The Multiverse of What Could Have Been

Good morning, and welcome to Qualified at the Intersection. We're back to audio today, and I want to take us to the multiverse, an alternative timeline. In this version, it's not the Big Beautiful Bill that passed. It's the Build Back Better Act.

Does anybody remember that? I do.

So let’s talk about two bills, two versions of what America could have been, and what America may unfortunately become.

At the time, Joe Biden was President. We were coming out of COVID, and he had an idea for a transformative piece of legislation, a bill that would have profoundly changed this country. And not just theoretically. These were changes people seemed to genuinely need.

I remember working on a project related to child care at the time and thinking about the national implications. I was incredibly excited about Build Back Better. I thought, who would vote against it? How could it not pass? This was Biden’s signature piece of legislation. But I wasn’t counting on Joe Manchin from West Virginia or Kyrsten Sinema.

I think Sinema is from Arizona. I’d have to look it up, but honestly, I don’t care. I don’t care about that woman so much, I don’t even care where she’s from. These two make Lisa Murkowski look like a profile in courage. Not really, but you know what I mean.

So what was in the Build Back Better Act?

It was going to make historic investments in American families. Universal pre-K. Paid family leave. Affordable housing. Climate action. Support for working parents and caregivers. It was a once-in-a-generation attempt to rewrite who the government serves and who it supports. And it wasn’t the wealthy.

But that future didn’t happen.

And not because of the opposition party. It was vetoed by two people from Biden’s own party: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

Manchin called himself a Democrat and caucused with Democrats, but he never seemed like one to me. He was the senator from West Virginia, but it didn’t feel like he liked West Virginians very much. He seemed far more interested in supporting wealthy oil, coal, and gas interests than in serving the people of West Virginia.

There was an unproven story—never confirmed—but it tracks. It was alleged that Manchin was furious at the White House because someone leaked what he said about his own constituents. The story goes that he called them lazy and said they didn’t need help or money from the Build Back Better Act because they would just waste it.

I wasn’t in the room. I don’t know if he said it. But it sounds about right.

Because that is how wealthy, upper-class white people often speak about poor white people. And yes, he was talking about poor white people. West Virginia is home to generational white poverty, a reality this country refuses to acknowledge.

Build Back Better could have transformed the lives of the people he was elected to serve.

And Sinema? I don’t know what was going on with her. There are all kinds of allegations and theories, but what I know is that these two individuals sent us down the horror show path we are on today.

If Build Back Better had passed, the American people would have a more concrete understanding of what Democratic values mean. They would have seen Joe Biden's work reflected in their daily lives.

But Biden didn’t have the cult of personality that Donald Trump does. He didn’t have sycophants willing to sell their grandmother, their children, and their dog for him.

Manchin wasn’t protecting the economy. He was protecting fossil fuel interests, wealthy donors, and the status quo. He did not care about the people he represented. And yet he tried to spin it as saving the economy.

So what’s the difference between the Big Beautiful Bill and Build Back Better?

Build Back Better was over 2,000 pages of plans to lift people up.

Trump’s bill is anti-regulation, pro-corporate, pro-wealthy, anti-poor, and anti-democratic.

Here’s the contrast:

• Build Back Better would have created universal pre-K for three- and four-year-olds.
  Trump’s bill cuts funding to the Department of Education and threatens schools over DEI and LGBTQI inclusion.

• Build Back Better would have expanded child tax credits.
  Trump’s bill removes IRS enforcement mechanisms for top earners and corporations. This means wealthy people can more easily avoid taxes, while poor and working-class people—who are already audited more frequently—lose even more protection.

• Build Back Better would have delivered $500 billion in clean energy and climate investments.
  Trump’s bill blocks those efforts and prevents states from regulating AI for 10 years.

• Build Back Better included paid family and medical leave.
  Trump’s bill weakens civil rights protections in the workplace.

• Build Back Better would have subsidized child care for working families.
  Trump’s bill makes it easier for corporations to bypass labor and environmental protections.

• Build Back Better expanded affordable housing investment.
  Trump’s bill prioritizes extending tax cuts for the wealthy and slashing Medicaid and food assistance, based on lies about the poor, while ignoring how the wealthy exploit the system.

We gave all that up.

Because of two people: Manchin and Sinema.

President Biden tried to pass a bill designed to make our society fairer. It was killed by people who were supposed to be on his side. Climate investment was blocked. Civil rights protections dismantled. All because of two votes.

Now, the Big Beautiful Bill has passed the Senate thanks to Lisa Murkowski, a so-called centrist who always expresses concern but never acts. She helped deliver one of the most sweeping anti-DEI, anti-regulation, anti-worker bills in modern history.

There is an alternative timeline in which Trump is not elected again. In that timeline, Build Back Better passed. People felt the impact in their daily lives. Manchin’s constituents got the support they had needed for generations. And America moved forward.

One bill tried to build a better future. The other is designed to dismantle civil rights, oversight, state power, and punish the poor.

Both bills came down to one or two votes.

So ask yourself: what do we value more?

America doesn’t just live or die by its presidents. It lives or dies by its legislation. And yet, year after year, we struggle to get Americans to understand the critical importance of midterm elections.

What if there had been just two more Democratic senators in office? What if there had been just one more who voted against Trump’s bill?

These bills remind us that the midterms matter as much, if not more, than the presidential race.

So I want you to think about this multiverse, this alternate reality.

What would it have meant for your family if we had universal pre-K, expanded child tax credits, clean energy investments, paid family and medical leave, subsidized child care, and affordable housing?

What would it have meant for your friends, your grandparents, your children, your partners?

That was our chance.

And now, we face a different kind of reality. One that demands we fight like hell to stop this devastation. One that demands we turn our attention to the midterms with laser focus.

We need a tidal wave at the ballot box.

This was your multiverse tour. Now let’s get back to work.