What happens to America's mental health under a second Trump administration? Very bad things

[ZiprHead]

A panel of mental health experts on the likely effects of a Trump comeback: "Beyond our current worst nightmares"

Donald Trump's presidency and the destructive forces it unleashed are a mental health emergency — as well as a public health emergency in general. Trump may no longer be president, but his fascist political movement and the political party he controls continues to cause harm.

Trumpism is both a political cult and a manifestation of collective narcissism. Tens of millions of his followers now live in an alternate reality sustained by the Big Lie, an upside-down world in which Donald Trump is still the "real" president of the United States. Many of Trump's followers believe that he should be returned to power by any means available, including terrorism and other political violence.

The Trump regime and Republican policies more generally have literally caused trauma — physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual — for millions of Americans, including of course the deaths of at least 700,000 people from the coronavirus pandemic.

In a recent essay, author and pastor John Pavlovitz addresses this:

[F]or the first time in America's history the latent ugliness in people was revealed and validated and celebrated by a sitting president — it was officially normalized. And what we're experiencing now; this staggering, insensitive posturing in the face of so many people's suffering, is the late-ripening fruit of something that has been set into the bedrock of half our nation. It is the malicious entitlement that MAGA was designed to nurture from the beginning....
This quickly metastasizing moral cancer is something we've never experienced on this level in our lifetimes and it's something we're going to have to reckon with regardless of the political outcomes of the next four years. If the former president somehow takes that office again, these stories will surely grow exponentially more violent and more commonplace, but either way, the ugliness is here now.
The Trump Effect on America, is that once reasonable, rational human beings whose prejudices, fears, and phobias were all bound by some baseline decorum and common courtesy that kept them from intentionally harming others — have been empowered to revel in the worst of themselves. They believe cruelty is their birthright.

 

[Patooka]

Donald Trump was simply '80s Rush Limbaugh weaponized. America's mental health problems were baked in the cake a long time ago.

 

[Trausti]

Yep. Lefties have mental disorders.

 

[ZiprHead]

Yep. Lefties have mental disorders.

Self selection bias.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It could be that "Lefties" are aware of their conditions, unlike anosognosiac Righties.

 

[ZiprHead]

It could be that "Lefties" are aware of their conditions, unlike anosognosiac Righties.

It's not manly to admit to having mental health issues. And manliness is a big issue amongst conservatives. Just ask Josh Hawley.

 

[ZiprHead]

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yep. Lefties have mental disorders.

"Mental health condition" is a very broad term.

That said, mental health isn't a driving issue that allows despots to seize power. Which is the worst part of this. That people with baseline mental health, are quite capable of supporting pretty awful people or stuff.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It could be that "Lefties" are aware of their conditions, unlike anosognosiac Righties.

It's not manly to admit to having mental health issues. And manliness is a big issue amongst conservatives. Just ask Josh Hawley.

It's tough if not downright impossible for lay people to understand and accept that it isn't a matter of denial or fessing up. About half of folks with these conditions are unaware of their condition. This is medical fact. Hence the word anosognosia, first observed and recorded among stroke victims. They were literally unaware of their paralysis, not in denial.

Extrapolating to the entire population I'm convinced we all exhibit the condition to a degree. It makes evolutionary sense unless I am affected to such a degree that discussions of making evolutionary sense don't make sense.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yep. Lefties have mental disorders.

This measures who goes to the doctor, not who has the issue.

 

[zorq]

Donald Trump was simply '80s Rush Limbaugh weaponized. America's mental health problems were baked in the cake a long time ago.

This. A second go at a Trump whitehouse won't actually affect mental health in the US. The people who believe in GOP lies aren't actually mentally ill. Believing in bullshit for bad reasons has been baked into humanity from the beginning. Just look at how popular the belief in magic is. (99% of religion is belief in magic)

 

[fromderinside]

go Ermo. "Z" away.