How is our mental health doing? It's gotten a lot of attention in these post (?) COVID days, some of it based on this Gallup poll from a few months ago:
The line to look at is the "excellent/good" line at the top, and it unquestionably dipped during the height of the pandemic. At the same time, it's now only four points below its pre-pandemic level, which isn't a huge amount. I'd say we came through pretty well.
But the crosstabs are interesting:
Women and 18-34 olds started out low and declined as much as everyone else. Put those two categories together and they spell "mothers," who have probably taken the biggest hit from the pandemic.
Religion sure helped during the pandemic. Before COVID, churchgoers and abstainers both felt the same. But during the pandemic churchgoers remained stable while abstainers plummeted.
It's also remarkable how much better Republicans feel compared to Democrats. Before COVID they registered a remarkable 26 points higher than Democrats. That went down during the pandemic, but even now they clock in 14 points higher. Why? Is it related to moral certitude? The excitement of a big battle? A happiness born of not feeling responsible for people outside your family? Higher average incomes? Anybody have any other ideas?
Democrats went into the pandemic with Trump as president. That made a lot of them miserable. Plus, Democrats trend female, who were also already miserable.
As for church attendance, even the online version produced a sense of connection and normalcy during the pandemic. A lot of the non-church-goers I know became consumed with anger over strangers and family members who were not behaving the way they wanted during the pandemic. Churches were already pretty politically aligned before the pandemic, so most church-goers were in a weekly meeting with others who were going to respond to the pandemic in ways they liked. That is true whether you belong to an Evangelical church that thought covid was a hoax or an urban Mainline church where everyone was very careful about following all the restrictions. I think having that dose of a lot of like-minded people was helpful, especially since the time spent "together" in church was focused on something other than the pandemic. My church's livestream services spent only a couple minutes on prayers related to the pandemic. In contrast, my zoom book club spent tons of time talking about the pandemic. All that pandemic talk (well, it was really complaining about other people) probably wasn't all that healthy.
Why would those on the right be distressed about covid when the party line was that it was a Democratic hoax and not something to worry about?
Are Republicans really as serene and untroubled, presumably because of their religious faith, as some polls suggest? What questions are asked and how they are asked can make a big difference. How about asking whether they are seeing more danger and hostility from the other side? It can be very hard to get real responses on many subjects rather than just parroting of the party line or the attitude which people are expected to have in their group (and this goes for the left too).
"Why would those on the right be distressed about covid when the party line was that it was a Democratic hoax and not something to worry about?"
Exactly my thought.
Republicans are just assholes who love making other people suffer. The pandemic has opened up a lot more opportunities and venues for performative assholery in public with strangers. If you get hard ons from spreading misery and stirring up shit, why wouldn’t you be on Cloud 9 during the pandemic, an event that required everyone to cooperate to get through it relatively unscathed?
Yes. Also, Republicans have zero self awareness. I'm surprised any of them say their mental health is anything but excellent. I suppose there are still people who say they are Republican but are not fully enthralled, do not pay a lot of attention and just think that conservatism has the better answers. They might be aware of their mental health. Then there are the few that will happily claim to have poor mental health so they can blame (own) the libs.
As Marx once said "religion is the opium of the people". Religion is a painkiller; religious people believe they are in good mental health because religion masks the pain.
In the case of many Republicans, ignorance really is bliss...
Lots of delusion in there.
“…how much better Republicans feel compared to Democrats…”
When people hear over and over how unhappy they are and how unfair everything is, they believe it - or at least parrot it back to the survey takers. We’re good people right? We care.
It’s the self-identity of liberals to complain about the way things are. Relentlessly negative. The media has learned that performative whining sells, it’s click-bait, it’s really easy for people to say “that’s not fair” and to feel self-satisfaction and self-righteousness of being the kind of person who “cares” about {insert trendy issue of the day}.
I’m a leftie, though I’m sure a reader would have doubts. I care about the same issues “the-lefties-I-appear-to-be-criticizing” care about. Immigration, inequality, single payer - I just think relentless, performative negativity is what resonates most easily these days.