Ah, you're right of course. Still, it could possibly indicate some kind of cascading series of events over/through the summertime.
Something that I'm not sure has been widely discussed, and it probably sounds silly. But here goes -
The election actually did have a big effect on my mental health, both right away and over time. I became enstranged from my own family too (later than Jen and Sarah seem to have, but still) and overall I lost a lot of hope for a long time. I'm sure there are people of all different opinions here, so please excuse me if you felt differently.
And I'm just a regular, votes-in-the-big-elections liberal. The Harts were
much more invested in politics than I am, and they probably would have felt... well, I'm not sure how to put, but the feeling
I've gotten over the past two years has been pretty negative, and that there are greater forces of intolerance and general nastiness in America than I had realized. The Harts almost certainly got the same types of news and editorials that I did.
I really doubt that it was a direct reason for anything these women did, but I'm positive that any mental health problems they had were not made better by the last couple years' politics. And they probably
were targeted by trolls after going viral. The kinds of trolls that you wouldn't otherwise ever see, unless your curiosity took you to some dark places on the internet. There are some incredibly nasty and ruthless people. And they would have said a lot of racist stuff to the Harts if they could, things that are calculated to get into your head and worsen your outlook - some of these people take a special interest in nasty propaganda.