Loneliness Is Not Gender-Specific

 

By Frank Filocomo

The loneliness epidemic has hit us all hard, regardless of our immutable characteristics: race, gender, ethnicity...

While there has been talk of a "male loneliness epidemic," I've largely - if not completely - steered clear of using the term, for, from what I've read over the years, both men and women have been impacted. 

But, in the Left-wing outlet BuzzFeed - an unserious, clickbait-driven site that I honestly thought was now defunct - staffer Dannica Ramirez documents what the women of Reddit think about male loneliness. 

While some of the responses were thoughtful, drawing attention to the fact that men historically have been hesitant to open up to their friends and be vulnerable - most comments were nasty, saying that the male loneliness epidemic is largely "self-inflicted," with one user writing that "about 85% or more of the men complaining about it do it to themselves."

Another Reddit user wrote that "It's evidence that even men think most other men are not a joy to be around."

One commenter, however, wrote that "loneliness is something we’re all really struggling with, regardless of gender." 

That's exactly my feeling, too. From the data I've consumed - and, trust me, I've read a lot about this issue over the past few years - loneliness is an equal opportunity killer: it does not discriminate based on any single criterion. 

Thus, combating loneliness and social isolation ought to be a gender-inclusive battle, wherein both men and women can take actionable steps to foster community. 

The issue of loneliness need not be another point of division between the sexes; we have politics for that.

Let this be a joint struggle. 

How Men Lose Themselves in Relationships

 

By Christopher Turturro

Men need the companionship of the fairer sex to go through life, but they also need friends, particularly of the same sex, who function as indispensable support systems. 

My intention here is to address the role that men play in their own downfall when it comes to relationships, and what I've learned from my experience with dating.

Some men, it should be noted, are voluntarily stepping away from dating and marriage altogether due to financial and emotional concerns. They are, of course, free to make their own choices, and I would say the topic of conversation here doesn't much apply to them. Rather, I'm speaking to men who are lonely and looking for love. 

This is what I personally believe they should do to give themselves better chances.

Around the age of 30, people start to focus more on meeting a long-term partner and starting a family.

As a man who just recently turned 30, I've noticed many changes around me, especially in my circles. People start to have priority-shifts, different interests, and different goals. Life is no longer solely about careers, friendly get-togethers, and fun. Around the age of 30, people start to focus more on meeting a long-term partner and starting a family.

This is all a part of life. Generally speaking, it's what most people want to do: get married, start families, live happily ever after, etc. This is all fine and good, though I see a major issue with how men change their personality and entire identity when they date. 

Often when men start to date, their entire disposition changes: they neglect their friendships, hobbies fall by the wayside, and they make their whole personality about making their significant other happy. I vehemently disagree with this, and I'll tell you why. When someone meets you and takes an interest in you, they like you for who you are and the hobbies you have in life, whether that be reading, fitness, traveling, or whatever. So often men are completely willing to give it all up to make their wives/girlfriends happy. While doing this may come off as sweet and caring, it also shows that you have no backbone or structure and are willing to bend at any second to appease your partner at the expense of your friends.

Women do not respect that, and most often will find it unattractive (That's been my personal experience, and many others' I've witnessed). As a man, you need to be able to prioritize yourself and your needs in a healthy way, without being selfish. The truth is that there are some things that women will never understand when you try to speak to them about your issues, just as there are some things that us men won't be able to understand when our girlfriends try to speak with us about women-specific issues. This is why maintaining a good, healthy social circle is so beneficial: it provides us with a support system of like-minded individuals. Again, this is something women are phenomenal at, and men lack completely.

If you come to depend entirely on one person, you're in for a rude awakening if things fall through. 

I've also observed that tons of men are very afraid to live their life on their own. They feel the need to have a partner by their side every step of the way. They won't take time off and vacation alone, they won't go out and have a bite to eat alone, or basically explore life while single alone. All these things help you identify who you are, find what makes you happy, and give you stability to not solely lean on your partner as your entire source of happiness. If you come to depend entirely on one person, you're in for a rude awakening if things fall through. 

For whatever reason, tons of men just can't get this through their head, or perhaps they allow their partners to control certain aspects of their lives. Again, as a man, you have to be able to put your foot down and set standards and boundaries for yourself. 

Men, after all, deserve happiness, dignity, and the empowering feeling of independence and self-actualization. 

Christopher Turturro, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, is an HVAC mechanic and 

U.S. Air Force veteran.

