Opinion: Why Emotionally Unstable People Are Drawn to Politics

The removed and abstract nature of politics is fuel for mental health issues

Photo byAndrea Piacquadio on Pexels

Citizens have an interesting parasocial relationship with their government, the individuals that make up that government, and the larger political ecosystem of lobbyists, donors, activists, etc.

On the one hand, we’re very much removed from the happenings going on in that space. We never get to know or even meet most of the politicians, lobbyists, and government officials pulling the strings; we have no idea what happens behind the scenes, and what interactions are secretly taking place throughout the expansive political arena; and we have almost no power to really influence it on an individual level. Yet, there’s a very real impact that each of us experiences as a consequence of the decisions made by those actors.

This puts politics in an odd place. It is simultaneously personal in effect and feeling while being removed in terms of our direct involvement. It’s a one-way street: They impact us on an individual level, while we have very little visibility or power on an individual level in regards to them. Yet, we do have power over them as a part of the collective, so we are still incentivized to pay attention and feel involved.

This recipe of a little bit of information, a modicum of influence, and a large amount of emotional investment is a dangerous one. For this reason, politics, as an area of focus, is a magnet for people suffering from a host of mental health issues.

Anxiety

Anxiety can be described as the vague feeling that there is a threat to one’s wants and well-being lurking somewhere out in the world. Politics often is a real-world manifestation of this. By its nature, the problems dealt with in politics are not individual-specific. We pass laws that affect some of the citizenry, and laws that affect all of the citizenry, but not laws that deal with specific individuals. They’re not ultimately “out to get” you or I, as standalone citizens, but they often are out to get us as one tiny part of the whole.

Anxiety makes distant, potential threats seem much more real.Politics includes such a wide array of individuals, with so much power between them, that it is fertile ground for anxious thoughts — whether or not they have any substantial grounding. Moreover, with the informational deficit, we can ascribe the worst intentions to the participants in the political sphere, and expect the worst outcomes, and when will they ever be disproven?

Most of us will never get to know our presidents, senators, representatives, etc., as individuals. Thus, we’ll never get to see what their real motivations are. We can ascribe the most sinister intentions to them and never be refuted. The same goes for general happenings: Some people spend decades anticipating a plunge into authoritarianism, or anarchy, or communism, or civil war — and though it has never come to fruition — their fears only intensify. You cannot prove a negative, and there’s no expiration on these worries. They can always say, “So what if it didn’t happen the last times it was predicted? It still could.”

Meanwhile, if these individuals had never picked up a newspaper, they’d think the world was relatively peaceful. Each day is much like the last, and life for them is far more boring than it is harrowing. For the vast majority of us, our lives are completely disconnected from our political imaginings, and many of the issues we worry about never actually show up in our day-to-day experience. Yet, for some, that nebulous specter on the horizon is all-consuming. The removed and ambiguous nature of politics allows for anxiety to flourish.

Idleness

Our individual lives can often seem underwhelming. If a person doesn’t reap a strong sense of purpose from their work or some other aspect of their personal life, they may very well look for it out in the world. In the realm of politics, we can see ourselves as fighting for society’s victims and against perceived evils. In truth, there is the potential to do enormous amounts of good in the political arena, but this usually only comes from making politics a central focus of your life. Again, the ills of politics tend to come from its removed nature.

If we’re referring to a lawyer fighting for people’s rights in court, or a volunteer out collecting food for the homeless, this is different. It’s no longer vague and remote. If, however, your “activism” mostly consists of voicing support or criticism for the actions of others, and this offers some sense of fulfilling a duty, then it is more likely a coping mechanism for an otherwise idle and unfulfilling life.

Delusion

Paranoia is allowed to run rampant in regards to politics. We cannot afford to engage in lazy, emotionally biased reasoning in our daily lives. For example, we’d need much more evidence to accuse a coworker of wrongdoing than we do to casually accuse The President of the United States of wrongdoing. There are no repercussions for the latter because we have no direct interactions with the politician in question. If we instead argued that someone we personally know did something nefarious, we’d face backlash from the individual, and we’d need sturdy evidence to support our accusation.

Many people don’t require such standards for themselves when it comes to politics. Based on the slightest connections, they can infer all sorts of wild conclusions. When you have no direct impact on the happenings, there’s no interaction with the actors in question, and they don’t even know you exist, you can really believe and say whatever you want about them without consequence. Thus, a misrepresentation of reality, often in the form of sheer delusion, is a regular occurrence when it comes to politics. Conspiracy theories abound, and otherwise normal people will have utterly insane takes when it comes to the hidden workings of government.

