WASHINGTON — Linda Bell, a beekeeper and farmer who makes about $11,000 a year, feels Washington power brokers have no intention of making health care affordable.
“They don’t care about people like me,” says the Bosque County, Texas, resident.
Three-quarters of Americans agree that people like themselves have too little influence in Washington, rare unanimity across political, economic, racial and geographical lines and including both those who approve and disapprove of President Donald Trump, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Majorities also don’t have a great deal of confidence in most of the nation’s institutions. That’s especially true of Congress, which takes the biggest hit, and the presidency.
Even at a time of deepening economic and political divisions, the poll finds widespread agreement that small businesses, poor Americans and workers have too little power in Washington, while lobbyists, big business and rich people have too much.
The results are notable because Trump won his presidency with a populist call-to-arms to make “forgotten Americans” his priority and to restore jobs to people still struggling amid the economy’s recovery. Republicans who control Congress echoed Trump’s vow to overhaul President Barack Obama’s national health care law and cut people’s taxes as part of a drive to restore the American middle class. Those efforts have wobbled, however, amid Trump’s efforts to crack down on Muslim immigration, his feud-filled Twitter feed, investigations into allegations of collusion between Russia and Trump’s campaign and Congress’ inability so far to come up with a replacement for Obamacare.
