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My Best Friend Died from Loneliness
My Best Friend Died from Loneliness
Sunday (Edward Hopper, 1926, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.)
White, working-class, middle-aged Americans are one of the only demographics in the world that has seen its life expectancy fall. But Mike wasn’t just a statistic.
By Jeff Bloodworth
03.27.23 — U.S. Politics
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The Free Press
The Free Press
My Best Friend Died from Loneliness

My best friend Mike died alone. That was how he lived, too. He ate alone. He slept alone. Aloneness was his natural state. At age 50, it was sepsis that officially did him in. But really, it was solitude. 

Like Mike, America’s white working class is alone. Like Mike, it is being crushed by its isolation. 

Since 2000, white working-class Americans between …

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Jeff Bloodworth
Jeff Bloodworth is a professor of history at Gannon University (Erie, PA). Bloodworth holds a Ph.D. in modern United States history from Ohio University’s Contemporary History Institute.
Tags:
Politics
Economics
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