Liberalism's Co-Dependency

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) describes Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another (FDIA) as a psychiatric disorder most common among mothers who intentionally harm or describe non-existent symptoms in their children to get the attention given to the family of someone who is sick. The disorder was formerly known as Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSbP/MSP).

FDIA is considered a form of abuse by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. However, cases have been reported of adult victims, especially the disable or elderly.

This description fits the Democrat Party like a bespoke suit. 

The Cleveland Clinic’s web page lists the common symptoms of FDIA: the person is often a parent, but may be an adult child, spouse or caretaker of a disabled adult; appears quite concerned (some would say overly concerned) about the designated patient; is very friendly and cooperative with health care providers.

Democrats tirelessly drum beat minorities, women, gays and other carefully delineated voting blocs into believing that they are victims of malevolent economic and social forces that only Democrats can thwart.       

In turn, they parley the good will their good intentions engender from the media, academia, organized labor, thousands of regulators and lobbyists embedded in the bureaucratic state, and the casual voter swayed by platitudes and sound bites into votes on election day.

Democrats and big health care providers enjoy a classic I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine bond. The Wall Street Journal notes that one goal of ObamaCare was to compel the private companies of the U.S. health industry to become adjuncts of the federal government. Health care providers endorsed the law and traded $155 billion in cuts to hospital reimbursement for the payola of more government-insured (and taxpayer subsidized) patients.

Meanwhile, to hell with health care consumers saddled with higher deductibles, higher co-pays, higher premiums, and fewer heath care choices.     

 Without this coalition of the dependent the Democrat Party would cease to exist.  

Time and again, Democrat policies launched with great fanfare (Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society”) to prosper the disadvantaged have inured to their disadvantage.   

For example, while President Obama’s proposal to raise the federal minimum wage from the present $7.25/hr. to $10.10/hr. makes a great sound bite, it’s certain to harm its supposed beneficiaries.      

Entrepreneurs aren’t in business to lose money.

The Boston Consulting Group predicts that investment in industrial robots will grow 10 percent a year in the world’s 25-biggest export nations through 2025, up from 2 percent to 3 percent per year now.

The investment will pay off in lower costs and increased efficiency.

Robots will cut labor costs by 22 percent in the United States. Only 10 percent of jobs that can be automated have already been taken by robots. Boston Consulting predicts that by 2025 machines will have more than 23 percent.  

One needn’t be a Harvard grad to know that the days of the young (often Black or Hispanic) McDonald’s worker are numbered.

The political strain of FDIA infects the economy from energy (the negative effects of President Obama’s energy policies on jobs and energy prices), to state licensing boards (license to braid hair?), to local red tape throttling small business startups.    

The baffling question is why victims of the disorder have not summoned the courage to cry, “Please stop helping us!”