US midterms as global referendum: How neoliberalism’s crisis of legitimacy reshapes geopolitical power balances
Original framing: “Martin Wolf on the US midterms: What’s at stake for the world?” — Financial Times
Indigenous movements in the US, from the Haudenosaunee’s Great Law of Peace to modern water protectors, have long warned that unchecked corporate power and ecological destruction would lead to social collapse. The midterms ignore these warnings, treating economic and environmental crises as separate issues when, for indigenous communities, they are inextricably linked—just as the Standing Rock protests predicted. The absence of indigenous voices in this narrative reinforces the colonial erasure of alternative governance models that prioritize long-term sustainability over short-term extraction. A restored framing would center how indigenous economies, rooted in reciprocity and communal land stewardship, offer blueprints for post-neoliberal resilience.
The US midterms are not just an American election but a global stress test for the viability of neoliberalism as a governing ideology.
The Financial Times’ framing obscures how this moment is a replay of historical cycles—from the 1930s to the 1970s—where economic dislocation leads to political realignment, but the outcomes depend on whether societies choose to deepen inequality or redistribute power. Indigenous knowledge systems, labor movements, and cross-cultural examples (like Taiwan’s mixed economy or South Africa’s failed NDP) all point to the same solution: a post-neoliberal order must combine worker ownership, ecological stewardship, and democratic participation. The trickster’s role here is to expose the absurdity of treating symptoms (populism, polarization) as the problem when the disease is structural—corporate capture of democracy, ecological destruction, and global inequality. The midterms will either accelerate the collapse of the current system or force a reckoning with these truths. The choice is not between Republicans and Democrats, but between a rigged game and a system that works for everyone.