Southern Italy and Amoral Familism

 

By Frank Filocomo

Last week, I wrote the following article for RealClear Books & Culture: 

"Why America Must Not Turn into Southern Italy"

It's a provocative title, for sure, but I doubt many southern Italians would disagree with the thesis.  

In a nutshell: Americans are increasingly distrusting, not only of our institutions, but of each other, and societies that are typified by distrust - there is no better example than southern Italy - are stunted by the constraints of their own ethos. If America continues to abandon its Tocquevillian tradition, it will begin to look and feel more like southern Italy, and that's not a good thing.

From the article:

In our semiquincentennial year, Americans must look to southern Italy as a blueprint for what not to do. That is not to say that southern Italy is not breathtakingly beautiful (just Google images of Roccella Ionica, where my father was born), or that its inhabitants aren’t a good and decent people. It is to say, however, that their lack of institutional and neighborly trust, if adopted here, would further erode our country’s civic fabric.

Give it a read, and let me know what you think.

P.S. My friend, Madison, whom I met through her online series, Can it Third Place?, interviewed me for her Substack. You can read that here. 

Credit for above image: Kaye, George Frederick, 1914-2004. Italian peasant women cook on open fires while transport passes on 5th Army Front, southern Italy, World War II - Photograph taken by George Kaye. New Zealand. Department of Internal Affairs. War History Branch :Photographs relating to World War 1914-1918, World War 1939-1945, occupation of Japan, Korean War, and Malayan Emergency. Ref: DA-05233-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22754865

Why Cultural Difference Matters

 

By Frank Filocomo

"Culture counts," writes Samuel Huntington in his widely-cited work, The Clash of Civilizations, "and cultural identity is what is most meaningful to most people."

This is indisputable. Our culture, whatever it might be, gives us a sense of greater belonging. Without it, we are nothing but a hodgepodge of free-floating, tetherless individuals. 

Thus, when disparate cultures encounter each other, there is often tension and conflict. And tension and conflict do not create fertile soil for civil society. 

In the U.S. and in Europe, unprecedented levels of non-Western immigration have fundamentally changed the cultural character and identity of Western countries. 

In Governing, Alan Ehrenhalt highlights this phenomenon:

There's no doubt that places affected by heavy in-migration are losing a civic culture that once was their leading source of pride. Old-timers walk down their town’s Main Street and hear conversations in languages they can’t understand. They are exposed to culinary customs they had never experienced before and confronted with foods that taste strange to them. There are new and unfamiliar religious practices. All of this is unsettling, to say the least, and for some long-time residents, a source of profound anxiety.

That isn't to say, of course, that there aren't profound benefits to cultural mixing. 

I was recently watching Concert for George, the live tribute to George Harrison from 2002. As a kid, I always loved the rendition of Harrison's The Inner Light, featuring Jeff Lynne of ELO on guitar and vocals, Anoushka Shankar on the sitar, and a traditional Indian ensemble behind them. 

I would describe that as a remarkably successful encounter between the East and West. If you haven't already experienced it, you're missing out.

Not all inter-cultural encounters, however, result in something beautiful. In fact, most don't. 

The reason for this is actually pretty simple: culture - which is defined by a people's norms, behaviors, traditions, and so on - vary from place to place. The West and non-West present us with two very different outlooks on life. 

For instance, Huntington writes that "both Westerners and non-Westerners point to individualism as the central distinguishing mark of the West." Few will actually debate this. "For East Asians," Huntington continues, "success is particularly the result of the East Asian cultural stress on the collectivity rather than the individual."

Such different temperaments, which are so deeply rooted, make coexistence difficult, if not nearly impossible. 

Some in academia have landed themselves in hot water for making such assertions. 

In a December 2021 interview with the great Glenn Loury, University of Pennsylvania Law School Professor Amy Wax asked the following about Asian students in academia: "Does the spirit of liberty beat in their breast?" 

Wax was underlining the cultural difference between Westerners, who have a long tradition of maximizing liberty and individual autonomy, and non-Westerners, who are much more deferential and collectivistic. 

In response to the interview, Theodore Ruger, then the dean of UPenn's law school, called Wax's remarks "xenophobic and white supremacist."

Wax, it should be noted, is Jewish and thus will probably not be welcomed at many so-called "white supremacist" meet-ups.

