t ban guns. That’s right. Fully half the people you share a country with are eeeeeevil. And you might even have some of them in your own family! Horrors! And they come over for holidays. Dear God, can it get worse?

You better believe it can.

“YOUR COUNTRY SUCKS”

Your country is racist. That’s right. You were born into Original Sin. No, not the biblical kind. Heaven forbid. Your parents are devout atheists.

“Original Sin” as in slavery, which, according to your parents and your teachers, old, white, American men practically invented right here just three or so centuries ago. Nowhere else. It may not have technically been invented here, but just overlook that; it was perfected here. It’s not that human beings have enslaved other human beings since human beings were invented.

Oh no. America (ahem) mastered it, and in case you’re not clear on this: America sucks. America bad. Your flag is a symbol of hatred and oppression, and you are living on stolen land. That’s right. Your house could be on the grave of Native Americans we brutalized and oppressed. And everything you hold dear was built on the backs of stolen labor, stolen land.

INSOMNIA

So, at the end of another long day, while you lie awake in your bed, on that stolen land, thinking about the day’s climate protest, tomorrow’s appointment with your gender-reassignment counselor, and the homework due in your America-bad history class where you may get shot, you cannot break out of this mental prison that’s been built for you. There’s no escaping it.

You can try but your immutable characteristics define you: white? Well, duh: evil, white privilege. Black? You’re oppressed. And too stupid and poor to obtain a legal ID. (So we’ve repeatedly been told by lefties opposed to any form of voter ID.) Latino? You’re fit only for lettuce-picking and toilet-cleaning, you poor dreamers, you. Dream on. (So say the Democrats whenever anyone asks them what we’d do without open borders.) And finally, God forbid: Asian? Over-privileged stealer of freshman class seats you tiger-mommed smarty-pants you.

There’s nothing about you or your circumstances that can free you from this mental prison. The more you think about it, the more hopeless it gets:

Born here? Or live here? You’re an ugly American. As for global warming, well, unless you plan to live on Mars, you’re screwed that way too: doomed to incinerate because you can’t get your white/black/Latino/Asian ass out of bed to save the planet.

You see, there’s no way out of these walls of doom your progressive elders have put you in.

You are bad.

Your country is bad.

Your planet is doomed.

And we’re all screwed because we couldn’t fix everything and neither, evidently, can you.

But no pressure or anything.

Sweet dreams!

M. Walter is a pseudonym.