We are 18 days out from the election. Half of me thinks THANK GOD and the other half thinks THAT IS GOING TO FEEL LIKE FOREVER.
Electon anxiety is a real thing. There are a lot of articles and thinkpieces in the media about how to cope. Here’s another one, right here on First Draft!
On Monday, I wrote about how the overarching anxiety of living in what is arguably THE battleground state (Pennsylvania) is not great when you are dealing with a lot of personal stress. But today, I want to point out that there are ways to combat this stress and get through it.
I think the key is balance. This means staying informed without drowning in information, and misinformation.
And staying informed means not totally checking out. For two reasons, one is what you are doing right now is what you would be doing in the 1920s in Germany, of the pre-Pinochet days in Chile. So you do need to vote, at the bare minimum. I think if you are reading this, you are at least doing that. The second reason might be a little surprising.
Being underinformed can actually ADD to stress, not diminish it. For example, I have several friends who mostly checked out from the election in 2020, paying limited attention to what was going on. This was mainly due to PTSD from 2016.
I knew that given the pandemic, different states’ vote-counting rules, the sheer volume of votes in the highest turnout election of the post-sufferage era, the relative tightness of the election, etc., it was highly likely we wouldn’t know the results the night of or day after the election. My underinformed friends had no idea and were in a state of anxiety when it wasn’t called the morning after the election. I tried to talk them down by explaining it was expected and that no it wasn’t a sign that Trump would win again, but of course, they all said that they had not heard that and questioned if it was true. I tried to share some things with them, pieces by different writers predicting a long process of counting, but they were so stressed out it had little effect. Therefore, in this case, being underinformed created the anxiety.
My suggestion, something that helps me, is to find a few reliable sources of information about the election and read them on a regular basis but not much else. A good example is Simon Rosenberg’s Hopium Chronicles, a daily newsletter where Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist who was one of the few media figures not on board with the non-existent Red Wave of 2022. It’s upbeat, packed with information and updates on the race, and also offers ways to take action to help Kamala Harris and other Democrats.
By the way, helping in some way is great therapy. I volunteer through texting and calling, and I donate to Democrats. It’s a great feeling! Like you are part of the fight to defend democracy. And you don’t have to donate a lot, as every buck counts.
The other thing is polls. Adrastos offers some great advice on dealing with polls here. A few other things to keep in mind:
- One of my dirty tricks (no, make that filthy tricks) of today’s Republican Party is flooding the zone with shit polls from right-wing sources to skew polling averages. The idea here is to discourage Democrats and try to convince us that all is lost. Don’t fall for it.
- Reporting on polls is often terrible.
- Polls are pseudo-events and get way, way too much play in the media. Especially if the poll is good for Trump in some way. In a lot of ways the panic this causes among Democrats is a perverse form of cruelty carried out by some in the media.
- Polls are not the only indicators of how an election might be going. Early voting is another, and so far, it looks pretty good for Democrats (click on that Simon Rosenberg link for more).
- And finally, a lot of people are trying to compare this election to 2016 or 2020, but I am with blogger Heather Digby. Maybe we should look at 2012 and how that turned out. This was the final polling average and final set of polls, along with the actual result.
Looks remarkably similar to this one as far as the polls. They were off by 3.2 points in favor of Obama. Perhaps we see something similar this year.
Beyond not freaking out about polls, it goes without saying to stay away from social media, or at least take care about what sources you believe. Social media algorithms are practically designed to make you feel anxious, often feeding you the doom hose that sprays all kinds of nonsense into your brain. Take breaks, perhaps even an 18-day break from now until Election Day. “Touch grass,” as the kids say. No, really, go do something you enjoy, such as enjoying the fall foliage. Watch something funny; my wife and I currently are binging The Other Two on Max, it’s often hilarious.
I’ll end by saying I’m not going to tell you anything hollow like “worrying doesn’t solve anything” (neither does telling someone that worrying doesn’t solve anything). That means as much as a store clerk telling you blankly to have a nice day. Concern right now is natural; this election is way too close. But it can be all-consuming and that’s not good.
I’ll leave you with one final thought, an astute Tweet by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes:
The political experience of the Biden era for Democrats is: extended periods of intense anxiety about terrible polling, occasionally punctuated by strangely positive election nights. And then the cycle repeats.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) November 8, 2023
The last word, one of support, goes to Bill Withers.
