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No matter which political party you aligned yourself with last night, as the results rolled in and swing state after swing state remained too close to call, an undeniable sickness swept over the Americans keeping up with live polling data. As Trump and Hillary’s lead see-sawed back and forth in Pennsylvania and Florida, our stomachs twisted, our temperatures rose, our heart rates escalated, and many of us puked – not just from all of the alcohol either, although I’m certain that didn’t help.
So what’s the deal? Did we all collectively get food poisoning? Did Zika finally spread throughout the 50 states on November 8th, 2016? Not quite – it was the election. Living through the 2016 Presidential election actually, seriously, truly made us all genuinely, physically ill.
To those of us who are generally anxiety-ridden, this comes as no surprise, but the physical effects could be felt throughout the rest of the population who may not normally experience anxiety so intense it actually results in illness. Today, psychologists are coming forth with their studies to let us know that, really, it’s not just you. Harvard psychologists report that “uncertainty makes unpleasant events more unpleasant.” The University of Madison-Wisconsin tells us that we get anxiety from observing uncertainty about our future when we don’t have any power to change what’s happening. Applied to last night’s election, it meant that from 7 p.m. until 2:30 a.m., we were experiencing peak anxiety so severe that it began to manifest itself physically.
Unfortunately for half of us, the impacts of anxiety were more prominent among Hillary supporters. As the majority of polls showed Clinton coming out ahead, Hillary supporters had the additional anxiety of having what we believed to be certain become uncertain in front of our eyes, making the effects that much more severe according to an NYU psychologist. While this offers little consolation to us now, you now know exactly why you felt so terrible last night, and as an added bonus, a bunch of people who are way smarter than you just gave you an actual, medical excuse for why you’re almost definitely late to work today. If you haven’t already, go ahead and call in sick, because you have a doctor’s note from the nation’s leading psychologists. You deserve it. .
[via QZ]
Image via Twitter / Tamara Keith
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Steph W.
Steph W. is a new Master's degree graduate with an intern's salary and six-figure taste. She realizes her expectations far exceed reality, so she spends her days pinning away Loubs she pretends are in her physical closet instead of her virtual one. Her hobbies include attempting to trapping her boyfriend into marriage before he finds out how insane she is and pretending that Black Box wine tastes as good as the kind she could afford when she was gainfully employed. Send her tips for getting out of student debt at recruitchairtsm@gmail.com
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Trump carrying most of the Rust Belt states is proof that the economy is and will always be the #1 issue for voters. No one cares about how racist, sexist, mysoginst or some other variation of “ist” you are when they don’t have a job and can’t feed their family.
The economy is #1, but manufacturing jobs aren’t coming back. They need to adapt to globalization.
Dayton, Ohio added 1500 manufacturing jobs just a couple months ago.
It depends on what kind of manufacturing jobs you’re referring to. Menial assembly jobs? Yeah, those are being outsourced or companies are turning to automation. There are still a lot of small scale, custom, and specialty manufacturing centers in the US.
You’re right, apologies on painting with a broad brush.
I hope we encourage more people to attend craft/trade school instead of pigeon-holing everyone into universities so they can fill those sort of custom, specialty, etc manufacturing jobs.
Honest mistake. Ain’t even mad. Without getting into humblebrag specifics, I’m currently working with an engineering group to do exactly that. We’re still in the early stages but it’s showing great promise so far.
I’ve been tweeting about this all morning. Hillary lost because she’s a politician, not because people love Trump. You think Wisconsin gives a shit about ISIS? No one here cares about a border wall. But if the plant in my town closes, I’m screwed.
Exactly. This didnt prove that were setting the country back 50 years, this didnt prove america is full of closet sexists and racists. All’s it proved is that we’ve been kicking the can down the road for far too long and people finally said enough is enough, I’m going to vote for this guy because he preaches against all the things that have failed us. It was most certainly a government protest vote by the people who felt left behind by Washington and the exit poll numbers back that.
I feel fine today, just hung over
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure that I’m not still drunk.
I ran out of liquor, but I’m still getting a buzz off people’s tears on Facebook.
I’m happy, just hungover. Too much champagne.
Pretty sure it’s a mix of hangover, and rage at being forbidden to discuss the election with my students in my own American government class. I ignored it but still.
http://i.memeful.com/media/post/1d41OJw_700wvl3t400_0.gif