Vivek Murthy, Surgeon General under Biden, sounded the alarm in 2023. In a notable report, he described loneliness as a real epidemic, with effects comparable to fifteen cigarettes a day. Weakened immune system, increased cardiovascular pathologies, reduced life expectancy: the health consequences are multiple.
Three years later, under the Trump administration, the Surgeon General’s office remained silent on the subject. However, the data has not disappeared.
According to the latest Gallup surveys cited by the Wall Street Journal20% of Americans report not having a close friend. A figure that has almost doubled since 2003.
Isolationism of individuals
A disturbing parallel emerges between the foreign policy of Donald Trump and the sociology of contemporary America. “America First” appears less like a strategic doctrine than like the collective expression of withdrawal.
Rural and peri-urban areas, which overwhelmingly supported Trump in 2024, are also those where social ties have eroded the most in twenty years.
Deindustrialization has not only destroyed jobs. It also dismantled places of sociability: bowling clubs, local associations, parishes, amateur sports leagues. Robert Putnam already made this observation in Bowling Alone twenty-five years ago. This diagnosis became, in 2026, a structural reality.
Young men aged 18 to 35 are particularly affected. Mental health indicators show record levels of anxiety and depression, accompanied by increased distrust in institutions. It is also the group most exposed to conspiratorial content and closed digital communities.
Politics as a substitute for social ties
Donald Trump has seized a mechanism that his adversaries are still struggling to grasp: politics can compensate for the collapse of social bonds.
Meetings, feeling of belonging, designation of a common enemy: these sources recreate a form of cohesion that traditional structures no longer ensure.
Political polarization is no longer based solely on differences of ideas. It is anchored in a social reality: that of solitude.
We also vote to no longer be alone.
This logic, almost tribal, goes beyond the classic divisions between economic programs or diplomatic orientations.
Faced with this, the Democrats are trying to respond with social policies and a discourse on community. But they are mainly aimed at populations whose social ties remain relatively preserved: urban graduates, structured minorities.
Conversely, isolated America votes first for the one who puts words to its solitude, even if the solutions put forward do not resolve it.