Amy Wax on The Glenn Show

And YouTuber Nick Shirley, who in December of 2025 shed light on the rampant Somali fraud in Minnesota, hasn't had an easy go of it either. Shirley, who made no racial claims, showed viewers what a non-Western takeover of a great American state looks like. In the video, the Somalis of Minnesota are referred to, by himself and locals, as "close knit." That is, they are insular, hostile to outsiders, and unwilling to assimilate to their host country. 

Shirley, in response to the video - which, to date, has accrued nearly 4 million views on YouTube and likely led to Governor Tim Walz suspending his reelection bid - was called a white supremacist and accused of creating "political propaganda."

The point: cultural difference is real, and calling it out is real dangerous. 

To be clear, both Western and non-Western temperaments have their strengths and weaknesses. This is not a battle of the cultures. That's not something I care to engage in. The bottom-line, though, is that making the distinction and articulating the drawbacks of multiculturalism shouldn't be taboo. 

Censorship on Reddit

By Christopher Turturro

Reddit is easily one of the worst - if not the worst - sites for free speech.

Over the past few years, we've witnessed the rise of censorship and partisan bias on social media. One of the most authoritarian of these platforms, that makes it their mission to censor any opposing views, is Reddit. Reddit is easily one of the worst - if not the worst - sites for free speech. I typically only use Reddit for advice from others on vehicle and mechanical information, or I'll look into things such as film and classic movies. Nevertheless, Reddit, which is driven by rage bait and partisan hostility, never ceases to recommend me hot-button political content, even if I never searched for it myself. 

Anyone who uses Reddit or social media in general knows that all of these platforms are generally Left-leaning. They label most content by "Right-wingers" as misinformation, propaganda, or just completely fake. Reddit, more than any other site I've encountered, has taken this to a completely new level. If you're unfamiliar with Reddit, every category is a "subreddit." For example, Chevrolet is a subreddit (r/Chevrolet), Ford is a subreddit (r/Ford), personal finance is a subreddit (r/personalfinance), and many, many more categories of essentially anything you can think of. To further explain, each of these subreddits has a group of "moderators" who ensure that all the "rules" of the page are being followed. These are people who either created the page, were invited by existing members to moderate, or have applied through "mod recruitment" posts. 

These groups of mods are essentially the police on these subreddits. Some are more laid back than others, but others can take it to a whole new level, especially when it comes to the political subreddits. Buzzwords like Nazi, racist, and bigot fly so freely on Reddit that they have essentially lost their meaning now. Anyone leaning more to the Right is immediately labeled any one of the terms mentioned. This is a blatant effort to censor, silence, and discredit conservative voices on the platform. The problem for Reddit's thought police is that they've overused those words so much they've been trivialized completely. I recently posted about having nationalistic views about America and how we should close our borders, help our own, and lift ourselves up rather than worry about the rest of the world's problems. Want to know what happened? Tons of people called me a Nazi-sympathizer, Hitler-sympathizer, and a racist. You're no longer allowed to apply common sense without being called names. You MUST bend your will to these people, or they will do their best to destroy you as we have seen with the attempted assassination on the President and the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

The same people who claim to be "anti-fascist" hate it when anyone with differing views dare speak. 

With one simple search on Reddit's site, you can plainly see how any comments with Right-leaning bias are uniformly downvoted and the users themselves are attacked. In addition to this, the other users with opposing views will report you, which then notifies the mods and they then "silence" you. This can result in a temporary ban that lasts just a few days, or what's known as a "perma-ban," preventing you from engaging with the entire social media platform. The same people who claim to be "anti-fascist" hate it when anyone with differing views dare speak. 

There was recently a video posted on Reddit of the Black Panthers of Philadelphia essentially threatening to kill ICE officers and any federal officers doing their best to enforce the rule of law. The video has since been removed. They were carrying rifles and shotguns in the streets of Philadelphia which, at the end of the day, is their 2A right that I feel very strongly about. But you can't threaten to kill federal officers or an officer enforcing the law. This video was posted in the subreddit "R/videosthatgohard" page. I posted a comment on this video stating that these are real threats and should be treated as such. The same group that hates the 2A and Republicans exercising it is now on the side of the Black Panthers openly talking about killing federal agents. My comment was removed from the page and cited for "harassment," and I was banned from interacting with the page for 4 days. Harassment for pointing out these threats should be taken seriously. But guess what, I'm on the wrong side of the political spectrum on Reddit, so what do they do? Silence me. We all remember when the Biden administration was sending FBI to the homes of people who were posting opposing views to the administration themselves. The videos were all over social media. It's okay to weaponize the government and enforcement agencies so long as it benefits the Left. If it happens on the Right, we see massive protests, riots, civil unrest, and so forth.  

