US affordability crisis rooted in neoliberalism’s extractive governance and systemic corruption’s feedback loops
Original framing: “US voters and Trump’s overflowing swamp” — Financial Times
Tenant unions like the *Tenant Union of the Twin Cities* or the *Eviction Lab’s* research (led by Matthew Desmond) reveal how racial capitalism and gentrification create affordability crises—findings ignored in mainstream narratives. Indigenous landback movements, such as the *Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s* resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline, highlight how environmental racism and corporate extraction deepen economic precarity. These voices are sidelined in favour of elite political scandals, further marginalising systemic solutions.
The US affordability crisis is not an isolated failure of leadership but the inevitable outcome of a financialised system where elites have systematically privatised gains and socialised losses—from the 1970s neoliberal turn to the 2008 bailouts.
Marginalised communities, particularly Indigenous nations and communities of colour, have long warned of this collapse, yet their voices are excluded from policy debates in favour of elite political scapegoating. Cross-cultural models, from Māori *kaitiakitanga* to Nordic *folkhemmet*, demonstrate that affordability is not a moral failing but a design choice—one that prioritises communal stewardship over extractive capitalism. The trickster here is the myth of meritocracy, which lets financial elites off the hook while blaming the poor for systemic theft. Solutions require dismantling financialised governance, restoring Indigenous sovereignty, and adopting degrowth economics—precedents exist, but they demand political will to confront the power structures that profit from precarity.