The New York Times editorial board, in one of those familiar “the party is doing it wrong” claims, declared Tuesday’s results “a sign that significant parts of the electorate are feeling leery of a sharp leftward push in the party, including on priorities like Build Back Better,” though Data for Progress reports that “With a +29-point margin, likely voters support the Build Back Better plan.
The editorial board of the New York Times is mostly known for its allegiance to Democratic donors, not voters. They would love nothing better than to position their losses as voter rejection of a "progressive" agenda to allow their candidates to move even closer to Republican ideology than they had before.
That +29 point margin favoring a rather (in US terms) radical agenda is not an outlier in Democratic leaning areas. It explains why Bernie gained such approval and drew huge crowds that then failed to show up after he was defeated in the heavily rigged Democratic primaries. People are mostly hurting economically and feel their government isn't doing enough to mitigate that.
They are also not so stupid as to believe that politicians such as Manchin are not influenced by deep pocket donors or that their suffering isn't intentional as a method to control labor demands for those donors. Stuck being tossed between the two parties as the only available options they are feeling less loyal to politicians who don't produce results and will continue to make wild swings between them in hope of finding some relief.
Voters aren't going to be tolerant of politics as usual going forward and no politician or party can count on support if they can't produce results. Biden entered his Presidency vowing to be "moderate", so he limited himself to what results Democratic donors approve of, which doesn't offer enough to be viewed by voters as effective, and then he allowed his fellow Democrats their own agendas from lack of leadership and direction.
If he can't pull his party together around an agenda voters can see as beneficial to them the conservatives in the party will win the day and not display sufficient distinction from Republicans to make it worth taking the time to vote. They will all die together on the petard of their own bad press that loves party infighting.
Winning in politics means selling your ideas in the public arena and Biden avoids the kind of deep dives into policy that requires. If he won't sell it, who else will? Should it be up to Bernie after having screwed him multiple times? That is not the way the "second FDR" would approach the Presidency.