If that was enough to trigger a visit from police to these individuals' homes, shouldn't threatening federal officers' lives be cause for something, too? Nonetheless carrying guns with intent to harm officers enforcing the law? Sounds like major hypocrisy to me because, if I remember correctly, just a few years ago the Left was so against Republicans having guns due to the "insurrection" on January 6th, yet they continue to protest, burn down cities, and threaten to literally start a civil war. If it were up to me, free speech would be free speech and therefore should be protected, and law enforcement should have zero involvement until a crime is committed. Although, this all started with the Biden administration targeting Republicans and calling them "domestic terrorists." So, we must apply the same logic and rules to the other side. 

Christopher Turturro, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, is an HVAC mechanic and 

U.S. Air Force veteran.

Making Friends in an Era of Isolation

 

By Frank Filocomo

Making friends is easy on paper, but often difficult in practice. 

In Front Porch Republic, a publication that I urge all Frank Forum readers to check out, Dixie Dillon Lane penned a thoughtful piece on her trials and tribulations with making friends, particularly after becoming a mother. 

"There’s only so much friendship-making you can do while both the adults in question are sleep deprived and the conversation is frequently interrupted by toddlers," she writes. 

Forging friendships in a social vacuum with all else being equal is one thing, but reality is full of externalities (both good and bad) and encumberments that make socialization time-consuming and inconvenient.

Sometimes it seems like there just aren't enough hours in the day. We have jobs to work, families to tend to, and myriad other social obligations to fulfill. But friendship-making? For many of us, that ranks low on the priority list, and thus is frequently jettisoned from our daily objectives. 

To forgo friendship-making, though, is a grave mistake. Friends are - or at least ought to be - constants in our lives. They keep us honest, make us laugh, and help guide us through hardship. They are indispensable soldiers in our social infantry.  

Many of us, though, are consumed by work and are without many meaningful friendships. What, though, can be done?

Lane offers some good tips and tricks. 

This one if obvious, but frequently overlooked: tapping into dormant, or rather, not-fully-realized relationships. These are friendships that you already have, but that need some cultivating. 

Lane writes:

In the past several months, for example, a friend whom I’ve always valued but whose life has been somewhat different than mine has become my weekly walking partner, and through this we have discovered that we are truly kindred spirits in many deeply meaningful ways.

NYU Langone neurologist Joel Salinas, in an interview for the Washington Post, has called this "preserving what you have." 

This is a light-lift and can be sparked by a text message. 

Among Lane's other suggestions is to attend more live events and conferences: 

Jetting off to a conference—much less a week-and-a-half in Spain—seemed extremely far from possible to me until my wise and confident spouse practically pushed me into it. I thought I should 'build community' by trying yet again to run another playgroup or host another big party or offer to watch other people’s kids; but those things didn’t work very well. Instead, life invited me to far-flung places and new professional roles. I’m very glad I finally started to listen.

This is advice I need to listen to more myself. I love to stay inside and read and play guitar. Going out can be a schlep. Not to mention the social battery it requires. It's so much easier to be safe and comfortable. Too much loafing in one's safe space, however, isn't healthy. Exposure to social environments - uncomfortable as they may be - is a necessary exercise. It develops your social muscles, keeps your mind sharp, and introduces you to new people, who might just become new friends. 

This all, however, requires work and openness.

Again, you can read Lane's full article for FPR here. Take her advice. 

Can Father Even Know Best Anymore?

By Troy M. Olson

The country needs more children. If we have them, we'll end up alright. 

"I tried hard to have a father but instead, I had a dad." - Kurt Cobain lyrics from "Serve the Servants" on Nirvana's final studio album, In Utero.

I've always taken this lyric to be a line about Kurt Cobain's contentious relationship with his dad. Like so many in Gen X, Cobain was a child of divorced parents. His cohort was the first to experience the consequences of the liberalization of family law in the 1960s and 1970s. This line has long had me thinking about the genuine differences between being a father and being a dad. And, aside from mere preference and semantics, I think there is a difference. 

The Cool Dad vs. Fatherhood 

Around the time elder-Millennials were little kids, all of the cultural and family programming in our society moved from the fatherhood example best displayed in the classic TV shows, Father Knows Best, Leave It To Beaver, and The Andy Griffith Show, to shows that cast the father as incompetent and foolish at worst, and trying hard to be young, cool, and relatable at best. 

