Carolina Arteaga's 'Ingenious' Research on the Opioid Crisis Featured in The New Yorker
Together with Victoria Barone, FOS Affiliate Carolina Arteaga explores how opioid marketing amplified economic and political divides in the U.S.
When I spoke with Arteaga and Barone, via Zoom, on Thursday afternoon, Arteaga said, “It was not obvious that the opioid epidemic would favor the Republicans.” In surveys through the years, people did not especially blame either party for the epidemic. Even so, she thought there might be two reasons that the most affected areas had tilted so clearly to the G.O.P. “The first,” she said, “and I don’t think this would have happened without trade, was that the economic hardship of mostly white working-class Americans became something that was very important to the Republican Party.” The second reason was simpler. “Conservative media talked about this more,” Arteaga said.