TRUMP

178 ANATOMY OF A MONSTROSITY
For millennials, with crippling debt burden, the possibility of ever
having a stable middle-class lifestyle seemed nonexistent. Two-thirds
of millennials had at least one source of outstanding long-term debt
(car loans, student loans, mortgages), and 30% of them have more
than one. 552 They worry about debt, and struggle to pay it.
Overall, financial worries plagued the country. Credit card debt had
reached its highest point since the recession, total average household debt
had risen, and medical expenses had jumped significantly. 553 For many,
income growth hadn’t matched growth in the cost of living, leading to the
taking on of even more debt. 554 And as people took on debt, they took on
the corresponding issues of anxiety and a sense of personal failure.
Then there was the particular fate of the “white working class.”
Not only had jobs disappeared (due to a mixture of globalization and
technological change, but mostly technological change 555 ), and entire
communities become ghost towns, 556 but poor white Americans were
suffering from severe health issues. 557 Life expectancy for certain categories
of white women was actually going down. 558 As doctor and
health care commentator Adam Gaffney points out, there had been,
for many whites:
…a general deterioration of health status: more middle-aged
whites reported “fair or poor health,” various
chronic pains, and “serious psychological distress.” Rates
of heavy drinking and abnormally high liver enzymes —
a marker of liver injury — also rose. Much of the uptick
in mortality was due to various “external causes,” such as
poisoning (by alcohol or drugs), liver disease, and suicide.
In sum: a demographic and social disaster has been quietly
— almost invisibly — unfolding in America. 559
Furthermore, a “50-state epidemic” of opiate use was causing massive
increases in drug overdoses, 560 with heroin addiction a persistent