Beyond that, it became cool to mock the prior model as well as the decade it was most associated with: the 1950s. Now, I have long been a defender of the 1950s and written about that often, but I haven't focused in on what has long been in my head. 

Civilization needs strong fathers again. Not dads. We need moral lessons, wholesomeness, and fathers more interested in preparing their children for the world than being their best friend. 

A dad that is your friend, he may spend time with you, he may even coach your little league team, and there is something to be said about this model, but two straight generations of "cool dads" are not cutting it. The Millennials have been slow to grow up and now Gen Z (predominately the children raised by Gen X) is. 

What are we returning to, and why should we return to it? We're returning to father knows best. Why? Because society needs it and today's social and family statistics will tell us that new parents are older and older anyway, making the "cool dad" model more obsolete, and possibly ridiculous. 

While on pro-natalist and national renewal grounds we should be very concerned about declining birth rates, there are some silver linings to older parentage. We have seen this before.

Older Greatest Generation Parents

There are only two ways to mature in life: packing in the years gradually, or packing in the experiences into a small number of years. The Greatest Generation had both of these features. Coming of age during the Great Depression and a World War, the generation both had to grow up fast and because of what was going on in the world delayed forming families, especially relative to the era. 

Many returning GIs were well into their 30s before they became parents. My grandfathers, for instance, both WWII veterans, had seven children in their 30s and 40s between them. They had the life experiences and the necessary perspective that each generation since simply doesn't have. Not even close. 

Younger Boomer Parents

A critique of what in my view is clearly the greatest generation may be, well... they raised the Boomers. How good of parents could they have possibly been? One, Boomers were set up incredibly well by their parents both from a familial perspective and a societal one. While the 1960s opened up considerable cultural rifts between who would be the elder-Boomers and their GI generation parents and elders, it is hard to find a Boomer that would have a critical word to say about this generation. Two, Boomers were the first generation to be mass marketed as a generation at all. In both childhood terms, and mass marketing terms. While their slightly older Silents were the beginnings of youth culture, Boomers got it fully and then began driving the culture and writing all of the narratives that are still with us today. 

Boomers were also able to get married and have children in their 20s in ways their parents, and now their children, were not able to. It set them up for a long retirement, or at least a long post-raising their children period that has driven spending in the economy for quite some time, especially in housing. For instance, the median home buyer is 59 years old. Twenty years ago, it was 39. The same generational cohort (the youngest Boomers and elder Gen X) has basically been buying American homes for the near-entirety of the 21st century now. Housing sets the stage for so much second- and third-order decisions and spending too. If you have a house in the suburbs or a small town, you're going to buy more cars, and so forth. 

Older Millennial Parents 

While the Millennials flooded into the cities after college, chasing enough income to get their slice of the American dream, many have crashed into a wall of political turmoil and division, the college degree as an over-inflated and overrated status, and the incredible fatigue of being old enough to remember an America that was normal and having a childhood of expectations, but too young to really reap the rewards of a post-war, pre-9/11 America. But these days, Millennials are splitting from what this culture had pegged them as.

Being a parent is, objectively speaking, the most important thing you'll ever do. The most important job you'll ever have. 

Gone is the progressive archetype of the college-educated Millennials of a diversifying and "fundamentally transformed" America. Millennial voting patterns are not surprisingly following along the lifespan of their Boomer parents (started more liberal, becoming more conservative with age, and we'll see about the rest). In the last decade, the marriage and family gap in partisan voting habits has been driven by realigning Millennials getting married, taking on starter home mortgages, and having children. And for the married men with children, now a +20% Republican voting constituency, fatherhood, as opposed to being a dad or a cool dad, is taking on additional weight. Taking on the appropriate weight. Being a parent is, objectively speaking, the most important thing you'll ever do. The most important job you'll ever have. 

57% of Millennial dads say that fatherhood is a core aspect of identity. This is a good thing. Millennial dads also spend three times as much time with their kids as the previous generation. This is also a good thing. Although the quality of that time and the imparting of moral and practical education will be more important than the quantity. 

It is very important that Gen Z follows this father knows best era, with preferably one more kid than millennials are having. 

We can turn this whole thing around, and it will start at home, where all true peace and prosperity comes from. And, not everyone is going to be Ward and June Cleaver. That's not a reasonable expectation, especially if you know the radical opposite. But we can all pick up the slack a bit, and if we do, I think the country will be alright in the long run. 

