Look at that overdose map. That is the area of the USA that NAFTA and the Bush-era free trade agreements hollowed out. In many of those places, there is nothing left but the people who are too shell-shocked to do anything other than collect government checks and watch the city/county rot back into the earth.

Rural America is in a heap, deep trouble. And nobody really cares about "Fly-Over Country." The factories that used to power these small towns and counties are gone; our government makes it cheaper to raise chickens in Arkansas, freeze them whole, ship them to China for butchering, then ship them back. NOT FUCKING KIDDING.

So all those low-education jobs are washing away into the hands of our economic adversaries. And the local US tax payers that were employed and paying into the system, buying furniture, and homes, and cars are now barely making ends meet and on food stamps, if they are lucky. The factories that made furniture out of wood and leather that lasted long enough to give to your kids is now made out of pressboard and falls apart in 10 years. But that disposable cheap crap is 1/3 as much as the "real" stuff.

The author of the article comes off at tone deaf, out of touch, in the dark and condescending. The author almost certainly lives in either Brooklyn or Portland or any of the other Hipster havens that have been mostly spared from the knee-capping of large parts of the country.