Harvard Prof. Explains How Data Shows that the Unhappiest People and the Most Mentally Ill People Are Mostly on the Political Left

LUGAVERE: “10 years ago, you wrote conservative women are particularly — seem to be particularly blissful — about 40 percent say they’re very happy. That makes them slightly happier than conservative men and significantly happier than liberal women.”
BROOKS: “Yeah.”
LUGAVERE: “The unhappiest of all are liberal men. Only about a fifth consider themselves very happy.”
BROOKS: “That was true 10 years ago. Liberal women have overtaken liberal men as the unhappiest group. You find that particularly young women very interesting new data show that white liberal women under 30 have almost a 6 in 10 chance of having been diagnosed with a mental illness —“
LUGAVERE: “Wow.”
BROOKS: “— in America today. It’s a really big problem. And there’s lots of speculation on what that has to do with politics, what that has to do with race, what that has to do with age, etc, etc. But what you find is that this is a group that’s really, really struggling and it’s a pity because it’s not good for them, it’s not good for society and that’s what we see. So, I don’t think that being a political conservative is a panacea for being a happy person, but we see disproportionately these happiness and unhappiness effects in different parts of the population for sure.”