If this sounds like white pill optimism, well of course it is. But that lesson is a lot more constructive and productive than the man-o-sphere (who are almost always childless). If you're not a father today, I don't care to hear about your views on masculinity. The only exception I'll make to that rule is if you're a veteran. 

The country needs more children. If we have them, we'll end up alright. 

The country needs more dads in homes, even the cool dad is preferable to no male role model at all. And family law reforms and balancing could speed this one along quite a bit. If we have more dads in homes, we'll end up alright.

The country needs more strong fathers as role models, who are focused on imparting moral lessons and passing on heritage and the received wisdom from ancestors. And strong father role models understand that the head of this model is faith in God, the marriage itself, and then the children. And the kids will be alright if father knows best again. 

Troy M. Olson is an Army Veteran, lawyer by training, and co-author of ‘The Emerging Populist Majority’ available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Target. He is the Sergeant-at-Arms of the New York Young Republican Club and co-founder of its Veterans Caucus. He has appeared on CNN, CBS, and OAN. He lives in New York City with his wife and son, and is the 3rd Vice Commander (“Americanism” pillar) of the first new American Legion Post in the city in years, Post 917. You can follow him on X/Twitter and Substack at @TroyMOlson

New York Needs Another Ambassador to Loneliness

 

By Frank Filocomo

 

In November of 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul appointed talk show host and former sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer as the nation's first-ever Ambassador to Loneliness.

I expressed my skepticism about the move in a November 9, 2023 post for this blog titled, New York's New Ambassador to Loneliness Is Who?

From the post:

At just 95 years young, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, an erstwhile sex therapist and talk show personality, has been appointed "ambassador to loneliness" by New York Governor, Kathy Hochul. 

I know what you're thinking: surely this must be an Onion headline, or perhaps something from Babylon Bee. But no, this is actually happening. 

So, will Westheimer, who told the New York Times last summer that she will "still talk about orgasms", be the person to cure our current societal malady of social disengagement and loneliness? Well, according to Governor Hochul, this is "just what the doctor ordered". What a joke...

In retrospect, I think I was far too pessimistic. While an honorary appointment was never going to be a panacea for tackling the loneliness epidemic head-on, the more people we have talking about this issue, the better. 

What's more, I lambasted the move as yet another instance of the government taking what should be a bottom-up issue and thrusting onto us top-down policy solutions. But, you know what, I'm no longer all that opposed to top-down solutions. The loneliness epidemic is quickly turning into a loneliness pandemic, spanning the Western world. Therefore, it might just be kitchen sink time. 

Dr. Ruth, though, didn't have much time to accomplish anything. She passed away on July 12, 2024, just months after her appointment. 

Sadly, Dr. Ruth's passing didn't get much media attention, as the first assassination attempt on President Trump in Butler, PA happened the following day. 

Now, in 2026, New York still doesn't have an Ambassador to Loneliness. Upon further reflection, I think Governor Hochul might have been onto something. She, or whomever succeeds her, ought to appoint another one. Even if it's just an honorary position, it couldn't hurt. The Ambassador could be a prescriptive force, aiding New Yorkers with tips for ameliorating loneliness and fostering social connection. 

In other news, it's worth noting - since no one else seems to be saying anything - that the nation still doesn't have a Surgeon General. Dr. Vivek Murthy, who served under the Biden administration, was the country's last leading doctor. January 20, 2026 will mark one year without a Surgeon General. 

I've written about that, too, in an August 4, 2025 post titled, Laura Loomer's Idiotic War on the Office of the Surgeon General

From my post:

Surgeon generals, through their advisory reports, launch, what the late-Amitai Etzioni called, "national dialogues," or "megalogues." These are community- and country-wide conversations that, if executed correctly, can "lead to significant changes in core values." 

Case in point: it wasn't until Dr. Vivek Murthy's 2023 report, Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, that we began to take the loneliness epidemic seriously. 

The country needs leaders who will keep this issue top-of-mind and offer some much-needed prescription. 

The Loneliness Epidemic: Is Tech Really To Blame?

 

By Frank Filocomo

It's become easy - intellectually lazy, actually - to blame America's fraying social fabric and atomization on social media and technology, writ large. 

I've written about this reactionary reflex before. 

Many of us would like nothing more than to return to the mid-20th century, when we truly had a common culture and deep love of country. 

