Why do people exploit mental illness to delegitimize their political adversaries?

As we progress as a society we understand, educate, and familiarize ourselves with those who have faced discrimination due to their race, sexual orientation, religious preference, or disability.

Years ago, a typical derogatory insult directed towards another individual would be to call them “gay” or “Homo.” Today we find these insults repugnant because we have become more accepting and educated. We understand that the LGBTQ community has faced harsh intolerance due to their sexual orientation. So, it’s just wrong to use those names these days.

Another insensitive insult directed towards people who lacked intelligence was to call them a retard.  This word has been abused to the point that Doctors, Therapists, and Teachers refuse to use the original terminology, but instead have replaced mentally retarded with mentally challenged, or mentally delayed.  

With consciousness and tolerance continuing to develop over time for specific sectors of minority groups, why are journalists and politicians using mental illness as a mallet to hammer their adversaries?

With depression, anxiety, and other psychological disorders on the rise– especially among teens– journalists and politicians continue to manipulate the term “mental illness” to depict the instability of their opponents. Using mental illness as a descriptor to portray individuals as deranged is only going to feed into the negative stigma.

Mental illness is no laughing matter. In fact, It is the leading cause of disability in the United States and is damaging nearly 20 percent of the adult population. With 10. 4 million people in the US dealing with the difficulties of mental illness, more transparency on this matter should be spotlighted. 

Not only are adults struggling with their mental health but adolescents are rapidly falling victim to mental illness.

Depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder are at an all-time high within the adolescent population. Suicide has crept in as the 3rd leading cause of death amongst teens. The numbers for teen suicides have tripled since the 1940’s.

The publics’ poor conception of mental illness has damaging effects on society but specifically on those who truly need help. Adolescents and adults entertain their days by viewing political pundits humiliating their adversaries on Twitter and Facebook. So why does mental illness continue to be thrown around as an insult?

This past December, NBC’s Bandy X. Lee published a piece titled “Is Donald Trump’s mental health becoming dangerous? Medical experts weighed in.” Diving into the article it’s clear to see the motives behind the piece are to delegitimize Donald Trump by criticizing his mental health; All while self-glorifying, by celebrating and promoting her groups book.

 The View’s Joy Behar made a very bold, abhorrent, comment on her ABC show when she suggested Mike Pence is mentally ill because of his relationship with Jesus and his Christian faith. According to Joy, mental illness consists of a bunch of delirious individuals who consume their time talking to mystical people.

The hostility toward mental health continues with Marlow Stern’s piece in The Daily Beast, explaining Alt Right Leader Richard Spencer only attracts the mentally ill. I’m sure people suffering from mental illness love to share the same conditions as those associated with the Alt-Right. That’s undoubtedly going to encourage them to admit to their disorder and seek help.

British GQ compares poor mental health to psychopaths in their piece titled “American psycho? Donald Trump’s Mental Health is still in question.” Although President Trump has proven to be a narcissist and a pathological liar, lumping mental illness into the same category as a famed serial killer is a bit far-fetched.

Not only are pundits abusing the term but twitter tolls also use mental illness as a brush to boorishly paint their adversaries in order to delegitimize them. Mental Illness should not be used as a weapon on the Twitter battlefield of debate.

The public’s perception of mental illness has been poisoned due to the horrible stigma surrounding it. If we want to see more individuals seek treatment and patch up the emotional and physical pain they face daily we need to stop using mental illness as a derogatory term to insult people, but rather encourage those in need of help.