The NDP Has NPD

If narcissistic personality disorder was a political party

Last weekend, Canada's federal New Democratic Party (NDP) held its leadership convention, and it was quite the spectacle. Social media exploded with clips of the most unbelievable examples of woke excess. Well, unbelievable if you're not familiar with how radical progressives think and operate. For those of us who are, there was nothing surprising here. Unfortunately, most Canadians don't know just how ridiculous things have become.

In one of the most viral moments, a trans-identified man complained that his “equity card” didn’t prevent a “cis woman” from speaking before him. Then there was the instance where a woman wearing a keffiyeh made a speech against Canada's and America's involvement in the Iran conflict only to be sternly reminded by the chair, Vancouver lawyer Adrienne Smith, that she is “non-binary” and not to be referred to as “Madame.”

Adrienne Smith

Smith, by the way, had previously opined that Johnathan Yaniv’s loss at the BC Human Rights Tribunal after trying to force immigrant women to wax his testicles was a “step backward for trans human rights.”

Why are these people all so ridiculous?

Well, it seems God had a sense of humor in ensuring that the French acronym for NDP was NPD, which is also the acronym for narcissistic personality disorder. This party and the ideology it espouses are irresistibly attractive to narcissists, and I mean actual, clinical, diagnosable narcissists. The party's devotion to analyzing everything through the lens of the hierarchy of intersecting oppressed identities means that it has become completely overrun by people who view themselves as perpetual victims—in other words, by narcissists. It's not that oppressed people are narcissistic; it's that narcissistic people believe they are oppressed.

Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by a high sense of self-importance, a need for excessive attention and praise, entitlement and an expectation for compliance, and envy. So, when you have a political party that hands out cards meant to grant special privileges based on whether someone deserves more attention and consideration than others, you're naturally going to attract a bunch of these people, and they are naturally going to squabble over who is more oppressed and therefore who deserves more privileges.

I have previously written about how the psychopath is the perfect victim to the woke; how psychopathic traits like emotional instability, lack of impulse control, narcissism, and sadism are seen as reactions to oppression (think trans-identified men writing J.K. Rowling murder fantasies) and therefore, perversely, as proof of oppression. This is just another inevitable outcome of basing value not in any sort of moral framework or assessment of someone's character but purely in the hierarchy of oppression. In any situation, anyone deemed “oppressed” is always good and anyone deemed “oppressor” is always bad, no matter their actual behavior.

Provincially, Alberta's NDP party also caters to the victimhood mindset, notably when it comes to trans issues. After the Conservative government introduced three very sensible pieces of legislation meant to protect women's sports and the bodily integrity of minors, the Alberta NDP wouldn't stop, and still hasn't stopped, talking about how the government is killing “trans kids.” They have zero compunction about sending kids the message that their government wants them dead and less than zero about actively promoting suicide to a vulnerable group of young people. They are the victims of the big meany conservatives, you see, and so their horrible behavior is just an expression of their oppression.

It's all very disturbing, and I don't understand why more people aren't completely put off by this. Many don't know just how crazy things have become; that's true. Still, far too many are attracted to victimhood, especially because today it comes with a lot of social cachet. But that's only if you're the “right” kind of victim according to the oppression hierarchy, of course. A woman victimized by a man flashing her in the changing room actually turns into an oppressor if she complains, because she is “cis” and he is “trans.”

But it's true that not everyone in a party like the NDP takes the role of the victim. Some are “allies” instead, which, grossly enough, sometimes gets them treated like punching bags by the poor “oppressed” people that they are so graciously trying to help. As I have also written before, what these people get out of it is that they get to play the “Rescuer” role in the Victim-Persecutor-Rescuer drama triangle. Playing the role of Rescuer gives them a sense of moral superiority and also lends them the social cachet of being properly progressive and “on the right side of history.” By keeping the victim dependent and stuck in their persecutory fantasies, they get to occupy this role and reap its social benefits indefinitely.

And so, you get a bunch of people fighting imaginary battles with imaginary demons, unfortunately with negative real-world consequences for the rest of us.

It's not wrong to fight for people who are actually oppressed, obviously. And it's not wrong to fight for your own political interests. But centering the narrative of victimhood in politics is naturally going to devolve into a clown show—which doesn't mean there's anything funny going on here. It may have been on particularly prominent display at this convention, but these are the beliefs of Canada's ruling class and we have seen terrible enough results come from them already, from men in women's prisons to anti-free speech rulings by Human Rights Tribunals.

It’s easy to laugh at “non-binary” women insisting that others play blind, deaf, and dumb to their sex, but these people seek severe punishment for “misgendering” and other crimes against progressive orthodoxy out of narcissistic injury, and that the psychology that is driving this movement is nothing to take lightly.