But we must face the music: times they are a-changin'. Actually, they've already changed drastically.

"Digital friends," writes Taki Theodoracopulos in Taki’s Magazine, "are now replacing human ones, and that goes for romantic partners also."

While it's indisputable that robotics and AI have, in many cases, supplanted IRL social connection - just read Sherry Turkle's magnum opus, Alone Together - it would be futile and wrongheaded to lay the blame solely - or even mostly - on screens. 

There's simply no empirical data to back up this assertion. 

While Robert Putnam - in his 1995 essay, Bowling Alone - did place a good deal of blame on TV for America's diminishing social capital - he and his co-author, Shaylyn Romney Garrett, largely abandon the technology thesis in their 2020 book, The Upswing.

More from Taki's article:

I may sound old-fashioned, which I proudly am, but life online cannot even come close to replacing or satisfying the spiritual hunger of human beings. It might pretend to, just like bright lights and come-hither poses lure one into sordid nightclubs, but placing our faith on modernity leaves us blind to one another and what is human. Turn off your screens, says Taki, and start living.

Again, I don't disagree with the sentiment here. We would all be better off if, instead of getting entranced by the Instagram Reel doomscroll, we went outside, touched grass, and socialized with actual people. No argument there. 

Taki, however, misses an important fact here: Social media has actually helped facilitate IRL social connections and, if used correctly, can be a powerful tool in combating loneliness and isolation. 

As I've documented before in National Review and Philanthropy Daily, certain social media apps have proved to be formidable supplements - though, perhaps not replacements altogether - to the old-school way of forging social connections. 

In The Guardian, Emily Bratt writes about the friendships she's made on Timeleft, "an app that invites you to dine with six strangers."

Through it, you are asked to complete a personality quiz – apparently used to match you with six like-minded friends-to-be. Then you’re briefed on where you need to be for dinner and when. Once again, the unnaturalness of the situation made me slightly uncomfortable. We were one of several groups of strangers, positioned across a restaurant floor, all relying on an algorithm to find new friends – it was like an episode of Black Mirror.

But there was a comfort in learning that these six strangers were in this for similar reasons. Most were at a time in their lives where old friendship trajectories had changed course and there was a desire to seek out new kindred spirits. Elvira turned out to be one such kindred spirit. Seated opposite me but one, she was the quietest of the group and initially I assumed we had nothing in common. Then she made a dry, acerbic comment under her breath, giving me a wry smile, and I realised in that moment that we shared the same sense of humour. That was enough for us to keep in touch and hang out periodically over the next 11 months. In that time, I introduced her to another friend, with whom she has formed a friendship of her own, and now the three of us meet for dinner and join each other’s social events.

Emily's experience with app-based social connections is becoming more and more common. 

My social life, for instance, has benefited a great deal from social media. For example, I learned about Reading Rhythms, an NYC-based group that hosts "reading parties" across the city, through Instagram. See my article on Reading Rhythms for Front Porch Republic here. 

Additionally, I first heard about my local bar's weekly open mic via Instagram. I'm now a regular. 

This doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the myriad other social connections I've made using social media as a tool. 

So, while the natural inclination is to blame the apps and tech on the country's current social maladies - and, to be sure, some of these arguments have merit - it would be unwise to overlook the good in them, too. 

The Zoomer Loneliness Epidemic

 

By Frank Filocomo

New research published by the UK's Office for National Statistics finds that "33% of Britons aged 16 to 29 reported feeling lonely 'often, always or some of the time' - the highest of all age groups (17% of over-70s said the same thing)."

While I've written about the effects of loneliness and social isolation on Zoomers, middle-aged people, and the elderly, that the former is impacted the worst is particularly troubling.

"The youth of today," Nelson Mandela famously remarked, "are the leaders of tomorrow."

Leaders, though, must be raised in environments that set them up for success. Individuals raised in isolation and without regular socialization, however, are off to a remarkably inauspicious start.

Thus, for Zoomers to flourish, they must be surrounded by a rich civic life with robust social connections.

In an article for BBC, Luke Mintz points to a few factors that might be contributing to the Zoomer loneliness epidemic.

One thing that Mintz touches on - the problem of "scattering" - is particularly salient. That is, for many people today, friends and family don't live near by, but are instead scattered around the country and thus out of physical reach. 

From the article:

In some ways, early adulthood has always been a time of instability. Young adults tend to leave their childhood home and move around. Friends depart, and family ties weaken. These transitory life events can, for some, lead to intense loneliness.

