Above: FDR statue, at the FDR Memorial in Washington, DC. Photo by Carol Highsmith and provided courtesy of the Library of Congress.
The misery that has been imposed upon us, and the New Deal solution that we've pathologically rejected
In a recent Facebook post, a parent noted his/her financial struggles, and how there did not seem to be any help or hope of escaping from it: "I’m struggling deeply. I feel overwhelmed by constant financial pressure, and I’m lost. I don’t have resources to fall back on, and I don’t know where to turn. There are millionaires and billionaires in this world, yet I can’t seem to get any kind of help. Charities exist, government programs exist, but they feel unreachable. Assistance is based on gross income, not on what’s actually left after garnishments and bills. On paper, I look like I should be okay but in real life, I’m barely surviving."
This person is not alone. Financial misery and desperation is widespread in the United States. The news site MarketWatch frequently surveys and reports on issues related to financial stress. Consider these headlines:
"Most Americans can’t afford life anymore — and they just don’t matter to the economy like they once did," March 7, 2025.
"Financial Stress Survey: 65% of Americans Say Finances Are Their Biggest Source of Stress," July 11, 2025. (In this article, we learn that "About 41% agreed [with the statement] that 'my finances have destroyed my mental health,' and a majority (57%) said they feel they have to 'choose between prioritizing' their finances or their mental health...")
"NFCC Reveals Financial Strain is the New Normal for American Households," November 19, 2025.
"One in five Americans can’t afford their heating bills this winter as people are blindsided by utility costs," January 23, 2026.
And of course, it's not just MarketWatch reporting on the financial misery of Americans:
"Rich People Don’t Just Live Longer. They Also Get More Healthy Years." New York Times, January 16, 2020.
"Around half of older Americans can’t afford essential expenses: report," The Hill, July 25, 2022.
"Poverty is the 4th greatest cause of U.S. deaths," University of California, Riverside, April 17, 2023.
"Healthcare Insights: How Medical Debt Is Crushing 100 Million Americans," ILR Scheinman Institute, Cornell University, October 21, 2024.
"Most Americans can't afford a $1,000 emergency expense, report finds," CBS News, January 23, 2025.
"In every corner of the country, the middle class struggles with affordability," Brookings Institute, December 2, 2025.
"‘We spent $10,000 in four months’: how an emergency car repair can gut a US family’s finances: A $1,000 fix is out of reach for many Americans – and so is good public transportation," The Guardian, December 20, 2025.
At the same time that working-class Americans are getting financially pummeled, and dying prematurely due to the problems associated with poverty, the wealthiest Americans are getting richer and richer and richer. Forbes reports: "Tariffs. Inflation. Slowing employment. None of it has hit the fortunes of America’s billionaires. The 400 richest people in the U.S. are worth a record $6.6 trillion after getting $1.2 trillion richer over the past year amid surging stock markets and AI mania."
And we know that the super-rich, by and large, are not spending their days contemplating how to help alleviate the struggles of the working-class (recall that Facebook post above). No, what they're doing instead is hoarding wealth and seeking ever-greater and more "sustainable luxury."
FDR famously said, "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."
America has utterly failed that test of progress.
We could expand Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; we could enhance union participation (which in turn enhances wages and benefits); we could tax the super-rich at much higher rates. In other words, we could do more of the things that the New Deal did or facilitated in decades past - things that created the world's greatest middle-class and breathed life into both the General Welfare clause of the Constitution and the American Dream itself.
But we won't do those things. Our politics, media, and voters are so jacked up on culture wars--e.g., the Democrats' obsession with identity politics, MAGA's rabies-like anger over diversity, equity, and inclusion, and Fox News and its ilk profiting off cultural hate and dysfunction--that we (collectively speaking) are willing to let ourselves be economically bludgeoned to death by the financial elite.
And make no mistake about it: This is exactly what the super-wealthy want, especially those on the right. They want us so bound up in anger and hate towards one another that we have no energy or attention left to combat their gluttonous and homicidal greed. They want us foaming at the mouth and fighting against each other over matters of immigration, LGBTQ, and guns - and not on matters of economic fairness. And we have dutifully and stupidly obliged them. This is why, for example, you see a majority of Republican voters in support of Social Security and tax increases on the rich, but consistently voting for politicians who attack those policies. They're voting on cultural issues, not on enhancing Social Security, and not on increasing inheritance taxes on billionaires and their nepo babies - nepo babies who will one day lord over us with increasingly vicious actions and public policy.
In sum, Americans across the political spectrum are getting financially beaten to death; and they agree on many of the economic policies that would help them avoid the beating. But they can't come together for candidate selection and voting because the super-wealthy have them enlisted in the Great Culture War. They're dying on the economic battlefield--one financial wretch slaying another--as their wealthy puppet masters giggle from above.
