Polling says...

Here's when we should not be guided by public opinion at all

Photo by BP Miller on Unsplash

Recent survey data showed that just over 20% of adults aged 29 and younger endorse the statement that “Hitler had some good ideas.” Additionally, survey data showed that about a third of registered voters under age 35 endorsed at least one well-known antisemitic trope.

For comparison, in Germany in 1932, the year the Nazi Party reached its peak in voting, just before Hitler became Chancellor, approximately 37% of the population voted for the party, fueled primarily by younger and first-time voters. Reliable data are not available after that, since the German government became authoritarian and elections were outlawed until after WW2.

Most polling today shows that adults under age 29 are increasingly anti-Israel, and that these views are driven largely by social media. A significant proportion of American youth sees Hamas as a resistance movement, rather than the genocidal para-governmental entity it is. By similar measures, large proportions of American youth endorse the antisemitic boycott-divest-sanction (BDS) movement.

Allow me to shift now from the broad survey-level discussion to a conversation I recently had with a colleague. In that conversation, we discussed views of Zionism in professional psychology. This is a colleague whom I know well, but with whom I do not collaborate. This colleague is also supportive of Israel's continued existence. That alone is a strange and yet completely warranted statement when discussing discrimination in professional psychology. My colleague is also involved in professional leadership in psychology, and someone I respect immensely. In our conversation, the issue that came up was how intimidating the environment was in professional psychology for Jewish colleagues who were also Zionists. I quipped that I believed strongly that, in most instances antizionism is a hate movement and is morally wrong. I opined further that, from my personal experience, most of our colleagues who were antizionists were also dramatically ill-informed about what Zionism is, and that this was a cancer on our profession. As a further defense of this position, I noted a recently accepted article I co-authored that points out that even among well-known scholars in psychology, there is a fundamental discriminatory framework related to Zionism¹. This colleague quickly pointed out, as though to suggest that antizionism was not a hate movement, that many elected members of our professional organizations were antizionists.

My remark in reply was simply that it didn’t matter whether it was a small minority or a large majority who endorsed antizionism, that it still constituted a hate movement, as I remained confident most of the people he referenced in elected professional positions were nonetheless unlikely to be knowledgeable about the issues. That reply, in retrospect, was wholly inadequate. What did not occur to me was that we do not democratize morality when it comes to the public’s view of an ethnicity or a well-established religious group. And we should especially avoid decisions based on public opinion of those groups when their views are demonstrably based on propaganda. The foundations of any democratic system rest on a set of objective moral standards, such as the well-known concept enshrined in the Declaration of Independence that ‘all men are created equal.’ While it is unquestionable that we, as a country, have not lived up to this moral standard, we also recognize it as a moral truth. Polling in favor of or against it does not change the ‘rightness’ of the principle.

Here is where professional psychology faces its deep and serious ethical problems. I’ve noted previously that the profession has embraced moral relativism. In a nutshell, this translates into granting clinicians unearned authority to issue judgments about the clients they treat and whether specific viewpoints or political attitudes disqualify them from treatment. We can now also flip that on its head and consider that moral relativism also permits clinicians to prioritize certain political viewpoints among those who are granted access to care. The purest expression of this comes from clinicians who openly state that they provide treatment through ‘an antizionist lens.’ Now, as a psychology professor who has taught in a doctoral clinical psychology program for over 30 years, and as someone who has provided consultation to dozens of clinicians, I could not begin to explain what it means for someone to provide treatment through a lens that elevates any geopolitical viewpoint or one that discriminates against any group. And these antizionist therapists are consistently guided by propaganda in their viewpoints. Seriously. They proudly spout their propaganda on social media therapy network pages.

Allow me to pause for a moment to issue an important public service announcement: If you are seeking mental health care, I strongly recommend that you ask your clinician if they operate from an antizionist lens. Ask in a way that does not reveal if you see this as a positive or negative. A forewarning. These professionals have a beguiling ability to sound compassionate, so be sure to focus on the content of their words rather than the vocal tone. If that professional even hints that they operate as antizionist therapists, run as far from that person as possible. There is nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing at all, in the way of evidentiary support for that. It is merely an excuse to engage in discriminatory practices in the conduct of treatment. And it is also not in any way related to the ordinary reasons people seek treatment. The mental health professions are in a serious crisis. And as it worsens, the threat to the public deepens, since moral relativism allows clinicians to deny care to anyone solely because of objections to their viewpoints, whatever those may be.

