Parts of these cities worse off than the third world? Have you been to a third world country? Or Seattle, for that matter?

The commonly scapegoated cities in the United States are not experiencing third world conditions. Appalachia is experiencing third world conditions. Hollowed out rust belt cities in the Midwest are experiencing third world conditions. These areas are not run by lefty politicians. The United States has a systemic problem, not a local one.

And yes, the systemic problem is that there are a tiny number of ultra wealthy people with wildly outsized influence on the government of the United States, doing everything they can to reduce the amount they need to pay in taxes while simultaneously ensuring they extract the maximum amount of profit from the US government's wildly excessive expenditures.