In conservative policy circles, particularly at the state level, a 2018 article originally published at the Democratic Socialists of America’s forum resurfaced this spring: “The Revolution Must Be Trauma-Informed.” I saw this because in my home state of Louisiana, a DSA-aligned Democrat legislator was pushing a bill that would require the state department of health to staff up an office of “professionals” who would filter into the schools and other manifestations of government power to press the pseudoscience of “trauma counseling,” ostensibly with an eye toward indicting the capitalist system. Therapeutic socialism is the apex of cultural Marxism in America, and it now forms the superstructure of the Democrat Party’s politics — and its culture. And it’s a disaster. We all know this. We can see it in the failure of everything the Democrats touch — from Liz Warren’s destruction of Spirit Airlines to Karen Bass’s wholesale destruction of Los Angeles to Renée Good’s ill-fated rescue of an illegal alien criminal in Minneapolis. Everybody’s a victim, and everybody needs the gentle hand of a Big Sister government to help them through their pain. It isn’t even politics; it’s religion. A crank religion, to be sure, but one that has very fervent belief. Where did this come from? I’m going to argue something you might not have thought of. I’m going to tell you this is all Oprah Winfrey’s fault. This article is from The American Spectator’s summer 2026 print magazine. Subscribe to The American Spectator to receive the magazine. For twenty-five years from the mid-1980s to 2011, Oprah Winfrey took the confessional format of female-targeted daytime talk pioneered by Phil Donahue and supercharged it into something darker: a daily ritual of public emotional excavation. Guests vomited forth their abuse, addiction, family dysfunction, and personal failures not as cautionary tales or spurs to repentance and character, but as badges of authenticity to be applauded by the suicidally emp...