“Politics as a chronic stressor”: News about politics bums you out and can make you feel ill — but it also makes you take action

Who would buy a product that reliably makes them sad, or anxious, or worried, or overwhelmed?
You wouldn’t go to a restaurant you knew made you feel ill, or listen to music that drove you up a wall, or go to a gym where the equipment gives you a new muscle tear every visit. You might do it once or twice, maaaaybe three times — but it’s unlikely you’d keep signing up for more pain, day after day.

And yet for many people, that’s exactly what they experience reading the news — especially news about politics. The act of consuming political news is, for them, just misery — a daily reminder of terrible things over which they have essentially no control. That’s particularly true for people who don’t have a strong attachment to a party or candidate; committed partisans at least get the occasional joy of seeing their side win the news cycle — for everybody else, it’s just a lot of noise.