The Politics of Mental Health

According to new data from the 2022 Cooperative Election Study, reported by statistician Nate Silver, 45% of voters who described their mental health as “poor” identified as liberal, while just 19% identified as conservative. On the other hand, among voters with “excellent” mental health, 51% identified as conservative compared to only 20% who were liberal.

It’s a striking correlation, and one that should give pause to any political strategist – or pastor.

The implications go far beyond partisanship. Democrats aren’t just struggling with messaging. They’re promoting a worldview that breeds discontent, detachment, and disorder. And now, as the Left scrambles to connect with a strongly disaffected demographic – young men – they’ve pledged $20 million to try to rebrand their appeal. But you can’t market your way out of a spiritual and moral vacuum.

Democrats increasingly cater to and push identity-based victimhood, emotional fragility, and an ever-expanding roster of “mental health” diagnoses often managed not through resilience, community, or truth – but through pharmaceutical dependency and social affirmation. Rather than addressing the root causes of emotional or psychological distress – like broken families, spiritual emptiness, or moral confusion – they pathologize discomfort and encourage individuals to find solutions not in repentance, growth, and healing, but in diagnosis and Big Pharma.

Every negative emotion becomes a disorder, every struggle a reason for medication, and every dissent from the progressive orthodoxy a form of “harm.” Instead of assessing emotions as revealing what a person is thinking, and then directly confronting anger, guilt, sadness with truth to think rightly, the Left’s only solution is to affirm feelings rather than thinking rightly and mask negative feelings with pleasure or numb with medication. This is compounded by a cultural obsession with “lived experience” over objective reality, where feelings are treated as facts and truth becomes whatever affirms one’s sense of identity.

The result is a generation trained to outsource their well-being to the state, their self-worth to social media, and their healing to the pharmaceutical industry. The over-medicated, over-diagnosed, and under-disciplined culture they’ve fostered is not a bug in their system. It’s a feature – one that keeps people dependent, malleable, and too disoriented to challenge the worldview that put them there in the first place. This doesn’t produce true joy, only an empty, false, and fleeting high of “happiness.”

Meanwhile, the data show that those with stronger mental health are far more likely to vote Republican – and that makes sense. Conservatism is rooted in a biblical worldview and a truthful anthropology: that human beings are made in the image of God, endowed with inherent dignity and worth, yet also fallen and in need of redemption, so must truthfully confront our own failings and the sins of others against us. From that understanding flows a coherent view of human responsibility and flourishing – and the tools to live in truth, which fosters genuine hope and freedom. The biblical worldview is the only internally consistent view of man’s fallen condition that provides actual solutions, not just band aids in the form of antidepressants.

Conservatives emphasize personal accountability, moral agency, and the belief that individuals – not the state – are primarily responsible for their choices, well-being, and success.

This mindset encourages discipline, hard work, and perseverance rather than blame-shifting or dependency. It honors the family as the fundamental unit of society, values marriage and fatherhood, and understands that real stability and meaning are found not in personal identity experiments, but in the permanent things – truth, tradition, faith, and duty. A grounded view of reality – one that recognizes the limits of human nature and the necessity of moral order – produces stronger individuals and, by extension, a healthier society. It’s no coincidence that those who live by these principles report greater mental health. They aren’t being swept up in the chaos of cultural confusion – they’re anchored in truth.

Christian men pursue a life of faithfulness and honor, build something meaningful, and take ownership of their lives in recognition that true freedom is the ability to live as God intends. These men don’t need to be coddled with government therapy sessions or numbed through Big Pharma dependency. They have purpose. They have vision. And increasingly, more young men are finding both not in the slogans of the DNC, but in the timeless truths of Scripture.

This is where the church comes in.

If we’re serious about reaching the next generation of men – not just to win elections, but to transform lives – we must stop outsourcing hope to political consultants or messaging. The crisis facing young men is not just political or psychological. It’s spiritual. A culture built on expressive individualism, sexual confusion, and gender nihilism will never produce emotionally healthy citizens. But the gospel will.

The antidote to despair isn’t a new marketing campaign or another pill. It’s the unchanging truth that all men were created in the image of God with purpose, authority, and eternal value. When churches boldly proclaim that truth, disciple young men, and model a biblical vision for manhood, everything else changes – family formation, work ethic, civic engagement, and yes, even voting patterns.

The Left can spend another $20 million trying to convince men that weakness is strength and that fulfillment is found in feelings. But if the church is doing its job – preaching Christ, forming character, and shaping culture – they won’t need a political message to win young men.

Because young men won’t be looking for identity in politics. They’ll already have it in Christ.

(Editor's Note: This article was posted first on the American Family News website HERE.)