Young progressives think trouble sleeping is a mental health issue — blame the ideology that says the world is stacked against them

Young progressives are more likely to consider normal day-to-day struggles — like difficulty sleeping and feeling blue — as mental health problems, per a new analysis.

Is it any wonder, given the left-leaning ideology that convinces Americans that the system is simply stacked against them?

Data from the US General Social Survey, analyzed by the Financial Times, revealed that younger people and more progressive people were more likely to believe that everything from feeling worried, trouble sleeping and feeling a little sad were symptomatic of a disorder.

Asked if a theoretical person with those symptoms was experiencing mental illness, 6 in 10 liberals said yes, compared with fewer than 3 in 10 conservatives. And more than half of those under 40 agreed, compared with just 1 in 3 over 50.

It’s part of a broader trend on the left of pathologizing everything and blaming larger forces — like mental health or capitalism — for normal difficulties that are simply part of day-to-day life.

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This mindset permeates the left’s messaging, which has long been about what Americans can’t do: You can’t get ahead, the system is stacked against you, everything is out of reach.

Bernie Sanders was an early adopter of this vocabulary, telling his followers that the economy is “rigged” against them. They can’t do anything about that, the implication goes, except — of course! — vote for politicians to fix the problem.

It’s the most disempowering message imaginable, delivered straight to citizens in the freest and most prosperous nation in the world.

The Democratic Socialists of America — with Zohran Mamdani as their figurehead — have taken this messaging to the next level. Boomers have screwed you over, Big Tech is going to destroy your life, the whole economy is under the control of a couple billionaires that hate you.

“Capitalism is a system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us for their own profit,” the group’s website claims. The DSA is teaching some of the most privileged young people in human history that the road ahead of them is an eternal uphill battle.

Here in New York City, the local DSA has connected the dots even more explicitly. In a 2023 town hall, the group tackled the important questions of our age, like “Does capitalism upset our mental equilibrium?”

“As socialists, we want to develop an anti-capitalist vision for mental health,” the DSA wrote in a description of the Town Hall posted to YouTube, implying that ridding Americans of the capitalist system is the key to improving their mental well-being.

This politics of suffering and victimization pairs perfectly with a population eager to identify with their struggles rather than their strengths. In recent years, claiming mental illness has become chic in progressive spaces, conferring socially valuable oppression points in the battle to prove who is most downtrodden.

In fact, a 2026 study analyzing survey data from 2022 found that mental illness itself is increasingly a part of political identity among younger and more liberal Americans. Considering mental health a political identity was also associated with believing one faced societal unfairness and wanting greater government spending.

This all makes one wonder whether our epidemic of anxiety and depression may be exacerbated by leftist political messaging, which actively seeks to disempower individuals and make them dependent on political saviors to come in and defend them against the big, bad system.

Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that those on the left are far more likely to have sought professional help for mental health reasons. According to the same General Social Survey, progressives were more than twice as likely as conservatives to have gone to a doctor or psychologist for mental health issues in the past year.

All of this makes the gap between conservative and liberal mental health start to make more sense. Their political differences aren’t just a matter of superficial policy. For many on the left, their politics is intertwined with a deep identification with suffering and lack of agency.

The DSA will continue to pepper millennials and Zoomers with a doomerist view of their own life prospects. Sure, it may be politically expedient — but it also risks further disempowering their supporters, and sending their mental health into even darker places.