Jess Lahitou

Everyone but Michael Moore underestimated the level of economic angst and cultural upheaval occurring in the Rust Belt, that collection of states forming a sloped capital “E” along the Great Lakes: Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania.

While watching the third Republican debate last night on CNBC, I thought to myself: Self, you’re going to have to write a straight review of this thing. The candidates are too wonky tonight to be caricatured, and even Donald Trump has reigned himself in significantly. The debate was billed as “Your Money, Your Vote,” and the questions hewed pretty close to the economy. Read: not many social-issues gaffe bait.

ICYMI, towards the close of last night’s final (handclap for that) presidential debate, Donald Trump lobbed an insult Clinton’s way.

Last week, I wrote about why Millennials face serious financial hurdles to independence. Today, I’m looking for 2016 POTUS candidates to throw us an economic-policy bone.

For the mental health of underprivileged victims of natural disaster, navigating the aftermath can be as much a struggle as surviving the original disaster.

I am hesitant to write anything that might tangentially help Donald Trump, because I think the man entirely unfit to be president.

What do you say? What do you say when the unthinkable happens?

As the headline article (“Anxiety, Depression and the American Adolescent”) points out, depression has been replaced with anxiety as the leading mental health struggle of today’s adolescent. The one possible cause that stood out to me most was the impact of social media. With smartphone in hand, teens can be reading harmless texts, or – as was the case for one young female interviewed – they could be viewing disturbing Instagram posts, or reading about distant tragedies, or scrolling through hateful Facebook comments. Maybe even comments about them.

The 2016 election has, for a while now, felt eerily akin to 1984 (lots ‘o doublespeak coming out of Trump and his supporters). Or The Hunger Games, to take a more recent example of dystopian genre fiction. Wherein, government becomes solely about politics and the media spectacle, rather than actual policies and ideas.

Throughout this long and increasingly nightmarish primary season, an argument emerged from Republican candidates who were routinely getting their butts handed to them by Donald Trump.