Joe Lamberti, Washington Post/Getty Images
Voters cast their ballots in South Carolina's Republican primary on February 24th.
Editor's note: Dr. Maggie Mulqueen is a psychologist in Brookline, Massachusetts and author of On Our Own Terms: Redefining Competence and Femininity. You can see more of her work at drmaggiemulqueen.com. The views expressed in this comment are her own. Read more opinion pieces on CNN.
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Democracy is founded on the importance of keeping the public informed, but what happens when we reach a point where keeping the public informed is damaging to their mental health?As we hear in our psychotherapeutic practice: Very worrying for me. The paradox of living in a 24-hour news cycle is that more news does not guarantee more knowledge. As we look to the start of the 2024 presidential campaign, we need to adjust how we help people manage the balance between their ability to function and their need to be informed.
maggie mulqueen
maggie mulqueen
Our country's well-documented mental health crisis is due in part to a sense of inevitability that Congressional dysfunction will continue to reign supreme as Congress faces the same two candidates as in the 2020 election. There is a possibility that it is. So now my patients are staying as far away from the news as possible, rather than staying up to date with current events. Instead of compulsively listening to the news, they compulsively avoid it.
Even my most politically engaged patients are increasingly turning away from political news, but importantly, they're doing it intentionally. Withdrawing from political information and political solicitation is a positive position, as opposed to the more common ideas of apathy and indifference, which are negative positions. Their sense of purpose comes from maintaining an active stance of withdrawal in silent protest against a system they see as broken and unjust.
Taking ownership is better for your mental health than acquiescing, but finding the line between being informed and being overwhelmed can be difficult. It's not that my patients don't care about the outcome of the election. Far from it. But they consciously limit the amount of attention they give to candidates in an effort to control how much they are influenced by the campaign.
Withdrawal is also a healthy response to fatigue. “Why do they have to start advertising so early? Do they think that if they attack me enough I'll change my mind? Honestly, if the election was in November instead of Do people wonder if the outcome would have been different today? Who hasn't made up their mind yet?'' one patient asked incredulously. There doesn't seem to be much to learn from this election, as it's more about character than policy. And the candidates are well vetted for most people. In this environment, more information may not change your opinion, but may further divide your opinion and confirm your point of view.
One patient recently expressed the need to limit his news intake as a way to maintain his mental health. “I limited my news intake over the past two elections, and I thought about where that led me. I was nervous, couldn't sleep, and was mentally exhausted.” she said. Her cable news consumption. “I'm not going to be lied to anymore.'' In fact, my patients openly tell me that they are skeptical of all the news and are tired of feeling lied to. Although they tend to focus on one end of the political spectrum, this jaundiced perspective on the value of mainstream journalism transcends political parties. Any further information is considered unwelcome rather than helpful. One patient said: “Democracy is already broken. We live in a plutocracy now. I'm going to vote out of habit and not because I think it's important.”
However, my college-age patients have not yet developed the habit of voting and profess that they are not interested in getting involved in politics to the extent that they are discouraged from voting. A December poll reflected how low this enthusiasm was, with only 49% of 18- to 29-year-olds planning to “definitely” vote in the presidential election. They experience politics as something happening around them or to them, but not about them. Unlike the enthusiasm students displayed during former President Barack Obama's first campaign, the young people in my clinic now are more focused on making up for time lost during the pandemic. Their inability to get political actors to care about what they care about most has led to them withdrawing from the larger national debate. “They're both older than my grandparents! I can't get excited about voting,” one college student at my clinic said of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. “If they understood us, they would understand how to vote by text.” This is not a backhanded comment from an entitled young person, but a citizen who feels forgotten. It's the feeling of
The withdrawal symptoms I hear from patients have underlying depression. Feelings of helplessness, skepticism, and exhaustion combine to create a powerful cocktail for despair. My patients are never alone. A September Pew Research Center survey conducted long before the first presidential primary found that 65% of respondents always or often felt “exhausted” when thinking about politics. I found out that there is. As a treatment, withdrawal can therefore be understood as an active protective stance that seeks to enable individuals to maintain their lives and functioning rather than succumbing to despair. In other words, they hope to reduce their depression by limiting their news intake.
Understanding this response from a psychological perspective is essential if we want to build active citizens. Consider the example of a young man who retreats to his room at the request of his parents. When parents yell, teens get deep into themselves and turn up the music to annoy their parents even more. Scare tactics are only effective when trying to change someone else's behavior. Without meaningful communication between both parties, it will be difficult to gain perspective.
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The current practice of endless text messages from politicians running for office is a perfect illustration of such a powerless fear strategy. My patients receive requests for money from candidates all over the country. They consider these to be a nuisance and ignore them. When patients receive such messages during sessions, they express anger that their personal space is being violated. “My phone is on in case my husband or kids need me, not for people I've never heard of to ask me for money,” said one patient. Aggressively sending her STOP messages to these messages is one way he exercises power in a seemingly powerless situation.
But developing a sense of purpose is a more effective antidote to despair than active disengagement. Therefore, I encourage my patients to find ways to actively participate in the electoral process rather than feeling victimized by it. For some, this means getting involved in local politics with deeper ties to candidates. Also, by taking the time to write postcards and call people in other states, I felt like I was doing something of my own volition rather than out of indifference, and my sense of being an American was revitalized. Some people.
The ultimate question is whether choosing to actively withdraw from the campaign will lead to lower voter turnout. The challenge is to support people's efforts to take care of themselves psychologically in the run-up to Election Day, while taking sufficient steps to vote. This has the advantage that even if you are not satisfied with the results, you will know that you participated. As a country and a people, we thrive when we have a sense of purpose.
