This week was “Super Tuesday,” the biggest single day of voting in the primary election cycle. When I go to the polls, I go as a mental health voter. As I’ve written about in my new book and elsewhere, being a mental health voter doesn’t mean being a single-issue voter; rather, it means recognizing the way that many different issues that impact what we do at the ballot box are also mental health issues.
I’ve been reflecting this week, particularly because of the social media conversation around Super Tuesday results, on some of the less obvious ways in which mental health issues are hidden by electoral coverage. I’ve already written about some of these topics in my new book — which you should go buy right now!, or at least take a look at thisfree excerpton mental health voting — but wanted to share a few more thoughts here at the end of “Super Tuesday Week.”
Down Ballots Matter for Mental Health Voters Most of the media coverage this week has understandably focused on the most high-profile race, the Democratic presidential primary. It’s important for mental health voters to remember that down ballot races matter, too. The House of Representatives passes the budget. Senators have tremendous and important legislative power related to healthcare, as well as oversight over important agencies such as Health and Human Services. Local officials often have a big say in issues such as availability of psychiatric beds at the local hospital or whether a recovery facility can open in town. Of course, the President is important; but mental health voters in 2020 will pay a lot of attention to down ballot and local races, too.
Voter Suppression Matters — And It’s a Mental Health Issue, Too News of long lines at polling places, particularly in Texas and California, emerged as Super Tuesday turned to Super Tues-night. Particularly in Texas, these lines were directly related to the closing of polling places which disproportionately impacted black voters in predominantly black communities. In other words: long lines were the result of voter suppression. This type of voter suppression helps keep people in power who are not accountable to the needs of the growing communities they supposedly serve. Voter suppression, voting rights, and access to the polls are also mental health issues. The more barriers are erected to voting, the more difficult voting becomes for people who struggle with anxiety, depression, or other chronic challenges. Voting should be easy and accessible. If you care about this topic, let me recommend the organization Fair Fight, which does great work on voting rights. Fair Fight’s founder, Stacey Abrams, has courageously shared about the ways in which mental health struggles, addiction, mass incarceration, and debt caused by medical needs have impacted her family and her understanding of what needs to change in our political sphere.
The Electoral Race vs. What’s Happening Now We’re in primary election season, which means parties are choosing the candidates who will compete in the general election in November. Keep in mind that in the meantime, the policies and actions of the current administration are not put on pause. The current administration continues to join with 20 states to sue, in federal court, in order to eliminate protections for people with pre-existing conditions. The current administration is also suing in federal court to undermine the independence of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency responsible, among other things, for regulating medical debt and debt collectors. The current administration has released a budget calling for major cuts in Medicaid, Medicare, Health and Human Services, and medical research at the National Institutes for Health. The current administration is refusing to answer questions in press conferences about whether people without health insurance will be able to access testing for the coronavirus. Mental health voters may very well disagree about who the best candidate is to occupy the White House, or any other position. But we should be clear about the actions being taken by the current administration and the way those actions impact mental healthcare and the many systems that impinge on it.
Courage and Discouragement — What If My Candidate Is Out of the Race? If the social media conversation has reminded me of anything, it’s that we are not very good at letting people experience feelings of sadness, anger, and hurt. We want to fix and/or distance, sometimes with advice, sometimes with anger, snark, or irony. So let me just say clearly: it’s ok to feel sad, angry, hurt, or discouraged if your favored candidate hasn’t performed as well as you’d hoped, or has dropped out of the race. One piece of guidance for mental health voting that I write about in the book is to refuse to shame or demonize the voting behavior of others; I’ve been reminding myself of my own suggestion this week. It takes courage to run for office, and courage to speak up about things we care about deeply. Let’s encourage each other as we work together for a more just and equitable world. And let’s keep in mind the big picture — as in the above point — of what we’re working for: a more caring and healthy society for all.
Voting for Mental Health in Anxious Times These are anxious times. Many of us are feeling overwhelmed. There is a sense in which many of us are going to the polls (or avoiding them) with a sense of collective trauma — and trauma, unprocessed, impacts our reactivity and our decision-making. One way of thinking about voting is as harm reduction. We are working to mitigate the impacts of trauma at the same time as we are working to change the systems that cause trauma in the first place — what Dr. Cedric C. Johnson has referred to as a “traumatogenic environment.” That means that we are often doing more than one thing at once — thinking both long- and short-term, supporting imperfect candidates (i.e. all of them) while at the same time pushing for a bigger and more courageous vision of what a caring and just society for all looks like.
Taking Care of Yourself (or, Maybe Get Off Social Media For a Second) I think it was Brené Brown who said that social media is like fire — you can use it to warm a house up or to burn a house down. If voting is harm mitigation in the midst of an anxious and traumatic time, it’s worth remembering that caring for yourself is one way to care for the common good. This is true both because you, too, are part of the common good, and also because an intervention in one part of the system can positively impact the whole system. So if you find yourself feeling more hopeless, angry, and drained because of the social media storm right now — maybe just sign off for a little bit. It will still be there when you are ready to come back to it. And in the meantime, there’s way more out there than the social media conversation. Sign up for a local campaign. Make phone calls. Donate money. Check out NAMI’s #Vote4MentalHealth website. Take a look at the advocacy resources on my website. Or, if you just need to take a break and read a good book, I’ve got one for you!
All of us who vote can be mental health voters. And if there’s any way I can help you do that, I’d love to help out.
