Nobody is claiming owning your residence is a basic right. We're talking about long term goals that you spend your professional life (read also: youth) working diligently towards.

If the average person/family cannot work hard, save, and purchase their own safe, comfortable, living accommodations, the implication is that the landowning class will forever co-opt an increasing percentage of the economic surplus for one of the most essential goods - shelter. There is only so much adequately zoned land, and so much housing on that land. Populations, and increasing, and therefore so is demand.

You are absolutely welcome to forego property ownership if you like. There are many benefits in terms of flexibility (e.g. ability to quickly move somewhere else). But this is typically not an economically advantageous move in the long term if you're staying rooted in one place. And having dealt with toxic, abusive landlords, there is an understated element of psychological safety to ownership.

We're not just talking about big cities. We're talking about suburbs too, and even more "rural" areas that are still within a few hours of a city. Essentially where 90+% of the population actually lives.

This is not a first-world-tech-bro complaint. It is a genuine economic problem for us that affects the vast majority of people who live here, and therefore the country as-a-whole.

People would not have voted for a moronic despot had he not been promising what they've all been asking for - a radical reshaping of the system that hasn't been working for the vast majority. People cannot afford the American dream that they were promised, and they are angry about it.

> We're talking about suburbs too, and even more "rural" areas that are still within a few hours of a city. Essentially where 90+% of the population actually lives.

Majority lives in urban areas.