I’m not so stressed that I’d want us to stop having them. ( Can you hear me, Mr. Huckabee…? )
So if you were a passenger in a bus, and the bus was about to go over a cliff, you wouldn’t get stressed? Because there is nothing you can do about it?
Yeah, probably. I don’t know for sure because it’s never happened to me, I was trying to think about what kinds of things, in my personal experience, actually have gotten me stressed.
I was tempted to add something like “…or things that directly affect me.” But I thought maybe the part that stressed me most about things happening directly to me was worrying what I was going to do about them. Maybe. I’m not sure.
Who wins a presidential election doesn’t seem to directly affect me all that much (although indirectly it certainly does). As Wesley Clark rightly points out, I am privileged in that way.
But I stand by my main point, which is that how much I care about something, and how much something matters, neither is, nor should be, necessarily the same as how stressed I get about something.
Velocity and Wesley Clark, I agree with both your posts (keeping in mind, we’re all just speculating as to the “whys”).
Logically, there are at least two other possibilities to consider:
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For whatever reason, this thread and poll happens to be attracting the less stress-prone. (In other words, response bias rather than a random sample). Thudlow Boink, for example, is clearly a Zen master.
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Velocity observed that many Dopers express deep concerns about the Trump Administration, continually and continuously, from well before Nov 2016 through today. True — but that might not induce stress IF:
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In the weeks before the 2016 election, these folks were blissfully unaware that there were so many foolish voters in the US, and
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During the 3 years since (and all the way through 2020), they still have no reason to stress about elections. Now they know about the astounding number of foolish voters, but since nothing can be done about it, why stress?
That’s a logical approach — “accept the things I cannot change” — but it would be MORE logical in a system without an electoral college, and without election shenanigans (internal or external). Knowing that 40% of Americans are morons (or worse), and can’t be convinced to change, is one thing. If we could “count on” that, there would be less reason to stress out. But the problem is, the exact DISTRIBUTION of morons among the states is less knowable, and therefore stress-inducing. Same goes for shenanigans, whether overt (usually illegal) or subtle (usually legal — stirring up shit on Facebook, that sort of thing), or just plain horrendous (like today’s ruling that likely disenfranchised thousands of Wisconsin voters for no good reason).
Local elections and local ballot issues are more important to me.
For example, a tax increase to pay for more schools or roads or maybe a vote to give TIF money to a developer.
A good thing is around here their is a “meet and great” before elections event where all the local people running for office on both sides and even from side parties can come in and set up a booth and you can ask questions. Great chance to meet say your local member of congress and senate or the person who wants their office.
About a 7. Most stressful recent (for certain values of recent) elections, 2000, 2004, 2016.
No. you should not be insulted. I should have worded that whole post much differently. I had a conversation with someone yesterday who thinks the country is toast no matter who is president, and I let my frustration with that attitude seep into my post. JKellyMap’s post was lightyears better than mine. My apologies.
nelliebly, you’re too kind, but thanks. I think we can all agree (begbert2, I hear you) that life is short, every day of our lives is precious, and that “stress” (beyond a certain everyday level) is an unhelpful state of mind. It is taxing on the body, brain, and soul. For many of us — like me — it can make us irritable and snippy, and that’s not good for us or the people we interact with. We’re more prone to poor decisions and harmful (or at least wasteful) words and actions. So, to those that really do NOTICE, and CARE, and do what they can (within reason), but don’t STRESS, more power to you. Seriously.
I’ll keep working on it, guided by advice from Ram Dass and many others, and by calm music and and breathing and focused, productive (usually) activities, and being awake and grateful.
not even remotely comparable.
This definitely describes me. In the lead up to the 2016 election, most people were predicting Clinton would win. And my attitude was that of course she would win. I didn’t think there would be any substantial number of people who would actually vote for Donald Trump.
That’s where I’m at now. I’ll do whatever I can to get Trump out of office. I’ll vote for whichever candidate is most likely to defeat him in 2020. I’ll vote against the politicians who have been enabling him in every election between 2016 and 2020. I’ll support investigations of the crimes he’s committing and his impeachment for those crimes. I’ll talk about why he shouldn’t be President to build up a consensus against him.
But spend every day stressing about the fact that Donald Trump is President? No. Because that accomplishes nothing.
Sure, I’d get stressed in the moment that this event is happening.
But I won’t stay stressed during a four year period. Put it aside and do something productive.
Why is everyone talking about how stressed they feel in between elections? The OP asks how stressed elections make us, not how stressed we are when no elections are occurring.
In general, I don’t stress out about them at all. This one, however, I do expect will be quite stressful, more so than last election, which was also somewhat stressful. The main reason for that was just how much chance Trump had to win. Sure, early on I didn’t think he could, but his polling numbers stayed up enough to be a threat. I found myself deliberately seeking out those saying he was less likely to win to try and calm my nerves. I actually had to, for the first time, stop watching so I wouldn’t stress out on election day. And then be extremely distraught when I learned he won.
Still, back then, I could temper it with hope. Most of the election I didn’t think Trump would win. I still had this naive belief that most people were good. I thought there was no way the Religious Right would vote for him–they’d just stay home rather than vote Democrat. And, even when he won, I held out hope he couldn’t be as bad as he seemed, but he’s been worse.
No, his support is still pretty high. He’s unlikely to be convicted in his impeachment. He’s got the incumbent advantage. And as bad as he’s gotten, he’s only going to get worse. I’ve already seen that, even if I avoid anything political, he still affects my life by making everything seem so much worse. Friendships already were hurt before, but at least I could pretend people just didn’t know.
I’m also just worse off mentally for unrelated reasons. There are other hardships in my life that weren’t there before. There are problems I didn’t have in 2016, like depressive episodes. They aren’t because of Trump, but that doesn’t mean him winning won’t make them worse. I have to deal with physical ailments I didn’t have before. It’s already bad enough that I have to check out of politics. But I won’t be able to do that during the election.
Before all this, while I had my preferences, I really didn’t care. I trusted that whoever won at least would not harm the country, and likely had good intentions–even if they were bad. They might have some minor corruption on the side, but it was entirely secondary. .
But now I do care, and that means I will be worried. When it comes to something this bad, I don’t really understand how someone can care and not be worried. Sure, you can choose to not engage in worry, but you can’t not be worried, unless you completely avoid thinking about it at all.
About a 6 right now, and if it looked next summer and fall like Trump is actually going to be reelected, I’m sure it would only go up from there.
Usually I’d say 0, as presidential elections have little effect on me personally.
But I said 5 this time around, because what worries me about this upcoming presidential election is that if the whole impeachment process fails to remove Trump (which it is likely to do), and Trump gets re-elected, it’s basically an endorsement of his whole Presidential administration, corruption, flouting of procedures, rules and democratic ideals, and general sleaziness.
And I fear for our country in the long haul if that happens.
I didn’t get that impression from the OP. I felt he was asking people how stressed they are on a day-to-day basis about the upcoming election next year not asking how stressed they get on Election Day itself.
My secret for minimizing stress on the day of the election is to not check anything about anything on the subject at all. I do my voting, I go home, and I play video games or watch some cartoons or stuff like that. I don’t generally follow news sites so it comes naturally to me, but if you find yourself struggling with stress on the day, all me to presume to advise: the election will happen even if you don’t watch it coming to a boil. And it won’t turn out any better if you have a coronary in the mean time. So go play a board game or something.
Possibly not this one.