Americans know something is deeply wrong. They’re not imagining it

Civil rights activist and former sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer was weary when she spoke alongside Malcolm X at a church in Harlem in December 1964. “I’ve been tired so long,” she said, “now I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

More than 60 years later, many Americans share this feeling but in a different context. More than ten years of the Age of Trump — and the great problems that birthed it — have left us full of dread and weariness. The evidence is clear: Donald Trump’s return to power is taking a deep toll on the American people’s psychological and overall health.

According to the American Psychological Association’s recent Stress in America survey, more than half of American adults report feeling stressed, isolated and lonely. Societal division and the future of the country are sources of deep anxiety for 62% and 75% of adults respectively. Younger adults are experiencing the toll in “more profound” ways, with “nearly two-thirds of those ages 18–34 (63%) and more than half of parents (53%) [saying] they have considered relocating to another country due to the state of the nation.”

A recent Talker Research poll found that the most popular word to describe 2026 so far is “stressful,” followed by “challenging.” Nearly a third of Americans are experiencing a profound existential crisis and other challenges that have forced them to rethink the year ahead. Worries about money, careers, and the economy weigh heavily as well.

Members of groups targeted by Donald Trump and his MAGA coalition — including Hispanics, Latinos and other non-whites, as well as LGBTQ people and women — are experiencing high levels of individual and collective stress from the administration’s policies. Black women in particular are experiencing disproportionate job loss as the administration guts the federal workforce in its purges against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Republican cuts to healthcare, disease prevention and the social safety net are creating widespread insecurity and anxiety that many experts say will shorten the lives of the American people.

Much of the nation is in a paradoxical state. People feel emotionally unwell and exhausted because they know that something is deeply wrong with their society and politics. Their sense of normalcy has been broken. This is not Trump Derangement Syndrome — it is a healthy and normal response to an unhealthy, abnormal and dangerous reality.

This widespread discontent should inexorably turn the public against an authoritarian leader like Donald Trump and his MAGA movement. To that point, polls show that Trump’s support is collapsing among the American people as a whole. Yet the president retains a near-iron grip on the GOP. His MAGA diehards are generally unmoved and support him at levels at or above 90% depending on the issue.

Authoritarian populists like Trump promise easy solutions to complex problems, but they almost always make things worse once they assume power. Rather than fleeing from such a leader, followers cling to him for salvation and protection. But the authoritarian creates more chaos, which in turn triggers the followers’ fear and social dominance behavior, which is often directed toward marginalized groups they identify as the enemy. As Trump’s popularity continues to collapse, this feedback loop, and the collective stress and emotional distress it generates, will intensify.

With Trump’s return to power and the destruction it has caused, the United States is more fully a pathocracy — a form of government where a small number of psychologically disordered people seize control of society. 

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There are sufficient numbers of otherwise normal people who are attracted to the pathocrats because of their charisma and strongman appeal — enough to lift them to power. The pathological character of the leader then spreads through the general population like a disease, with the pathocrat and their inner circle plundering the country as they work to retain unlimited power.

These forces are at play in America under Trump, and in response, many Americans are now experiencing political depression — a sense, as Ann Cvetkovich explains in her book “Depression: A Public Feeling,” that “customary forms of political response . . . are no longer working either to change the world or to make us feel better.” The despair and hopelessness are a response to feeling powerless in the face of injustice and watching long-standing norms be routinely broken.

As seen in Turkey, Hungary and other countries that have experienced democratic backsliding, the physical and emotional health of the population deteriorates under autocracy. Autocracy literally makes people sick. But this is not permanent: Once a healthy democracy is restored, the public’s health can also recover.

Ultimately, pro-democracy Americans will need to learn and enact what can be described as political grit — an antidote to despair that combines practical, spiritual and emotional approaches to political action. Grit must be calm, reflective and based on a sense of shared responsibility and commitment to reason and the truth. The goal: a more just present and future. The work will be long and difficult, and require collective action and political engagement.

There are seeds of hope. The APA’s report shows that despite all of the political headwinds they have experienced, the vast majority of Americans — an astonishing 84% — remain resilient and believe they can have a good life in the future. Freedom, opportunity and hope still describe America for significant numbers of respondents. 

These Americans do not need a leader who offers hope on the cheap, where no hard work and sacrifice will be required. This is an empty — and ultimately self-defeating — hope. Instead, the American people need a leader who will articulate a vision and plan for how to improve their democracy and society, and then give them the marching orders and tools for how to begin to do that work in their own lives and communities.

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