After President Donald Trump\u2019s second inauguration, Jay, a 49-year-old living in upstate New York, underwent a \u201ctotal media blackout.\u201d This meant he deleted social media and avoided the news as much as possible. As someone who struggled with a severe panic disorder, general anxiety and depression, he needed a break from reading about politics, which had become a toxic part of his life.<\/p>\n
Jay, who asked not to have his last name published because of a fear of doxxing, said he\u2019s lost friends because of politics and had familial relationships strained over the years. While he previously found Reddit to be a place of negative reactions to the news, nearly six weeks after his self-imposed blackout, he discovered the subreddit Political Optimism<\/a>, a place where people take current U.S. and global political news, \u201cfind the silver lining\u201d and \u201cdebunk the doom,\u201d according to its mission statement.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mental health has improved since I found this sub because I found hope again,\u201d Jay told Salon.<\/p>\n Hope and optimism, for many who are left-leaning on the political spectrum, are not synonymous with politics these days. According to a survey<\/a> conducted by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2024, 7 in 10 adults reported the future of the United States to be a significant source of stress in their lives. In the same survey, 32% of those who reported stress cited the current political climate as a source of strain between them and their family. Indeed, over the last few decades, research shows that the U.S. has been polarizing faster<\/a> than other democracies, affecting people\u2019s everyday lives.<\/p>\n The subreddit was founded because, according to the moderators who chatted with Salon over direct message, Reddit had a lot of \u201creactionary takes\u201d and misinformation in the wake of the 2024 election and inauguration, according to one moderator whose screen name is Lantis28, a 26-year-old in Atlanta.<\/p>\n One moderator, Emily C., a 30-year-old from Pittsburgh, said the group itself is \u201ccenter left-leaning.\u201d However, they don\u2019t explicitly identify themselves as Democrats as they try to be \u201cless tied to parties.\u201d She said they do have a few \u201ccenter-right\u201d people who feel \u201csafe\u201d to be part of the community. Discourse in the subreddit stays grounded in the facts.<\/p>\n \u201cA while back, a joke\/rumor was going around Reddit that Trump was going to try to give drilling rights or outright sell Alaska to Putin during their meeting<\/a>,\u201d Emily C. said. \u201cSome of our members were genuinely concerned, and it was causing them distress, so we reassured them of the facts of exactly why that couldn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Another moderator, who goes by the handle Lantis28,\u00a0said\u00a0political optimism is \u201cfinding the good in whatever is happening.\u201d It\u2019s finding a positive perspective even when \u201cit\u2019s not obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a healthy reassurance that is \u2018yeah, this is bad, but it could be so much worse,\u2019\u201d Jay, who is also a moderator, added.<\/p>\n This approach should not be confused with toxic positivity, which is when people only look for the positive while negating any negative emotions. Nor should it be mistaken for blind optimism, which is when people can have an overly positive outlook and be in denial that something exists. Instead, it sits somewhere in between the doom-and-gloom takes on the news by grounding current events in facts.<\/p>\n At the time of writing this, the subreddit has 11,000 political members and 35,000 regular visitors. Back in March, the group only had 525 people, the moderators told Salon. The moderators told Salon they tend to see bursts of people active in the community around major news events, like the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill<\/a>\u00a0or the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The subreddit\u2019s popularity also appears to be part of the rise in other \u201cgood news\u201d subreddits, like Optimists Unite<\/a>, where politics is not allowed.<\/p>\n Notably, many of those in the group refer to themselves as \u201crecovered doomers,\u201d a term they use to describe \u201csomeone who realizes that not everything is black and white.\u201d<\/p>\n Emily said she is one such person. Everything used to weigh \u201cso heavily\u201d on her, she told Salon, and she let the Trump administration \u201crent space\u201d in her head for free.<\/p>\n \u201cNow I can see their losses, and most importantly, hope,\u201d she said. \u201cNow I spread hope, or I try to in any case.\u201d<\/p>\n Mentally, she has made \u201cleaps and bounds,\u201d she said. She no longer feels the need to check the news obsessively\u00a0and feels the sense of \u201clooming dread\u201d is gone. \u201cThis is a safe space to rest your head whenever the Internet gets too wild with doomscrolling.\u201d<\/p>\n Start your day with essential news from Salon. Doomscrolling, a word that can now be found in the dictionary<\/a>, is the act of endlessly consuming news and content that heightens feelings of anxiety, sadness, or anger. It has become a habit for many people over the last decade, consciously and even unconsciously. Scientists believe people do it because the human brain tends to have a negativity bias. It satisfies an evolutionary urge<\/a> to scan for threats. While it can make people feel more in control or prepared for the future, having more information about a current event, it can also fuel anxiety, depression and interfere with sleep. However, scientists believe<\/a> that reading good news or at least finding the good in humanity can act as a buffer against negative news and even elevate the moods of news consumers.<\/p>\n Max D. is a 27-year-old \u201crecovered doomer.\u201d Instead of staying in his room, reading articles that are just going to make him \u201cspiral\u201d all day, he\u2019s made an effort to get more involved in his community by joining a non-profit and joining the No Kings protest.<\/p>\n \u201cI found this subreddit when looking for hope,\u201d he said. \u201cIt helped me because it made me realize the world isn\u2019t just getting worse, and people are trying to make it a better place and fight against the current administration.\u201d<\/p>\n Read more<\/p>\n about mental health<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After President Donald Trump\u2019s second inauguration, Jay, a 49-year-old living in upstate New York, underwent a \u201ctotal media…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-168837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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