President Donald J. Trump‘s fast and furious actions during his first weeks in office are leaving many of his political opponents—especially those in the Democratic Party—feeling frazzled, stressed, and even depressed. According to medical professionals in the Washington, D.C. area, the energetic implementation of Trump’s agenda appears to have sparked an influx of individuals identifying as Democrats seeking therapy and psychology services.
“There is an element of chaos right now, a sense of not knowing what’s coming and not being able to control what’s coming is really hard on the stress response,” says Dr. Andrea Bonior, a Georgetown University psychology professor who also maintains a patient practice in the capital region. She adds: “As humans, we don’t love uncertainty. It’s something that we don’t tend to tolerate well. And then when we’re anxious, it’s excruciating.”
Dr. Sanam Hafeez—a New York neuropsychologist—agrees, stating in a recent interview: “I think we can take so much of something before the human brain just like peters out and says, ‘I can’t keep up.'”
“It feels, no matter which way you go, you’re like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m being ruled by a very different system that I thought I was living in,'” Dr. Hafeez added.
Medicinal research suggests political stress can have real-world impacts on an individual’s health. A 2020 study by UC Irvine found election stress directly contributed to a 10 percent increase in adverse health outcomes, including instances of cancer, stroke, and heart disease.
President Trump is currently enjoying the highest approval ratings among Americans since he first took office in 2017. Even so, among Democrats, Trump continues to see high negative ratings—though the intensity of Democratic resistance to his second term is observably more muted than it was during his first four years in office.
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