The latest NPR/Marist poll, not to mention their very own recent experience, should make Democratic lawmakers and President Joe Biden reconsider their approach to Build Back Better (BBB) and the programs in it that will be most popular. Right now, just 42% of people think that BBB will help them—69% of Democrats, 36% of independents, less than 20% of Republicans. If Democrats are counting on this bill to help them in the 2022 midterms and even in 2024, they need to think hard about making some changes in the bill—namely, when the good stuff gets rolled out. Yes, a big part of the problem is how the traditional media has been reporting the story. There is a lot of stuff in the bill that will help every segment of society but the super rich, while the media keeps calling it a “safety net” bill. Even if the bill finally makes it through the Sen. Joe Manchin blockade primarily intact—and Republicans are making that more and more unlikely by abetting his sabotage—many of the programs that are going to benefit most of the people don’t kick in until as long as 2025. That’s not going to make the bill immediately and overwhelmingly popular by next November. Congressional Democrats, and Biden, have been here before, and relatively recently. The Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, but most of its popular provisions didn’t kick in until 2013 and 2014. The Republicans spent those years—and the next several—pounding against the law, keeping it unpopular, and setting Democrats up for the midterm losses in 2010 and 2014. The real threat to the law—and the potential of loss of important things like protections for people with preexisting conditions—didn’t really sink in with the majority of voters until 2018. Read more