New essay by Fair Share America Executive Director Kristen Crowell exposes how shame fuels billionaire power—and how breaking it can reshape public policy.
Washington, D.C. — In a new essay published by the Roosevelt Institute, “Billionaires Want You to Blame Yourself. We Win When We Stop,” Fair Share America Executive Director Kristen Crowell argues that personal shame—not personal failure—is one of the most powerful tools sustaining today’s billionaire-first economy.
Drawing from her own lived experience with medical debt and foreclosure, as well as more than 55 public town halls in 17 states during Fair Share America’s Stop the Billionaire Giveaway bus tour last year, Crowell makes the case that economic hardship is overwhelmingly the result of deliberate and systemic policy choices—not individual shortcomings.
“For too long, Americans have been taught to internalize shame for struggles that were engineered by public policy,” Crowell writes. “That shame isolates us, silences us, and protects the billionaire class from accountability… ‘I should have done better. I wish this wasn’t happening to me.’ That apology is the most devastating lie our political culture has ever sold.”
The essay details stories shared by parents skipping meals so their children can eat, seniors watching grocery costs outpace Social Security checks, and families forced to choose between rent and medicine—all while corporations and billionaires benefit from tax breaks, subsidies, and cuts to essential public programs under the Trump administration’s reconciliation bill.
Crowell argues that breaking the silence around these experiences is not only personally liberating, but politically transformative.
“Once people realize their struggle isn’t unique—that it’s structural—everything changes,” Crowell writes. “They stop asking, ‘What did I do wrong?’ and start asking, ‘Why is the system designed this way?’ That shift is where real power begins.”
The essay calls for a new approach to policymaking—one rooted in lived experience rather than abstract economic theory—and urges leaders and advocates to reject narratives of scarcity, dependency, and individual blame in favor of dignity, solidarity, and shared prosperity. Policy experts such as Roosevelt Institute President Elizabeth Wilkins made a similar appeal during a panel discussion at a Fair Share America convening last fall.
“The future of effective policymaking won’t be built in boardrooms,” Crowell concludes. “It will be built in church basements, community centers, and circles of chairs—by people who no longer believe their suffering is a personal flaw and who know, together, that they have the power to change the systems that caused it.”
Read the full essay: Billionaires Want You to Blame Yourself. We Win When We Stop.
###
Fair Share America is at the forefront of the fight for tax justice and public investment across the country—mobilizing communities, challenging power, and helping to shape the national narrative from the states. Learn more on our website: www.fairshareusa.org/.
