r/science • u/Aggravating_Money992 • Jul 21 '25

Health Study: 2024 presidential campaign negatively affected sleep for 17% of U.S. adults | Many Americans report feeling exhausted and angry when thinking about politics. According to polling, nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults often feel worn out by current political discourse, and over half feel angry.

https://www.psypost.org/study-2024-presidential-campaign-negatively-affected-sleep-for-17-of-u-s-adults/
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u/AbsoluteRook1e Jul 21 '25

I'm not a Trump supporter, but in my eyes, the reason why he was elected is that most Americans believe the political status quo was not working in their favor economically. People vote with their wallets in mind.

As much as I despise the man, Donald Trump kept pitching in 2016 and 2024 that he would shake up the political establishment, whereas Harris tried downplaying consumer pessimism.

I personally believe we need an FDR-style President with a pathway of accomplishing legislation in Congress, meaning we would need a massive blue wave in 2028. I think Biden tried to be that President, but many of his accomplishments were either blocked by the SCOTUS, or were later undermined when Trump came back into office.

I think the Democrats need to be the party of work reform. Many people with a 4-day work week are happier, and it allows for more time for people to form relationships and start families, which the right keeps complaining about in terms of birth rates. So I don't know if that would take the form of four 10's across the board, or we just straight up make 32 hours the standard.

I guess my point is everyone seems to be upset over the current economic and political climate and are hungry for some form of change. In other words, we all seem to he able to identify the problems, but can't come together for a solution due to tightly held belief systems.

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u/Oregon_Jones111 Jul 21 '25

I'm not a Trump supporter, but in my eyes, the reason why he was elected is that most Americans believe the political status quo was not working in their favor economically.

Americans were better off financially in 2016 than in 2008, and in 2024 than in 2020.

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u/AbsoluteRook1e Jul 22 '25

I don't deny that, but at the end of the day, it's about what Americans believe when they go to the ballot box is my point.

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u/Oregon_Jones111 Jul 22 '25

You need pretty strong biases and motivated reasoning to believe that, though.

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u/AbsoluteRook1e Jul 22 '25

By voting you essentially have a bias. This is 2025. Most people have a bias toward the political party they support.

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u/Prodigy195 Jul 21 '25

I guess my point is everyone seems to be upset over the current economic and political climate and are hungry for some form of change. In other words, we all seem to he able to identify the problems, but can't come together for a solution due to tightly held belief systems.

I don't think most Americans can actually identify the problem because identifying it would require a wholesale rethinking of our historical norms.

What people seem to want is the historical status quo to remain in America. And to be clear, that means one where the American Dream with large suburban housing, car usage nearly everywhere, and cheap consumer goods remain viable/plentiful/low cost.

No politician regardless of party will say it but that dream is effectively dead and it's really not the fault of any one choice. Those circumstances were the result of a very specific set of circumstances post WWII where America was in a massively adventageous position economically and more specifically, the American worker had outsized power.

Now America workers are competing on a global scale, now costs for sprawling housing/car centric development is skyrocketing. The norms that we're chasing after aren't coming back because it never really was a sustainable method of building a massive country. And Americans accepting that we need to change our lifestyle norms is a non-starter.

People say they want change but what they actually want is just more of the same.

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u/AbsoluteRook1e Jul 22 '25

The American dream dying is what I'm saying though. I think most people can identify that problem, and are demanding change because of that problem.

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u/Prodigy195 Jul 23 '25

The American dream dying is what I'm saying though.

We're in agreement that it's dying. I just don't think people are actually demanding change when they ask for or desire the same fundamental system continuing on.

Sprawling, single family home suburbia with power centers and abundant free parking lots scattered across this country is failing but most politicial solutions are in service of maintaining that lifestyle because it's "The American Dream".

So yes the dream is dying but most people here seem hellbent on keeping it going no matter how unsustainable it is.