Inside the bubble

I find the framing of this predictably terrible polling data about Trump’s massive upward redistribution of wealth amusing:

Congressional Republicans have a political problem with their signature legislative achievement of the second Trump era: People don’t know about it.

As we’ll see, it’s almost certainly a net positive for Republicans that more people haven’t heard about it. Upper-class tax cuts, huge cuts to Medicaid and SNAP — none of these things are popular!

A new POLITICO Poll finds that nearly half of Americans say they can’t explain the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — and those who can are much more likely to say it’s helped others, including the wealthy, but not them.

One in three said the megabill had hurt their bottom line, greater than the 8 percent who said it had been a big boost to their personal finances and 14 percent who said it offered some modest support.

It’s a frustrating situation for top Republicans, who rushed to finish off the tax cut package by the middle of last year in part to give them more time to plug the new law to voters, and have tried to rebrand it as the “Working Families Tax Cuts.”

But Americans see the megabill and tax cuts in general as helping the wealthy far more than the working class, according to the poll, conducted in July by the independent U.K.-based firm Public First. That’s a particular challenge in a midterm year where cost of living is voters’ top concern and as frustrations grow with rising prices and the Iran war.

And in a notable warning sign for Republicans, only around a quarter of people who voted for President Donald Trump believe the working class got substantial breaks from the tax law, signaling how low public opinion is of the bill among their own base.

“The best time for successfully framing and reinforcing the benefits of the One Big Beautiful Bill were in the initial three months after it passed,” said Kevin Madden, a longtime GOP communications strategist. “It’s just a challenge in this crowded issue environment to re-engage on legislation from last year.”

I guess political comms people have no choice but to think that “messaging” can get you out of anything, but it’s always massively overrated. A some point a dog is just a dog, and people will generally notice that they’re not getting any of the material benefits that you’re claiming they’re getting.