Following the trend of blaming Trump for literally everything bad that’s happening in the U.S. and beyond, Vox contributor Julia Belluz has come up with yet another reason Trump is evil: the POTUS is giving the public “a tense political moment that might actually sicken people.”
Belluz interviewed David Williams, a professor from Harvard who co-authored a study on why anxiety and stress are “on the rise.” Williams attributed the health phenomenon to the hostility in the political environment, which is affecting people so much that premature births, deaths, and heart disease are spiking in statistics.
Williams told Belluz that his study looked at the impact of specific political events, such as the 2016 election, and compared the amount of hostility in the media and in the news to the amount of stress people were reporting. His purpose was to “make health care providers aware of the health consequences.”
While something similar apparently occurred when Obama was in office, Williams made it clear that the effects of Obama as president were mainly manifested on social media and in “racial prejudice.” The only reason Trump won the election in 2016, Williams said, was because he used these racial tensions to present himself as the solution. And the fatal combination is racial tensions and Trump tensions, which leads to stress, which leads to disease and death.
This domino effect hasn’t been proven at all. Even Williams admitted to Belluz, “we don’t have any specific studies linking this increased stress from the election and health outcomes.” But even after this, Belluz asked about the effect that talking about repealing the Affordable Care Act would have on the general health. In addition, the women who belong to a minority have been giving birth to their children prematurely, a fact that Williams thought was related to the supposed discrimination they all suffer, thanks to Trump. And the bullying that BuzzFeed reported? That’s affecting minority pregnancies too. Williams stated to Belluz, “”the discrimination adolescents experience is linked to biological disregulation in their 20’s.”
The solution to all this sickness and plague is simple, according to Williams. Teachers and authority leaders merely need to “build a culture of respect and tolerance.” Once society has established that, we will all be healthy again.
