Politics and Mental Health: Cause, Effect, or Coincidence?

Baby boomers grew up in a different mental-health culture. Anxiety, depression, and emotional struggles certainly existed, but they weren’t routine topics of conversation. The prevailing advice was often some variation of “suck it up and keep moving.”

That wasn’t necessarily healthy. Genuine psychiatric illness went untreated, and stigma kept many people from seeking help. Fortunately, much of that stigma has disappeared. But has the pendulum swung too far?

Today, mental health is everywhere. There are therapists, medications, support groups, Reddit communities, and social-media influencers devoted to virtually every psychiatric diagnosis imaginable. Mental-health terminology has even become part of how some people publicly describe themselves.

Treatment has increased substantially as well. antidepressant use among American teens and adults increased by almost 400% between 1988–1994 and 2005-2008.

Now a new Rasmussen Reports survey adds an intriguing political dimension. Twenty-two percent (22%) of American adults say a doctor has diagnosed them with a mental-health condition. Beneath that overall number are striking differences.

Women are almost twice as likely as men to report a diagnosis, 28% to 15%. Among adults under 40, the difference is even greater: 40% of women compared with 22% of men.

There is a partisan gap, too. Twenty-six percent (26%) of Democrats report a mental-health diagnosis compared with 18% of Republicans. Current prescription medication use follows a similar pattern: 23% versus 17%.

At the same time, America has developed a significant gender divide in politics. Pew Research Center’s analysis of validated voters in the 2024 election found that women favored Kamala Harris by 7 percentage points, while men favored Donald Trump by 12 points. Which raises an interesting question: Are America’s mental-health and political divides related?

Correlation, of course, isn’t causation. The Rasmussen Report survey cannot tell us whether political attitudes influence mental health or psychological disposition influences political attitudes.

There are plenty of alternative explanations. Women may be more willing to acknowledge psychological problems, visit physicians, and accept treatment. Men may be more reluctant to seek help. Biology also contributes to some psychiatric disorders. Age, marriage, religion, income, and social connectedness could affect both mental health and political preferences.

However, another possibility is worth considering: Do different ways of interpreting adversity affect psychological well-being?

A 2025 study of Israelis during an intense political crisis offers an intriguing clue. Researchers found no significant left-right differences in measures of positive wellness such as life satisfaction, purpose in life, or personal growth. Yet those on the political left reported greater distress, including anxiety, depressive symptoms, and negative affect.

The researchers examined what they called the “hostile-world scenario” — how people perceive and cope with life’s inevitable threats. One form of “positive engagement” included a simple proposition: “Successful coping with dangerous situations strengthens me.” Other measures included a sense of control over what happens in one’s life and an ability to confront difficulty without despair. In other words, as Friedrich Nietzsche wrote and Kelly Clarkson later sang, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Progressive politics frequently emphasizes systemic barriers, discrimination, identity, and circumstances beyond individual control. Conservative political traditions place comparatively greater emphasis on individual agency, resilience, and personal responsibility.

Could those different ways of interpreting adversity affect psychological well-being? If people understand setbacks primarily as consequences of forces beyond their control, might that diminish their sense of agency? Or does the arrow point the other way?

Perhaps people already struggling with anxiety, depression, or feelings of vulnerability are more receptive to political movements emphasizing protection, social support, validation, and collective solutions. Or perhaps neither causes the other. Both could be manifestations of broader cultural changes.

The Israeli study cannot settle the question. It involved a different country during an extraordinary political crisis, and its political categories don’t translate perfectly to the United States. Rasmussen’s numbers cannot establish causation either. But the overlap is worth examining.

Mental-health diagnoses differ substantially by sex, age, and political affiliation. Political attitudes also differ by sex and age. Younger women sit near the intersection of both trends.

The question isn’t whether mental illness makes someone a Democrat or whether being a Democrat makes someone mentally ill. There is no evidence for either proposition.

The more interesting question is why these divides overlap — and whether the way people understand and confront adversity might be part of the explanation.

Sometimes asking the right question is more revealing than pretending we already know the answer.

Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a Colorado-based ophthalmologist who writes frequently about medicine, science, and public policy.

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