I've written about this kind of modern day sprawl before. From my research, this appears to mostly be a Western problem, as many parts of the non-West are more community-oriented and do not subscribe to the cultural ethos of hyper-individualism. 

Of course, a wholesale rejection of our rights-centric individualized culture would not be desirable either. The solution lies in what Amitai Etzioni advocated for: a balance between top-down order and individual liberties. 

Today, though, we have taken the latter - individual liberty, that is - to such an extreme that we - young people, especially - feel a kind of rudderlessness and disconnection. 

Thus, it is incumbent on us to actively seek out pockets of community and socialization that can, among other things, help moor us to a higher level of being and humanity. 

A friend of mine has found such a place in his Catholic church. Others, though, may find purpose and communion in secular organizations, like book clubs and other voluntary associations. 

Whatever it may be, Zoomers, many of whom work remote jobs, must find an excuse to venture outside of their apartments and fill the community-shaped hole in their souls. 

'Far-Right'... Fascism or Love of Country?

By Christopher Turturro

Has patriotism become "Far-Right?"

As of late, many of my friends and colleagues have been talking about Nick Fuentes and the rise of many more "far-Right" online personalities. So much so that Democrats and even some Republicans fear that, with the current state of our country, we may be at risk of another "mustache man" coming to power at some point in the near future. Hitler, being the reference to "mustache man," pretended to be a strong, nationalistic leader, but, as time went on, he murdered millions of people for their immutable characteristics and religious beliefs. This, of course, is not someone that any level-headed individual would want in power. Even in the end, he turned on his own citizens ("purebred" Germans, that is) that he so brazenly claimed he supported by sending their families and children to war and almost-certain death. 

Nowadays, though, any leader who prioritizes their country's citizens, families, economy, and overall wellbeing is slandered as a "fascist" or "NAZI". Supporting your own fellow countrymen, wanting safe and secure borders, good salaries, and your own revenue to support your country is now a fascistic belief? It seems like we are living in an episode of the Twilight Zone. So, how do you swing the pendulum back? How have we turned into a country with little to no identity, distrust of our fellow neighbors, and hatred for the same document that provides the freedoms to do all the things we love and live our lives as we best see fit?

Today, the Constitution, which protects our God-given rights, is looked at with disdain by a not-insignificant chunk of the country. Many U.S. citizens have contempt for our country because of its imperfect history. America, though, has made huge strides towards correcting its past wrongs, yet still is seen as irredeemably evil. In addition to this, our country supports a plethora of other countries financially across the world and has an allegiance to them should a war spring out. Why?

Much of the time, if you ask an immigrant where their allegiance would be in a time of war if it came down to America vs. their homeland of origin, they very often will side with the latter. This is unacceptable, and it's why our country is losing its identity, its strength, and sense of community. Many come here and refuse to assimilate, refuse to support American beliefs and values, and take advantage of all it has to offer. 

People wonder why many conservatives/Republicans like myself believe in a leader who supports the nation they belong to. Saying that in today's world gets you called a "Nazi," "bigot," "racist," and every other name in the book. The further we go down the road of criminalizing anyone with an allegiance to America, the harder the pendulum is going to swing back when we have a leader who truly supports American citizens and American values. If people refuse to assimilate to American morals, traditions, and values, they should not be welcomed, and should be turned away. Is that to say you can't practice your religion? No. Is that to say you can't be anything other than white? Absolutely not. If you don't believe in freedom, capitalism, the Constitution, and the nation's core foundation, you should think twice about emigrating here, and our government and citizens should not welcome you.

So, call it what you like, but the strongest nations in the world are the ones who have a citizenry with love and belief for the nation they reside in. A prime example of this is Poland. Currently one of the safest countries in Europe, doing the best to keep their citizens safe in a particularly volatile time in history. Meanwhile, other countries such as England, Germany, and others are importing citizens from third-world countries in the name of "morality" and having their citizens terrorized and their government aide systems sucked dry.

So, when you think of someone as a "NAZI" who supports their own country's wellbeing and that of their fellow countrymen, ask yourself a question as to why you immediately get labeled with a derogatory name. We are on the edge of a very steep cliff right now, especially with many conservatives losing faith in the Republican Party for not truly being America First. America better do something fast to get back on track for its citizens and itself or I fear something bigger and scarier may be coming in our lifetimes. 

Christopher Turturro, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, is an HVAC mechanic and 

U.S. Air Force veteran.