Shock waves are still rippling through the country over the NYC Democrat mayoral primary win of “socialist” (really, communist) Muslim radical candidate, Zohran Mamdani. His rise to the top of the party has been fueled in part by his promise to freeze rents in the city. Because, you know, there’s a…
HOUSING CRISIS!!!
In neighboring New Jersey, authorities are in the process of seizing a beloved local farm owned by the same family for 175 years. My colleague Sarah Anderson covered that horror story:
Back in April, Andy received a letter from the Cranbury Township Committee. It stated that if he didn't sell to the town for an "agreeable price," it would use eminent domain to take over the property to build "affordable housing units."
Chris spoke at a Cranbury Township Committee meeting last week, begging them not to take his family's property, but it didn't matter. Officials are going through with their plans to seize the land anyway. They say they will pay a "fair price" for it, but they do not care that the Henry family doesn't want to sell it and have turned down much higher offers than what the town will pay.
BREAKING: Cranberry, NJ to seize a 175 year old family farm to build affordable housing pic.twitter.com/5JPkeomTmP
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 13, 2025
Nor is the love of free (or at least, gubmint-subsidized and/or mandated) stuff — and the government's symbiotic will to power — limited to blue states. If you’ve ever been to Miami Beach in bright-red Florida, you’ve seen its famed Art Deco district. Now, imagine those historic works of architectural art torn down to make way for towering high rises — some as tall as 50 stories — packed with high-density apartments. Next, visualize the picturesque waterfront and white-sand beach completely swarmed with so many people — and the cars, dogs and their waste, litter, rats, and other blight that dense populations bring with them — that the charm of the beautiful location is obliterated forever. That's the scenario the vibrant and historic city is now up against.
This travesty is playing out across the country, in states red, blue, and purple. State legislatures, prodded by national and even trans-national organizations that purport to address the HOUSING CRISIS!!!, are passing laws designed to override local zoning authority in favor of empowering big developers to swoop in and save the masses from onerous housing costs. And whenever Democrats finagle control of the White House and/or Congress, they push it on a national level, too.
And housing is indeed expensive these days. How did that happen?
The short answer is: Democrats.
The HOUSING CRISIS!!! is the product of Democrat policies.
Enjoy this executive summary of the leftist policies, machinations, and agitations that got us where we are today.
Biden-era interest rates
The fallout from the Biden administration’s cascade of COVID cash is one of the biggest drivers behind this new expensive housing reality. We are still sifting through the wreckage from that inflation bomb; notably, high interest rates will be the reality for a long time to come.
Economist Jason Ward explains:
The market for buyers remains really tough because of the combination of high prices and high interest rates. For example, consider a $400,000 home (so, not in California or many other high-cost areas). If you made a 20 percent down payment and got a 3.5 percent interest rate, which was available as recently as perhaps late 2021, you'd have a monthly payment (principal and interest) of around $1,440. At an average rate today of around 6.5 percent, that same home would cost roughly $2,020 per month, or around 40 percent higher.
That math simply puts homeownership out of reach for a lot of people, depressing demand. This might lower prices if sellers had to meet buyers at prices where a transaction can occur, but many sellers have a low interest rate locked in, so they have chosen to stay put, reducing the supply of homes for sale. Because of this dynamic, price growth has only moderated in most markets, rather than prices actually coming down.
Thanks, Joe/President Autopen!
Democrat pro-crime policies
Who remembers this s**tshow in Minneapolis during the George Floyd Summer of Love?
"By Thursday morning, what had been an active construction site was reduced to a pile of smoldering ashes atop what was left of the concrete first-floor space."
— Brian Patrick Eha (@brianeha) May 29, 2020
The rioters in Minneapolis destroyed what could have been homes for 189 low-income families. https://t.co/dNLBU3IaEg pic.twitter.com/OPpsAnnRXb
As I watched that scene unfold on TV, I was sick for all the people who had worked so hard, fundraised, aligned resources and developers and permits, and given years of blood, sweat, and tears to create that nearly-completed, beautiful new building to house low-income people. What those rioters did to all that effort and investment was positively demonic.
Of course, that's an extreme example of Leftist shock troops directly destroying housing itself. More commonly, they simply make neighborhoods unlivable by driving out businesses — creating food and medicine deserts.
Here’s the intersection where the burned out husk of the Third Police Precinct in Minneapolis is located. It was the center of the rioting in June. Three months later, and not a single business on this corner is open — most are reduced to rubble. pic.twitter.com/eUev4LdIOO
— Nic Rowan (@NicXTempore) August 23, 2020
Eventually, any remaining residents are themselves driven out by untenable levels of crime, which are facilitated by blue city and state policies that tolerate (read: encourage) it.
America does not have an affordable housing problem
— Bennett's Phylactery (@extradeadjcb) June 20, 2025
We're swimming in housing with zero-to-negative economic value
America has a security problem https://t.co/DoYRqtwCLN
Mass immigration means more people competing for fewer homes
This is self-evident and follows the most basic economic law of supply and demand. Those extra 20 million (give or take) folks, some flush with gub'mint cash, are beating out the locals — in the rental market and even in the shelters.
Blue-state regulations and red tape
Leftists love to tell people what to do, and it always makes it harder for anyone to do anything. More from Ward:
However, in the states where affordable units are most critically low, like California, the costs of producing housing through the LIHTC program have risen dramatically. This is, in part, because of a raft of regulations around minimum unit sizes, architectural and energy-efficiency requirements, and restrictive labor standards.
Permissiveness and alternative lifestyles
The left has always been about tolerance celebration of alternative lifestyles, and unfortunately, the self-indulgent mantra of "If it feels good, do it" often wins out in the end. Drug legalization (and inevitable increased use), single-parent homes, socially encouraged mental illness, and more potential-sapping behaviors become the norm, robbing Americans of their earning ability and the stability required to pay mortgages or elevated rents.
Related: The Stage Is Set for a High-Profile Bellwether Election in New Jersey
Even though they broke it, Democrats want you to believe they’re the ones who can fix it.
We’ve all heard the political principle, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” Its lesser-known corollary is, “If you want to grab control of something, tip it into crisis.” From there, the media wing of the left takes over and whips up a frenzy — There’s a crisis! — resulting in the required public buy-in — The government should do something!
Thus, Democrats like NYC's Mamdani get to ride in on a white horse and "save the day" with new layers of spending, power, and control. When it comes to the HOUSING CRISIS!!!, this takes the form of state legislatures passing the afore-mentioned affordable housing mandates.
For Democrats, what’s not to love? These policies generate a plethora of political, professional, and personal benefits for them to rake in:
- Central planners in blue capital cities get to run roughshod over redder towns and rural areas, overruling their local control.
- Destroying local character and moving in dependents en masse is a diabolically effective way for the left to prosecute its war on the culture of suburbia and small towns.
- Democrats get to pack their voters into previously red and purple regions.
- Steering the mass-development bus involves tons of money — and plenty of ways to live well and get rich for unethical officials.
Affordable housing acts — like all socialist/communist schemes — promise to spread prosperity, but in reality, they spread dependence, decline, and dysfunction. For Democrats, the HOUSING CRISIS!!! is nothing but a way to aggregate more power, control, money, and cultural hedgemony. They have no reason to want to fix it in any meaningful sense.
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