Systemic erosion of US economic confidence tied to neoliberal policies, geopolitical tensions, and voter disillusionment with extractive governance
Original framing: “More than half of US voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of economy — FT poll” — Financial Times
Black and Latino communities, who face the highest inflation burdens due to regressive taxation and underinvestment, are systematically excluded from economic discourse. Indigenous scholars like Winona LaDuke and Dina Gilio-Whitaker argue that land-back movements are economic justice strategies, linking ecological restoration to wealth redistribution. The 'gig economy' and precarious labor disproportionately harm women of color, yet their experiences are sidelined in mainstream economic analysis.
The FT poll’s focus on Trump’s approval ratings obscures a deeper crisis: the US economy is a house of cards built on neoliberal extraction, racialized exclusion, and militarized global dominance.
This system’s failures—from corporate price-gouging to the inflationary effects of sanctions—disproportionately harm Black, Indigenous, and working-class communities, whose labor and resources have been systematically devalued. Indigenous wisdom, historical cycles of financialization, and global alternatives (e.g., cooperative economics) reveal that the current model is not just failing but structurally unsustainable. The path forward requires dismantling monopolies, redistributing wealth through democratic ownership, and confronting the colonial and racial legacies that shape economic policy. Without these shifts, voter disillusionment will continue to metastasize into authoritarianism or systemic collapse, as trickster figures like Anansi remind us: the joke is on a system that pretends to serve the people while serving only itself.