Fox News Digital did something clever: It interviewed a psychotherapist about the predominance of older, educated white women at the recent No Kings protests. His answers made me laugh out loud, though there’s a very sad subtext to what he said, because the driving force behind these protesting women has negative ramifications for America as a whole.

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We already know that the No Kings protesters who donned foolish costumes and waved mean-spirited signs and Mexican and Palestinian flags represented a narrow subset of Americans: Old, white, and female, especially female. Axios’s data analysis showed what the typical attendees looked like at the Washington D.C. protest: “86% of surveyed protesters in D.C. were white and 57% were women.” Additionally, “The median age of participants of Saturday's protest in D.C. was 44 years old.”

The question, then, is what drives these old, white, leftist women to take to the streets. And that’s where the psychotherapist comes in.

The mere fact that Jonathan Alpert, a New York-based psychotherapist, spoke with Fox News Digital is an indicator that this man leans conservative. He’s unlikely to recommend that your daughter cut off her breasts or that your son geld himself to be happier. This is a sensible man.

The interview starts with a wonderful quotation from Alpert: “What we’re seeing is a kind of group therapy playing out in the streets.” At that point, he explains that people generally crave connection and validation, and that these marches provide it.

I’ve transcribed here the part of the interview in which he explains all those old white women. What he said made me laugh, but it’s also a sad and disturbing commentary about the overall health of American society:

You know, 40-something women are probably the biggest demographic of consumers of mental health services. Probably twenties to forties, so they’re quite fluent in learning how to express themselves, their emotions. Also, naturally, that would play out on city streets during the No Kings protests. They’re not shy about their hatred for Trump or concerns about the country, so that’s part of what we’re seeing play out.

And the No Kings protests, from what I’ve seen in person and on TV, it seems to me like a big venting session. It’s almost like a big group therapy. So, people get stuff off their chest. They feel better in the moment, but it doesn't necessarily bring about any sort of positive change in their mind or in society. In fact, it might be making them feel worse because it’s just people validating how they feel.

If you continue to listen to the video, you’ll hear Alpert attack “therapy culture,” which pathologizes everything, giving people labels that make them believe that they have a diagnosis. These people (again, it’s mostly going to be women) are claiming that they’re traumatized or have PTSD because of the “narcissistic” Trump, their new Hitler.

Alpert pooh-poohs these labels, which are invariably abused and have nothing to do with legitimate diagnoses. The subtext (this is me, not Alpert) is that these self-applied labels increase the women’s anxiety, their need to act out, and their search for validation.

The bottom line is that these are unhappy, maladjusted people, especially unhappy women, who need the therapy of stupid costumes, mean signs, damaging beliefs (pro-Hamas, open borders, hating Trump, believing in transgenderism) to validate their lives and explain away their unhappiness.

The problem, of course, is biology. Women are more emotional. That part of our brains is bigger and needs to be to stimulate maternal nurturing. But leftist women have taken that emotionalism and applied it to politics. They are the living embodiment of Carol Hanisch’s 1969 essay entitled “The Personal Is Political.” This idea has taken over the Democrat party, which is largely powered by female madness (as Helen Andrews masterfully pointed out).

The women’s lib movement promised that women would be happier and more fulfilled than ever if they’d shake off the shackles of marriage and children. The neurotic Victorian woman on the fainting couch would be a thing of the past. That was a lie. It’s just that today’s neurotic women have abandoned the couch and taken to the streets.