It's not an economic effect. The news is all awful. If you're in the US and on the left, or outside the US, the world is descending into autocratic chaos and police state violence. If you're in the US and on the right, the country is descending into chaos at the hands of the anarchist left and the invasion of a horde of immigrants who need to be suppressed by autocratic chaos and police state violence.

Yeah yeah, there's food on the shelves and money in your pocket. But it's scary out there for everyone, and that trumps (heh) rationality.

The solution is to get Washington and partisan media to, ahem, shut the fuck up and just let people be happy. But that doesn't put bribes in their pockets or advertisers on their screens, so on with the autocratic chaos.