I am afraid you did, in fact, read that right. The United States of America, arguably the most successful and wealthiest nation to ever exist, has officially experienced its greatest loss to life expectancy since one of the most brutal wars to ever take place. The study, presented by NBC news, came as no real shock to people who had been paying attention to the decrease in quality of life that had been going on in America for some time now. The 2007 housing crisis combined with the 1999 tech boom, severe climate change, cuts to disability and food stamps programs, along with the anti-immigrant rhetoric of Trump, which caused job loss in the tourism sector and finally the Covid-19 pandemic were just too much for America to handle. This calls into question our claim to be the greatest nation in the world. I am not saying that this nation is not redeemable; it certainly is. But we have some very hard work to do to whip it back into shape. Progressive policies are not hated like many people claim. Programs like Medicare for All, though lampooned by establishment democrats and anti-Trump establishment republicans alike, remain extremely popular with the American people, with a whopping seventy two percent in support of it! Desiring to live in a world where you get to see your kids well into their thirties or forties is not socialism; it is the desired result for all of us. And no, we do not have to tax the middle class to make this happen. We all know who is not paying taxes; the middle class have paid their share and it is now time for the wealthy to give back to this country, the country they helped destroy with pollution and greed. Medicare for all is not some pipe dream that only college students have. The prior administrations have been lacking in healthcare reform. Many people remain uncovered through no fault of their own, unable to find a job with high enough wages to pay for both adequate health coverage and rising housing costs, not to mention groceries and job loss from the pandemic. It is a bit infantile for these businesses to expect people to flock back to work in such conditions, that they can just switch us on and off like machines. Can we really be expected to do so when no one will see to our repairs? If we are to be treated as machinery, we should at least receive the proper nuts and bolts. Medicare for all will help to solve the mental health crisis, along with the addiction crisis that is spreading with harmful drugs like fentanyl, along with the obesity epidemic. All of the aforementioned problems need addressing and there is no evidence that doctors will be in great demand once the pandemic has finally ended. In fact, doctors' salaries have decreased overall over the last few years. Combine that with an aging population and you really do have a recipe for disaster: a lot of elderly people to care with very few qualified health professionals. This really is a ticking time bomb because the birth rate is also rapidly decreasing in this nation. It is obviously time for us to rise to the occasion here; we must offer bold, new solutions to these old problems. We cannot keep working with people who are hostile to this nations to achieve our goal. We cannot allow the cold hearts of stone age party politics to dominate the narrative. We must be firm and we must hold fast if we want real, substantive change. We must continue to drill into the heads of these people who view themselves as our masters that we are not owned by the Koch Brothers or by Fannie Mae or by Goldman Sachs. This is America, not some corporation to be invested in and subsequently crashed. We cannot continue on an all too familiar downward spiral. It is time to embrace the future instead of living in the past. On certain issues it is not about political ideology, but human decency. I know you may not like Bernie Sanders, but is the dislike of this man worth the death of a friend or family member? What are we trying to prove here and to whom?