Leftism is power mongering. Period. There is in my view no other way to look at it. Yes, they bring along some stupid people, but the people driving the bus want power.
I read from time to time Jesus was a socialist. What I would say is that He understood the shortcomings of wealth, and therefore voluntarily chose to live in poverty, and encouraged others to do the same. The same cannot be said of anyone I have seen use this argument. Michael Moore, as one I have seen use this line of argument more than once, does not live in poverty (or with apparently any form of self restraint becoming any adult, much less one seeing fit to lecture the rest of us on how to live; he literally disgusts me to look at). On the contrary, he is quite wealthy, and lives a corresponding lifestyle. The “Socialist” head of France is also a billionaire. If wealth is bad, why does he keep it? And how did he amass it, if not through productive economic activity of the sort he now wants to punish?
The statement that leftism is a mental illness is in my view clinically true. The extent of the self delusion–normally accompanied by a sense of grandeur–necessary is incompatible with intact reality testing. It is a malady brought on by cultural alienation–one often provoked by their attacks on our history–and normally atheism and a following loss of the capacity for meaning formation outside of groups.