A Liberal Writer Fails to Do the Work

Inspired by the anger she felt at the passing of her working-class grandfather, Disposable (America’s Contempt for the Underclass) by New York Magazine writer Sarah Jones, offers capsule summaries of the lives of several Americans and then accounts of their deaths from COVID. Focusing specifically on the lives of the working-class, minorities, the disabled and the aged, Jones draws these stories from interviews with family members of the deceased. She then uses these tales to illustrate what she sees as the systemic failings of America’s economic, political and healthcare systems, as well as—for a couple pages, at least—capitalism itself.