Anger Issues

Society allows exactly one form of anger and violence: the righteous kind. You can be vicious, as long as it’s against people that we agree are bad. Millions of people take to the internet to spew hate at others, and they do it under the guise of patriotism, activism, and morality.

The average person’s day-to-day experience doesn’t afford them many opportunities to release whatever pent-up aggression they may have. Butif you just go to one of the many social media sites, you can readily call somebody a “communist” or a “bigot” in the name of defending the public good.It’s guilt-free cruelty.You can launch a random verbal attack against a complete stranger, and then pat yourself on the back for it. It’s the Diet Coke of malice: all the flavor of the original, with none of the moral compunctions.

Loneliness & Low Self-Esteem

Politics is an inherently social activity. The political party system means we get to join a team. We can cheer for blue or red and track our stats after each election, much like with sports. We can put our chosen candidate’s name or slogan on a bumper sticker or hat. We can join in with our demographic, or the prevailing views in our town or city, and now we’re a part of something.

It’s no rarity to see a bio on social media wherein a person describes themselves entirely by their political and religious affiliations, race, gender, and/or sexual orientation. The individual has defined themselves by the groups to which they belong.In this way, they can work to ignore their individuality.Once again, it is the psychological push away from our personal lives into what is nonspecific and distant.

Most racism-infused politics seems to follow the same motivation. I imagine the inner dialogue of a racist, if decoded, would sound something like, I might not be that great or have accomplished too much as an individual, but look at what other members of my race have done. If I belong to a superior race, then I’m still better than a lot of people.

On the opposite end, we have virtue signaling. We can engage in the slightest of efforts, by publicly claiming we’re for some cause or another — and by maybe putting down those who haven’t done the same — and then we can congratulate ourselves for our righteous views and actions. It has no real benefit for the world, but it can serve as a quick ego boost.

Compensation & Justification

Many political opinions are voiced just to distract from some hidden insecurity. For example, a lot of men try to make displays of masculinity through their political beliefs. They call others “bleeding hearts,” “tree-huggers,” “snowflakes,” and the like, to show how manly they are. They mistake being unsympathetic and unkind for being tough. Others represent themselves as fiercely anti-gay precisely because they have homosexual inclinations that they’re embarrassed to make public.

Conversely, politics is sometimes used to justify personal actions. For example, excessively promiscuous behavior and overly revealing clothing have on occasion been justified on the basis of women’s rights. Double standards should be fought against, and the right to act as one will is of the utmost importance, but a lapse in self-restraint and humility shouldn’t be justified in the name of activism. Women’s rights are about the ability to choose;it doesn’t automatically mean every choice, or the most controversial choice, is a good one.

Another perversion of feminism has come in men who claim that “equal rights means equal fights,” in support of men using unrestrained force against women if violence initiates between members of each gender. Feminism is about equality, but it doesn’t change physical realities. No one should use excessive force against anyone who is significantly smaller and weaker than they are, independent of sex.

Narcissism

Most of the previous examples relied on the disconnect between a citizen and the powers that be. This one is an exception, applying to the active players themselves: There’s no place like politics for an insatiable ego to get the worship it craves.

There are few people more famous, more powerful, and more adored than top political figures. We emblazon political figure’s faces and names on t-shirts, bumper stickers, flags, figurines, and just about anything else you can think of. There are many people who view any political figure who claims to fight for them as some type of savior. It’s all the celebrity of a pop star, with the moral backing of a religious figure, and the hard power of a head of government. There’s no greater prize imaginable for a pathological egotist.

Conclusion

For a lot of people, politics seems to play a role similar to that of sports, religion, or video games. It allows them an opportunity to look past their personal life and engage in escapism. It gives them a sense of belonging, a consequence-free space to voice their paranoia within, and an outlet for their frustrations. Conversely, it can be a source of intense discomfort, as a magnet for anxious minds. For active players, it can satisfy the wants of narcissism like nothing else.

Are you part of the problem? Are you kind, nuanced, moderate, and practical in your views and how you express them? Do you pay attention to the actual policies being passed or just what’s said? Do you make an effort to do actual good and not just engage in lip service? Do you defend whatever a single party or candidate does? In an aspect of society that is an irresistible draw for the unreasonable and delusional, we should all try to introduce more moderation and reason into the public conversation.