Donald Trump is the sleepy president of an exhausted country

Donald Trump is apparently very sleepy. He is now taking naps during Cabinet meetings and other official events at the White House. Reports indicate that the president’s schedule is being changed to allow him more time to rest. While he is scheduled to hold one of his signature MAGA rallies on Tuesday in Mount Airy, Pennsylvania, for months the president has refused to do so, depriving himself of the powerful jolts of energy he gets from his adoring followers.

Trump is 79 and the oldest person ever elected president. Older people tend to need more rest, and the presidency can be an exhausting job. White House meetings are often tedious. He is also not the first president to nap or fall asleep during meetings — Calvin Coolidge was also a notorious napper. To my eyes, watching Trump fall asleep during meetings actually humanizes him. Ultimately, he is, after all, just a man.

But Trump is certainly not alone in his fatigue. The American people are also tired, but their exhaustion is of a much different kind.

Since he returned to office in January, Trump has used a “shock and awe” strategy to undermine American democracy and society. A core element of this plan is to leave the public confused, disoriented, overwhelmed and exhausted, which his administration has done to great effect. A non-comprehensive list includes has ordering the National Guard and active duty military to “invade” Democratic-led cities and other parts of the country as part of his crackdown on “illegal immigrants” and “crime,” using the Justice Department to target his perceived enemies, pardoning participants in the Jan. 6 plot to nullify the 2020 presidential election and attempting to silence free speech and freedom of thought.  

According to a new survey from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 72% of American adults say that sleepiness interferes with their daily activities. A large percentage of adults are experiencing more anxiety and stress (53%), poor mood (60%) and decreased work productivity (42%) due to a lack of sleep. These findings confirm a 2024 Gallup survey that showed a majority of Americans report not getting enough sleep and are feeling more anxiety and stress, continuing a decades-long trend.

Other research has repeatedly found that Trump’s return to power — alongside the country’s extreme polarization and broken politics — has had a net negative impact on the American people’s emotional lives and overall well-being. A 2024 report from the American Psychological Association warned that 69% of Americans were experiencing great anxiety about the presidential election and that 77% were significantly worried about the future of the country.

But such feelings of exhaustion and sleepiness are not being experienced equally. The richest Americans are likely tired from counting all of the money that the Trump administration has handed them through tax breaks found in the “Big Vile Bill,” and other subsidies and deals.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are suffering low morale and exhaustion from working long hours in Trump’s mass deportation campaign, which aims to remove at least 3,000 “illegal aliens” a day from the country.

But the Americans being targeted by the Trump administration are experiencing a very different type of fatigue. Theirs is rooted in terror, anxiety and profound stress.

More than 300,000 Black women have been forced out of the labor market by the Trump administration’s policies, specifically the targeting of so-called diversity, equity and inclusion programs and cuts to the federal workforce that have cost hundreds of thousands of jobs — and massive destruction of Black America’s income. According to the Center for American Progress, “These policies have the deliberate effect of erasing the Black middle class and making it unattainable for any future generation. The Trump administration has made deliberate policy choices that threaten Black middle-class families…”

This economic and societal carnage is taking place in one of the worst economies in recent memory. Farmers are in crisis — many of them older white men and likely Trump voters. As journalist Estefanía Pinto Ruiz explained in a new article published in the Tennessee Lookout, “their mental health is collapsing under financial pressure. Trump’s erratic tariffs and shifting policies have pushed many into such deep hardship that Trump has announced a $12 billion bailout to offset the damage caused by his beloved tariffs.

Tens of millions of vulnerable Americans who rely on safety net programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are still anxious after the program was abruptly cut off during the government shutdown. Although the shutdown officially ended on Nov. 12, some recipients still have not received their full benefits. In practical terms, this means they do not have enough money to buy food.

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Moreover, the Trump administration is using exaggerated claims of widespread fraud with SNAP and other social safety net programs to force many applicants to reapply for food aid. The move appears to be a pretext to greatly reduce, if not outright eliminate, these programs as a way of transferring even more public money to the richest Americans and corporations.

Hispanic, Latino and other Black and brown communities remain under siege from the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. Mental health experts are warning that these communities are experiencing a form of collective PTSD and other mass stress, manifesting as lack of sleep, nightmares, panic attacks, generalized anxiety disorder, self-harm and other negative coping behaviors and overall health outcomes.

The new KFF/New York Times “Survey of Immigrants” finds that, “About half of immigrants – across all statuses – report feeling less safe since the president’s second term began.“

Because they are in the early stages of their emotional and cognitive development, children and other young people are especially vulnerable, with nearly one in five immigrant parents reporting adverse impacts to their children’s well-being.

Autocrats and authoritarians know that an exhausted and distracted public is a compliant public, and one that is less capable of engaging in collective action and other forms of resistance. Spreading disinformation and attacking reality and the truth are one of main weapons that aspiring autocrats and political strongmen like Trump use to the end of turning America’s democratic life into a type of “zombie.” 

As journalist Tanya Lewis explained in a 2024 article on “outrage fatigue” published in Scientific American, “The first few times you’re exposed to a perceived injustice, you feel fired up and ready to fight against it. But after repeatedly facing this moral assault, you start to feel fatigued, even withdrawn. Resistance feels futile.”

Further, in such an environment, a tired, overwhelmed public is more likely to normalize the cruel and aberrant behavior of the Trump administration because they do not have the cognitive and emotional bandwidth to process all of these horrors.

Trump is counting on this. Like his predecessors, he embodies the fears, hopes and collective mood of the nation. He is clearly tired. In that way, he is a mirror for the American people. But while Trump may be merely tired, the American people are truly exhausted.