Trump's Surgeon General Must Continue the Fight Against Loneliness
The office of the U.S. Surgeon General is now vacant . Dr. Vivek Murthy - who served under Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden - has left his post as Surgeon General. His time there, however, has been hugely consequential. Murthy's leadership and passion for the job will be hard to match. Through his and his team's research - especially the now famous 2023 report declaring a national loneliness epidemic - Murthy has reminded the American people of the importance of social connection. Many of you will remember this line from the aforementioned report: "The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day..." To my surprise, even lay people, who are largely disconnected from politics, recall something about this. This report unleashed an avalanche of articles on the subject of loneliness and social isolation. While I started writing about communitarianism and civil society in 202...