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Brad's avatar

The white working class is fighting permanent marginalization and exile from the economic mainstream. These are people who feel left behind, forsaken by a technocratic system that forces them to live on the periphery of society because they’re not in custody of the credentials that are treated as an indication of social value, which precludes them from an economy that reserves its rewards for those with higher education.

This gives rise to a collective sense of hopelessness, which is why small towns like Mechanic Falls often have such a high rate of "deaths of despair." It's a little known fact that the white working class has been dying at an unprecedented rate. No other country has seen a comparable turnaround in any demographic, and this midlife mortality reversal has been confined to white people. By 2015, so many working-age white Americans were dying that life expectancy in the wealthiest country in the world fell for the first time in nearly a century. I wrote about this here:

https://www.euphoricrecall.net/p/requiem-for-the-american-dream

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Colter Rule's avatar

Thanks, Chris. A beautiful piece, reminiscent of a previous nation from previous time with people working together for the Democratic way. Or so we thought. Yes these people have been betrayed, clearly. And are struggling to survive in a nation that has cast them aside. While the wealthy and connected play their stupid games in DC. We must bring each other along, together.

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