The Soviet system used psychiatry as a weapon by diagnosing political opponents as mentally ill in order to confine them as patients instead of trying them in court. Anyone who challenged the state such as dissidents, writers, would-be emigrants, religious believers, or human rights activists could be branded with fabricated disorders like sluggish schizophrenia. This turned normal political disagreement into supposed medical pathology and allowed the state to present dissent as insanity.
Once labeled in this way, people were placed in psychiatric hospitals where they could be held for long periods without legal protections. Harsh treatments were often used to break their resolve. The collaboration between state security organs and compliant psychiatrists created a system where political imprisonment was disguised as medical care, letting the Soviet regime suppress opposition while pretending it was addressing illness rather than silencing critics.
To be fair, you have to have zero empathy—or extremely low intelligence—to still vote Conservative, when we’re literally living in the Information Age. Either way, I say both are in fact mental disorders.
A lot of it is fear, too. Those people are raised to fear anything different.
I would put their fears in the “low intelligence” category.
also LOW information to. i saw some pseudo-leftist YTUBERS(whole drama behind them if you followed them) that are magats that are very low information. pre-pandemic they brought up an OBAMA era, oil pipline(canada-usa) and they could not even formulate sentences or words how to discredit the news. (but any trump related events they were immediately silent on, hmm seems like people figured out your allegiance to which party)everyone in the comments said you shouldnt comment on things you do not know.
That’s the spirit.
We are past the Information Age now. You used to be able to use Google search or read Wikipedia or watch videos to learn about any subject, as verified by news stories and “print media” sources (older, established sources of journalism, regardless of whether actually printed anymore).
Now, even before AI has thoroughly corrupted all of that, the post-information era has begun. Alternative facts, misinformation and disinformation are arguably more important and definitely more prevalent than real.
Same as it ever was.