Freddie DeBoer knows a thing or two about mental illness. He’s been admitted into psychiatric hospitals five times; he was involuntarily committed in 2002. He has, as they say, lived experience. 

Freddie is also one of our most original and independent commentators on American cultural trends. A self-described Marxist and a cogent critic of recent ideological turns within blue city progressive culture, he has written extensively, with clarity and passion and urgency, about why the idea of involuntary commitment of the severely mentally ill has long been a third rail in progressive blue city politics, and why that needs to change. 

We asked Freddie on to make his case for reforming our laws and procedures, and also our attitudes, about how to address the problem of the mentally ill suffering on blue city streets. And to discuss why the disability rights community has gotten this issue so wrong.  

"If the left does not have a vision for how to solve these problems, then the people will elect strong men who will come in and do it in a worse way," he told us.