Latest news with #liberals
Fox News
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Greg Gutfeld: 'Forget the good intentions, it's really about power' for the Left
Fox News host Greg Gutfeld and guests discuss liberals and what they call 'good intentions' for sanctuary policies and cities.
Wall Street Journal
3 days ago
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
2024 Voters Sent Democrats a Clear Signal
Karl Rove is politically astute, but I will attempt to answer the question he poses in his op-ed 'Can Anything Save the Democrats?' (July 17). When the Democratic Party was run by liberals, it ran on principles that every member could follow. Now that a loud leftwing minority runs the party, it has no guiding principles—just a collection of radical policy details. Forget the details. The last presidential election was a repudiation of the progressive agenda. Try something new. Hal Dantone
Fox News
3 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
5 ways your political point of view may be damaging your mental health
Recent studies confirm what many clinicians, myself included, have quietly observed for years: Liberals — especially young liberals — are reporting worse mental health than their conservative peers. Statistician Nate Silver's Substack recently spotlighted this disparity, and while many factors are at play, one explanation remains oddly absent from the national conversation: the psychological cost of cutting people off over politics. In my work as a clinical psychologist, I've watched this pattern unfold in real time. Some clients describe rising anxiety, loneliness and a growing sense of disconnection — but they don't initially trace it back to politics. Only after reflection do they realize: they've quietly (or, in some cases quite loudly and proudly) distanced themselves from family, ended friendships, or withdrawn from romantic prospects — not because of mistreatment, but because of political disagreement. As I was researching for my upcoming book Can I Say That? Why Free Speech Matters and How to Use It Fearlessly, I noticed a striking pattern — what I now call "The Five Ds": defriending, declining to date, disinviting, decreasing contact and outright dropping someone over political views. These behaviors are often framed as moral stands. But when practiced habitually, they can degrade the very relationships we rely on for emotional well-being. Research backs this up — liberals are statistically more likely than conservatives to engage in the Five Ds over political differences. The cost is real. The U.S. surgeon general has declared loneliness a public health crisis, linking it to depression, anxiety and even physical health problems. Social support is a powerful protective factor — it helps regulate emotions, buffer stress and reinforce a person's sense of meaning and connection. As social creatures, humans rely on relationships to regulate stress. When those bonds are cut over politics — especially through the habitual use of the Five Ds — liberals may be isolating themselves in ways that make them more vulnerable to loneliness, anxiety and diminished emotional regulation. Some do this in the name of safety, seeing opposing views as threatening. But this is a dangerous shift. Conflating disagreement with danger undermines mental health and shrinks our capacity for dialogue. Even The New York Times recently published an essay titled "Is It Time to Stop Snubbing Your Right-Wing Family?" in which former Obama speechwriter David Litt wrestles with whether to stay in contact with his conservative brother-in-law. To his credit, Litt expresses openness to reconnecting. But his tone is hesitant, not declarative. The piece reads less like someone awakening to the dangers of ideological cutoffs and more like someone reluctantly conceding a grudge. That this question — whether to maintain ties with family — was posed at all in a national newspaper shows how far the goalposts have shifted. Ostracizing loved ones over votes once seemed extreme. Now it's mainstream content. This mindset of seeing opposing views as intolerable, or even threatening, isn't just common — it's increasingly celebrated, even when it harms us. The phrase "words are violence" may feel righteous, but taken literally, it breeds anxiety and isolation. When we view differing viewpoints as threats, we push people away — not because we must, but because we've convinced ourselves we should. The result? We're lonelier and more brittle than ever. None of this is to say that all relationships must be preserved. Boundaries are important. But ideological purging — done habitually and reflexively — is something different. It's corrosive. Ironically, conservatives — often caricatured as emotionally rigid — may be faring better precisely because they are less likely to sever ties over politics. Their emotional well-being may benefit from tolerating disagreement and maintaining bonds across divides. As a psychologist, I don't believe political ideology is destiny. But relational habits shape mental health. When we cut off those closest to us, even over serious disagreement, we deprive ourselves of a key buffer against emotional distress. What's worse, we often do so under the illusion that the cutoff is virtuous. The solution is not to avoid politics. It's to resist the reflex to cut and run. That begins with a simple mindset shift: disagreement isn't danger, and tension doesn't always mean toxicity. We can learn to talk through our differences — even when it's hard. Mental health and free speech are more connected than people realize. If we want to feel less anxious, less isolated and more connected, we need to rethink the social costs of ideological purity. The Five Ds may feel righteous in the moment — but the long-term cost to our mental health may be far too high.
