It feels like the Left's descent into madness started after the 2000 election, when Al Gore lost to George W. Bush. I recall the eight years of the Bush presidency being marked by violent protests, including assassination-chic movies, Bush hung and burned in effigy, and cries that he was a dictator.
Of course, the accusations of the Republican candidate being "literally Hitler" predate Bush and will exist after President Trump leaves office. Ever so often, Democrats will say they're pining for the days of "reasonable" Republicans like Bush (who they called a war criminal), John McCain (who they called evil), and Mitt Romney (who they said gave a woman cancer). Part of why President Trump is, well, President Trump is precisely because of the Democrats' attacks on moderate Republicans. No one believed Romney gave a woman cancer, or that he was going to "put y'all back in chains," as Biden told Black voters.
People were sick of that. And they were sick of the increasingly crazy behavior of the Left, behavior that borders on lunacy. Author Stephen King, who is not unfamiliar with such lunacy, is not upset that his fellow Leftists are insane. He's upset that people are noticing his fellow Leftists are insane.
Very tired of progressives being demonized as "lunatic leftists." We're not.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) February 15, 2026
Volumes could be written about how progressives live up to the "lunatic Leftist" label, but in the interest of time and space, I'll limit it to a few recent examples.
We'll start in Minnesota, where the Democrats running the state have allowed massive amounts of fraud to flourish on their watch, most of it from Somali migrants who set up fake daycares, food programs, and home healthcare "businesses." So far, they've bilked taxpayers for at least $9 billion. Instead of readily condemning them, working to obtain convictions, and cleaning up the fraud so it never happens again, it seems the Democrats were more concerned about not appearing "racist" (a card the Somalis were all too happy to play). Lt. Governor Peggy "Loud Voice Woman" Flanagan called Somalis the "fabric" of the community (sorry, law-abiding taxpayers!), and even wore a hijab in "solidarity" with them. When the heat got so bad, Walz was forced to drop out of the gubernatorial race. Democrats decided to go all-in on the anti-ICE riots, turning Minneapolis into a hotbed of chaos that saw two Leftists shot and killed by federal agents when they interfered with law enforcement. By the way, Flanagan told those Leftists to "put their bodies on the line" to defend illegal immigrants from facing the consequences of breaking our laws.
Immigration enforcement was, and remains, one of the most popular political positions in the country. According to recent polls, a vast majority of Americans, including 66 percent of Democrats, say it's important to enforce immigration laws. Democrats will tell us they're fine with deporting violent criminals, but they have routinely run to the courts to have judges order the Trump administration to bring violent criminals back to the U.S., including those accused of sex crimes against women and children. They do this while screaming that Republicans "protect pedophiles" because the Epstein files haven't given them any dirt on President Trump.
When you vocalize support for ICE, you're hounded out of your teaching job because you made the "community feel unsafe." But you can mock the assassination of Charlie Kirk, secretly trans kids behind their parents' backs, and be investigated for sexual misconduct and still keep your job.
Democrats are also still keen on transitioning children, even though lawsuits and general morality say it's wrong to do that to kids. Our brains don't fully develop until we're 25, we can't buy alcohol or smoke until we're 21, and we can't get a tattoo until we're 18, but Democrats believe 12-year-olds can decide they were "born in the wrong body" and consent to cutting off healthy body parts. Two prominent medical associations, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the American Medical Association, have spoken out against transitioning children now that they've realized they could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in courts.
Think about how crazy this was. A decade ago, Democrats were attacking "conversion therapy" and outlawing it, saying it was wrong to make a gay child not-gay. Then they embraced an ideology that took gay and lesbian children, many of whom defied gender stereotypes, and told them they were "born in the wrong body," before pumping them full of chemicals and cutting off their genitals. If you objected to this, they said, you were "transphobic" and wanted kids to commit suicide.
They really leaned into that "transphobia" thing, too. Telling us that if we didn't believe that women could have penises, that men could get pregnant, or if we objected to men in women's bathrooms, locker rooms, and prisons, we were also "transphobic." Some states have moved to take children away from parents who don't "affirm" their gender identity. In California, Christian foster parents were kicked from the state's foster system, and now hundreds of girls have fallen into sex-trafficking, where Democrats passed laws making it virtually impossible to rescue them from that life.
Over the weekend, we learned that a Leftist called CPS on families after students participated in a TPUSA event at their high school. That woman, Nancy Krause, was proud of it, too. She said the event targeted “vulnerable population” and lacked “transparency," even though she was aware of it enough to know they served food and beverages. Meanwhile, Democrats pass legislation to hide the "social transition" of kids from parents.
Make it make sense.
Leftist Mehdi Hasan and others also want the Democrats to weaponize government against the Trump administration and MAGA voters when Democrats retake power in D.C. California gubernatorial candidate Eric Swalwell has vowed to make life a "living hell" for ICE agents who live in his state, including stripping them of their drivers' licenses. Illegal immigrants who can't read English, on the other hand, will be given licenses and CDLs.
They have also decided to constantly lie to women about abortions, especially in states with anti-abortion legislation. They tell women their miscarriages will be prosecuted and they'll be denied care for ectopic pregnancies. That's not true, of course, but Democrats hope women will get hurt so they can use that suffering as leverage to end abortion laws. But when women are actually hurt from permissive abortion laws, as those women who took the abortion pill have been (including women who were forced to take it by the fathers of their unborn children), Democrats defend...the abortionists. Gavin Newsom did it, refusing to extradite a California doctor who sent abortion pills to Louisiana. New York's Kathy Hochul did the same. In both cases, the women in question were coerced into taking the medicine. So much for "their body, their choice," huh? I won't even get into how many Democrats wanted to force women to get a vaccine they didn't want, or risk losing their jobs. Guess that's (D)ifferent, too.
Speaking of New York, the city just elected a Mayor who has let at least 19 homeless people freeze to death on the streets, paid a visit to a guy who tried to kill NYPD officers, and left the streets covered in mounds of rat-infested trash and snow. Oh, and his housing advisor thinks homeownership needs to be outlawed, as her mom owns a $1.6 million home in Tennessee.
Anyway, the Left is unhinged. And they keep doubling and tripling down on the insane policies and platforms that have driven people across all demographics towards the Republican Party. If Stephen King doesn't want his progressive comrades to be called "lunatics," they need to stop acting like lunatics.