By Howard Bloom
Why are people so upset these days? The answer is simple. Politics.
The political climate in this country is more extreme than at any time since the days of demagogue Huey Long in 1936 and of segregationist George Wallace in 1968.
The Democratic side believes that if Donald Trump wins, it will mean the end of democracy and a triumph for dictatorship, a triumph for the gang of autocrats that includes Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jung Un.
What’s worse, Democrats believe Mr. Trump when he says that he will jail center-of-the-road political opponents like Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, and Hilary Clinton.
And Democrats believe Mr. Trump will turn Ukraine over to the Russians. Which will mean we can kiss our alliance with Europe good bye.
On the other side, on the Republican side, Donald Trump, says that if Kamala Harris wins, there will never be an election again, and as he puts it, “democracy will come to an end.”
Says Mr. Trump, a Kamala Harris win will be a victory for what Trump calls “the communists, Marxists, fascists and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” And Mr. Trump has said he will “root out” this vermin. Using the National Guard and the Army.
Mr. Trump also tells us that we have been invaded by immigrants, rapists, murderers, and gang members who are eating our pets, “poisoning the blood” of our country, and turning America into a “third-world hell hole.”
In other words, we are being told that we are on the brink of catastrophe and apocalypse. No wonder we’re upset. But there’s more.
Researchers have identified something they call “election stress.” Says Kevin B. Smith, PhD, a professor of political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, research reveals that “Politics isn’t very good for us.” Brett Ford, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Toronto goes even farther. He posits that “politics is a form of chronic stress.”
What’s worse, The American Psychological Association’s Monitor reports on something new, something that has been researched with more and more intensity since 2016. It’s called “election stress.”
The new research shows that election stress leads to “emotions, ranging from worry, sadness, and despair to outrage, disgust, anger, frustration, and more.” Election stress leads to lost sleep, damaged social relationships, and an obsession with social media.
On top of all that, election stress leads to anxiety, depression, and something worse, thoughts of suicide. Not to mention “worse physical health”.
And this is not just in your head. People who go to the poll to vote have higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their blood than people who vote at home. And after the election is over, people tend to drink more alcohol.
The result? A 2024 Pew Research Center “poll found that 65% of U.S. adults always or often felt exhausted by politics and 55% always or often felt angry.”
And the American Psychiatric Association’s annual mental health poll for 2024–in other words for this election year–revealed that 43% of adults “feel more anxious than they did the previous year.” That’s up from a mere 32% in 2022, a year when presidential politics was at a minimum.
And what is upsetting Americans this year? According to the American Psychiatric Association’s annual poll: the economy, current events, the election, and gun violence.
In other words, election stress. Politics!
References:
https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/news-releases/annual-poll-adults-express-increasing-anxiousness
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2024/10/managing-political-stress
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/americans-dismal-views-of-the-nations-politics
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bloodbath-vermin-animals-trumps-rhetoric-trail-2024-03-22
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/03/politics/trump-constitution-truth-social/index.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/16/trump-immigrants-new-hampshire-rally
______ Howard Bloom of the Howard Bloom Institute has been called the Einstein, Newton, Darwin, and Freud of the 21st century by Britain’s Channel 4 TV. One of his eight books–Global Brain—was the subject of a symposium thrown by the Office of the Secretary of Defense including representatives from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. Bloom’s work has been published in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Psychology Today, and the Scientific American. He does news commentary at 1:06 am Eastern Time every Wednesday night on 545 radio stations on the highest-rated overnight syndicated talk radio show in North America, Coast to Coast AM. Bloom’s new book, coming out in January, 2025, is The Case of the Sexual Cosmos: Everything You Know About Nature is wrong. For more, see http://howardbloom.net