Pill popping, post-it notes and hot dogs: How Americans are coping post-election
Americans are wrestling with the anxiety felt about the election of Donald Trump the same way they always have — they’re popping pills, getting up, and going to work.
By Julia Baird
Walking through a throng on West 12th street, not long after I arrived in New York earlier this month, was a mournful-looking little boy clutching his mother’s hand.
Around his neck hung a large piece of cardboard with a picture depicting Donald Trump as a heap of poo and the words: “DONALD DUMPS ON THE WORLD.”
It flapped against his belly and knees as he walked solemnly amongst the people rushing to the subway and supermarket.
An artist called Hansky, who sold caricatures of Mr Trump painted with actual dog faeces during the election campaign, created the image months ago. Not the highest form of political satire, nor the most effective, but one of the most prevalent.
‘If you need a hug, just ask’
It’s been a few weeks since Mr Trump’s great triumph, and watching New York wrestle with the results of the election has been fascinating.
It is, after all, historically a town of great, enduring cultural diversity, a town dotted with Trump-branded towers, and a town that voted for Hillary Clinton; the avenues were thick with red-eyed, angry protesters hours after the result was clear.
A waitress wandered the streets with a sign saying: “If you need a hug, just ask.”
A foreign policy expert told me that as soon as the election was announced, “A pall descended on the city; no one smiled for days”.
Now, in stores, Trump merchandise is heavily discounted, with one shop in Flatiron promising to donate part of the proceeds to Planned Parenthood (which Mr Trump has threatened to defund).
At Union Square subway station, the walls are plastered with post-it notes scrawled with words of protest, sympathy and outrage. Uptown, traffic clogs the streets around Trump Tower, as security, journalists and tourists jostle for space.
And Donald Trump’s face is everywhere
A homeless man told me his panhandling income had doubled since buying a Trump mask to wear for photos, an artist complained that the only images tourists are interested in are those of the President-elect, and the rotisserie of pundits on cable TV repeat his name like a mantra: Mr Trump says. Mr Trump rates. Mr Trump won.
The post-election response of many New Yorkers was, on the surface, open for satire. Group weaving therapy, a “subway therapist” who conceived the post-it note concept, mediation sessions with cats, and free acupuncture.
Colleges were ridiculed for offering free hot chocolate and therapeutic hot dogs to calm frayed student nerves. In Quartz, a neurobiologist advised working out ways to retrain your neural circuits to overcome the “election post-partum blues”.
The anxiety felt about the election of a man who was accused of being a sexual predator, who vowed to lock up his opponent and end Muslim immigration, who emboldened extremists and the Ku Klux Klan was lived out in the most intimate spaces; dinner tables, bedrooms, Amtrak cafe cars.
Web editors commissioned guides on how to avoid yelling at family members who supported different candidates over turkey at Thanksgiving, schools employed extra counsellors, and psychologists wrote guides to managing an influx of politically traumatised patients.
In newsrooms journalists argued about what they got wrong, how they missed the depth of support for radical change, how to cover Mr Trump, and why it was that Mrs Clinton turned out to be a poor candidate.
The Atlantic suggested: “To take care of themselves and improve their mood after the election, there are all kinds of things people can do, from deep breathing to listening to music to reading poetry to playing sports to walking in nature.”
But the visceral fear ran much deeper
A recent survey of 3,511 adults aged 18 and up living in the US from the American Psychological Association found a majority of both Democrats and Republicans had found the election to be a major source of stress.
Those over 71 — usually a group most sanguine about political events — were the most affected.
A range of psychologists — including a friend of mine who specialises in couples therapy in New York City — reported a sudden jump in the number of people seeking counselling for election-related anxiety.
So what can a therapist tell them, you ask? One psychologist, Tamara Hill, advised people to “try to make a difference where they can”, discuss their feelings with their therapist, try to find peace — and that if these approaches fail, to consider medication, or an increase in medication.
“I mention this”, she writes, “because the election, depending on what side you voted for, can truly feel like a personal lifestyle change. Everything can feel different including the people you love and care about”. She continues:
“Some people have gotten into really bad arguments over the election. Why? Because there are high emotions and intense reactions to every part of the election process.
“Medication can be helpful to those feeling extremely depressed and anxious, unable to sleep or even function in daily life. You don’t have to take medication for long periods of time and/or at high doses. You can explain to your doctor (psychiatrist or PCP) that you feel medication would help take the edge off or keep you focused until you can feel good again.”
University of Minnesota psychologist William J Doherty gathered a group of 3,000 psychologists to sign a manifesto warning against the dangers of what they see as bullying, Trump-like behaviour.
Minorities are the most fearful
Many of my male friends here are more likely to shrug and be philosophical, but women are still angry, and feel somehow diminished.
It is clear that the minorities feel the most nervous, for obvious reasons: rhetoric has tangible results.
There was a spike in anti-Muslim hate attacks across the US during the election campaign, and ugly abuse hurled at non-white people circled the internet almost immediately after the election.
Fearful Muslims in New York City are now adapting their behaviour, travelling with only one earphone in so they can be alert to any danger, and leaving heads uncovered.
So how are people coping, now the streets have emptied of protesters and the effigies have flamed to ash?
The same way New Yorkers always have — by getting up and going to work. Despite the abiding uncertainty, the panic has lessened and a strange, historical buoyancy has slowly emerged as the sun has continued to rise and set.
Those who disagree with Mr Trump are clinging to his malleability and shape-shifting as a sign of hope that the heights of office will change him. Those who agree with him are finding their voices.
A poll taken after the last election in 2012 found while happiness levels — whatever these are defined as — experienced by Romney voters after their loss immediately dropped by 30 to 60 per cent, within a week it had gone back to normal.
Which is not to say there will be anything normal about America under Mr Trump.
Rules have been smashed, conventions blown, and conventional wisdom revealed to be anything but. Much of what we have seen is unprecedented.
Now the question is what will actually be done.