This brings me back to the discussion with my colleague. If only I had thought quickly enough to raise the issue of democratizing morality, and that history has shown that the loudest view is not necessarily the right view. In the case of professional psychology, set aside for a moment the profoundly inappropriate infusion of politics into our work. What we need is for leaders to state clearly that our profession is grounded in pluralism and the betterment of humanity. To do this justice, it demands that we have an absolute mandate to understand diversity and to recognize groups that have historically faced discrimination. Leadership would require calling attention to the problems of moral relativism. One additional manifestation of this unearned moral authority is to effectively pit historically discriminated groups against one another, where in the end, the group subjectively deemed the most harmed receives the most sympathy in return. The ‘losing’ minority group in this game of competitive suffering also faces additional discrimination without regard for the harm to members of that group.

Let’s return to the polling issue. Notice that in the polling data, the attitudes were not overwhelming majorities. This is essential to keep in mind. It may be inferred that a comparable minority view has gained dominance in professional psychology, thereby exacerbating the field's crisis. This is a sign of ideological capture and is highly probable given the minority's vocal, intimidating viewpoints. The majority understands that we do not democratize the moral viewpoints toward ethnic or religious groups. But at the same time, these professionals have a reasonable fear of speaking up since they do not know if others in the majority will join them in condemning the discriminatory attitudes. That uncertainty is the central driver of professional anxiety among leaders and throughout psychology. Although ad hoc, I have personal experience to support the aforementioned assertion. In early December 2023, outraged by the increasingly visible politicization of the profession, I attempted to organize colleagues to push back. I successfully recruited about forty colleagues. However, roughly 40 senior-level colleagues stated that they agreed with my concerns but declined to join out of fear of professional retribution. Let me re-emphasize this point - these were forty senior-level people, many in safe professional positions, who nonetheless expressed fear of participating due to risks of public scorn and retribution.

In a recent article I co-authored that was ultimately rejected, one of the reviewers who viewed the piece favorably said the following (with the name of the organization and movement in psychology that was the focus of the article omitted):

“The larger issue, to me, is why there are any critiques of Israel on the XXX platform? Or political polemics of ANY sort. Why would XXX or its listerv foster ANY type of political polemics, by anyone, on any issue? I am not aware of anything in the development of XXX that fosters engagement in political movements of any kind.”

Yes, these are essential questions, ones raised previously on this Substack. In our failed attempt to appeal the decision, we pointed out that psychologists are not simultaneously political scientists. Injecting geopolitical viewpoints into treatment models was an ethical violation of our mandate to practice in our area of competency. It is also profoundly inappropriate, considering the utter lack of any scientific support for doing so. I also want to call attention to the fact that I am more than willing to discuss my publication failures as well as my fortunate successes.

A professor at Fordham, not in psychology, regularly posts on social media that the youth have it right in being antizionist. This person relies on polling data of youth to support their assertion, and conveniently, it also comports with their worldview (more on this same-side bias in a future post). Their assertions about what constitutes Zionism are demonstrably and provably wrong. You are likely to encounter people like my non-psychology colleague. And when you do, remind them of how we do not democratize morality.

This Substack entry was inspired by my recent experience with the rejection of an article I co-authored that described abusive actions toward Jewish members of an organization. The content was culled from a variety of correspondences I had in the development of the article, and in the course of it ultimately being rejected. The discussion in efforts to appeal the rejection was an object lesson in professional ideological capture and blatant hypocrisy.

1. In this article, my colleagues and I point out the deeply erroneous characterization of Zionism that is present in professional psychology. If you are interested, directly contact me for a copy.

McKay, D., White, E.K., & Rom-Rymer, B. (in press). Fundamental epistemic discrimination in the decolonial model: Commentary on Kivell et al. (2025) and the legacy of their predecessors. American Psychologist.