Physicians News Health news for doctors and patients.
Is Donald Trump bad for your health?
We’re not talking about his plans to repeal Obamacare (which gets a huge applause from his base of supporters) or his plan to replace the health care law with something new (his plan has been shown to increase the federal budget by nearly $500 billion and leave millions of people uninsured).
No, we’re talking about the anxiety caused to many, many people who hear the outrageous things said by Trump and then end up seeking relief from their therapist. Call it “Trump Anxiety.”
“He has stirred people up,” according to Washington, D.C. psychologist Alison Howard. “We’ve been told our whole lives not to say bad things about people, to not be bullies, to not ostracize people based on their skin color. We have these social mores, and he breaks all of them and he’s successful. And people are wondering how he gets away with it,” Howard told the Washington Post.
But patients are not only wondering. They are becoming more and more stressed over the growing popularity and possibility of a Trump presidency. A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that 69 percent of Americans said the idea of “President Trump” made them anxious.
By comparison, that same poll found 49 percent of people anxious by the thought of “President Cruz” and 51 percent stressed by a possible “President Hillary Clinton.”
Interestingly, Bernie Sanders was the only candidate to appear on both ends of the poll. While 43 percent were anxious at the thought of a Sanders presidency, 50 percent were actually comfortable with “President Bernie.”
Even in the wake of daily outrageous comments and behavior, Trump followers seem to ignore his tactics and support the reality television star without hesitation while his detractors curl up in a ball with “Trump Anxiety” and worry about the increasing possibility of a victory.
“Part of the reason he makes people so anxious is that he has no anxiety himself,” Judith Schweiger Levy, a psychologist in New York, told The Hill.
-Alan Lyndon
