hmm I thought by the world drives people to depression and anxiety it would be more the everyday stuff, the stressful jobs that take all our time, the money and job worries, the stresses of urban life, the time and other pressures that make social connections hard to maintain. Before I was let go from my last job I was reading a book called "Overwhelmed", and that is how I CONSTANTLY felt (was commuting a couple hours a day as well) - constantly feeling overwhelmed. (and yea I may well end up back to that type of crazy again - and that's the better scenario)
I guess I think the day to day experience of life can in many cases contribute to anxiety and depression. And yes fine a political system that can't actually deal with real problems and that seems completely beyond insane does not help, and there is no other way to describe D.C. now, and people do know this. But all the problems in the world that one only reads about are probably just information overload.