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Obama to Democrats: ‘Just toughen up'
Former President Obama's message to Democrats is to 'just toughen up' amid frustration with the political landscape under President Trump. 'I think it's going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions. And it's going to require Democrats to just toughen up,' Obama said in remarks at a private fundraiser Friday in New Jersey, according to excerpts obtained by The Hill. 'Don't tell me you're a Democrat, but you're kind of disappointed right now, so you're not doing anything. No, now is exactly the time that you get in there and do something,' he said. Obama's comments, which were first reported by CNN, marked his first fundraising appearance since Democrats' 2024 losses, as the party searches for a new way forward as it grapples with a GOP-controlled Washington in Trump's second term. He called out 'progressives, liberals … who seem like they're kind of cowed and intimidated and shrinking away from just asserting what they believe,' and said he's 'not impressed' by law firms that set aside the law, or universities that compromise 'academic independence' for the sake of saving money or comfort. 'What's being asked of us is make some effort to stand up for the things that you think are right. And be willing to be a little bit uncomfortable in defense of your values, and in defense of the country, and in defense of the world that you want to leave to your children and your grandchildren,' the former president said. 'And if we all do that — if we do our jobs over the next year and a half — then I think we will rebuild momentum, and we will position ourselves to get this country moving in the direction it should.' The appearance in New Jersey, alongside Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin and gubernatorial candidate Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), comes ahead of New Jersey's gubernatorial and state legislative races this year. 'Stop looking for the quick fix. Stop looking for the messiah. You have great candidates running races right now. Support those candidates,' Obama said, saying the off-year elections in New Jersey and Virginia could be 'a big jump start for where we need to go.' Sherrill, who represents New Jersey's 11th Congressional District, won the Democratic nomination for governor of the Garden State in early June. She is aiming to succeed Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, who is term-limited, by beating Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli in the fall. Updated at 11:50 a.m. EDT Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - Joe Rogan shuts down Bernie Sanders, defends Elon Musk
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) returned to the Joe Rogan podcast yesterday, and what an episode it was! Once upon a time, Sanders had of course been Rogan's preferred candidate. The podcasting giant gave the independent-left Democrat his endorsement in 2020 — an endorsement that many mainstream liberals treated as a drawback at the time, which seems quite insane today. In fact, some members of the liberal media wanted Sanders to reject the endorsement and distance himself from Rogan, due to Rogan's contrarian and independent-minded views on topics like the COVID pandemic, transgenderism, 'wokeness' and so on. Fast-forward to 2025, and Democrats are desperate for their own 'liberal Joe Rogan,' having now had to grapple with the fact that progressivism's knee-jerk rejection of every broadly popular figure who does not fit neatly into a box has left them friendless and at odds with the trajectory of American cultural life. So I'm not surprised that, this time around, there aren't any Democrats wagging their fingers at Bernie for going on Rogan. Could it be that they'd like to learn from him? I will say this: Sanders maintains a certain appeal. He's still quite sharp and was able to converse with Rogan deftly on a range of topics, despite his advanced age. He is so much more cognitively capable than Joe Biden was, that it's frankly embarrassing that the Democratic Party didn't go with this option in 2020. That said, he made a number of arguments which, while perfectly well articulated and reasonable-sounding, are wrong in my view. In fact, Rogan even called one of them out as Sanders was making it. This early part of the interview focused on the power of billionaires to influence public policy with their dollars — something the progressive left is obsessed with. Sanders attacked the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which he thinks is pretty much the worst thing that ever happened to our country, and the source of all our problems. Set aside for the moment the obvious problem that Sanders is complaining about a Supreme Court decision that allows you to, well, use your free speech to criticize Bernie Sanders — which to my mind is something that should obviously be permissible in a democracy. But here's the next part, wherein Rogan reminded his viewers that it is not the case that one party receives tons of money from wealthy people, and the other does not. Both parties, and their candidates, are the recipients of huge sums of money. The reason is that the federal government has tremendous power to affect the bottom lines of wealthy people. That's why they spend so much. The feds get to decide whether to break Meta into a bunch of smaller companies, so of course Mark Zuckerberg is going to spend his money to stop that. The feds get to decide whether Amazon, the most efficient engine of meeting human need ever devised, gets hampered by costly regulation. You'd better believe Jeff Bezos is going to get involved in politics. It's true of Apple. It's true of Google. You bet it's true of Elon Musk. And it's not just wealthy individuals. Activist groups such as teachers unions also spend millions of dollars to help elect Democrats, because they think Democrats do a better job protecting their jobs, wages, and summer vacations. If you don't like how much money is spent on politics, then the best solution, in my view, is to make politics matter less. If the government had less power, it wouldn't be worth spending so much to control it. But I want to go back to the first part of Sanders's answer and remind everybody watching, once again, that this is about not just money, but about speech. Citizens United was a film company that made a documentary critical of then-candidate Hilary Clinton during her failed 2008 run for president. The Federal Election Commission fined the filmmakers for daring to air television advertisements for this film within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days from the general. Think about that: The feds were actually saying they had the power to stop filmmakers from buying ads to promote their documentaries. Before the Supreme Court, attorneys for the Federal Election Commission argued that they could do the same to a book — in fact, that they could stop you from publishing a book about a candidate, if it was too close to the election. That's what convinced Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Court's swing voter at the time, that the law had to be struck down. And don't take my word for it — here was Kennedy discussing the case years later. I appreciate why political figures, members of Congress and perhaps Sanders himself wouldn't want you to be able to publish a critical documentary, or a film, or to advertise it on television. But it should be obvious to Rogan and his viewers, who correctly prize free speech, that such a law would have, and did, violate their First Amendment rights. If we want to limit how much say wealthy people have over government policy, we have to set limits on government policy, not on wealthy people — because limits on people apply to my free speech rights, and to your free speech rights, too. Robbie Soave is co-host of The Hill's commentary show 'Rising' and a senior editor for Reason Magazine. This column is an edited transcription of his daily commentary. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
