Mind Viruses and America’s Irrational Obsessions

A society grounded in reality -- with an intact sense of morality -- recoils from insanity and the first and most necessary step to recovering sanity is forthrightly and unashamedly call out insanity.

A.J. Rice | August 31, 2026

Elon Musk talks a lot about the "woke mind virus" that ate away the sanity of his estranged son, Xavier -- who currently calls himself Vivian Jenna Wilson. The word "himself" is used deliberately, but not maliciously. The distinction is important. Vivian is no more a "she" than a Tesla is a Pinto. 

NYT's Bestselling author John Leake's new book, Mind Viruses: America's Irrational Obsessions explains why and how.

To begin with, it is malicious to deliberately deny objective reality -- and to demand others deny it, too -- such as the biological fact that there are two sexes, male and female. "Gender" is a grammatical construct used to construct a false reality about biological fungibility; i.e., the claim that an individual can fluidly shift from male to female (or female to male) and also be plural at the same time. If this is true, then a white person could just as logically "transition" into being a black person and claim all the historic grievances leftists say black people are entitled to, including reparations. Of course, leftists would never stand for that -- because leftism is not about truth but ideology, a distinction that is existentially important.

Leake explains why that is.

In Chapter 21, he gets into the specific maliciousness directed at children. This, he argues, is deliberately malicious because children's sense of themselves isn't yet gelled and thus is inherently malleable. Also, the defining characteristic of childhood is that a child has not yet attained what the ancients called the "age of reason." Kids -- little kids -- fantasize about being dinosaurs and have pretend friends. Malicious people use this state of credulity and vulnerability to confuse children about their biological identity.

"Until recently, it was universally understood that eccentric fantasies are one thing, the unavoidable facts of life another. One of the........

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