In a way, yes. That's why repressive governments here in Eastern Europe had started using psychology as a tool/weapon in order to institutionalise dissidents, because it was seen as a mental illness not to be on the same page as the predominant ideology back then.
I think a similar thing is starting happening in the West, even though (fortunately) not at the same scale just yet, meaning people who are seen as being against the system are already categorised by the powers that be as "deplorables" (to quote a recent US presidential candidate), i.e. one step way from those having a mental illness.
Later edit:
Something like this [1]
> Ken Stern, a former CEO of National Public Radio, in his new book Republican Like Me: How I Left the Liberal Bubble and Learned to Love the Right, explains that most of the media has been feeding America a negatively skewed view of Trump along with negative characterizations of the "deplorables," the people who hold more conservative viewpoints. Insistence that Trump is "mentally ill" can be regarded as part of this contemptuous discrediting of others whose beliefs differ from theirs.
I think a similar thing is starting happening in the West, even though (fortunately) not at the same scale just yet, meaning people who are seen as being against the system are already categorised by the powers that be as "deplorables" (to quote a recent US presidential candidate), i.e. one step way from those having a mental illness.
Later edit:
Something like this [1]
> Ken Stern, a former CEO of National Public Radio, in his new book Republican Like Me: How I Left the Liberal Bubble and Learned to Love the Right, explains that most of the media has been feeding America a negatively skewed view of Trump along with negative characterizations of the "deplorables," the people who hold more conservative viewpoints. Insistence that Trump is "mentally ill" can be regarded as part of this contemptuous discrediting of others whose beliefs differ from theirs.
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/resolution-not-confl...