I don't think objective standards of living are the point of the article. That's a deflection.
The point here is that much of the populace is hostile toward each other and the resulting stress will cause more people to develop health problems.
Also, the average life expectancy for ppl has been increasing like crazy
in 1950 the world average was only 48 years old... in 2014 that increased to 71.5
science/health care has improved so much that ppl are able to stay alive longer. however what that does is increase a number of health problems that ppl didn't have to deal with before like we are seeing today.
the leading causes of death are usually things that we see in older ppl, such as cancer, heart disease, respiratory diseases, etc.
where as less than 100 years ago the leading causes of death were things like influenza, pneumonia, tuberculosis, cholera, malaria, etc.
but now we don't really have to worry about those things, ppl staying alive longer, so we re now seeing a whole new problem that science is dealing with now.
the thing is , there was ALWAYS stress throughout history, ppl making this "wave of hostility under Trump" thing seem unique, where it is really kind of mild when you look at things historically, but why bother with that when you can just make click bait articles right?