Opinion Today

June 11, 2022

Most Republicans and Democrats favor raising the age for owning a semi-automatic weapon
Kathy Frankovic, Linley Sanders & Taylor Orth, YouGov
On Wednesday, Democrats in the House passed gun-control legislation — along with the votes of five Republicans — that would raise the age for purchasing semi-automatic rifles, ban high-capacity magazines, and expand background checks. The latest Economist/YouGov poll shows bipartisan support for many of those proposals while finding that Republicans nationally do not support all of Democrats’ gun-control efforts.

Index of Consumer Sentiment
University of Michigan
Consumer sentiment declined by 14% from May, continuing a downward trend over the last year and reaching its lowest recorded value, comparable to the trough reached in the middle of the 1980 recession.

Four in five Americans see an economic recession as likely within the next year or already happening
Kathy Frankovic & Linley Sanders, YouGov
The latest Economist/YouGov poll, conducted June 4 - 7, 2022, shows that inflation continues to dominate many Americans’ concerns: 63% call it a very serious problem nationally.

How Do Americans View Higher Inflation?
Frank Newport, Gallup
Views of inflation as the top problem are accompanied by very negative overall economic confidence ratings.

Americans are divided over U.S. role globally and whether international engagement can solve problems
Laura Silver, Pew Research Center
Around half of U.S. adults (51%) say the U.S. should pay less attention to problems overseas and concentrate on problems at home, while nearly as many (48%) say it’s best for the future of the country to be active in world affairs.

Closing the book on a tumultuous year of schooling
Colyn Ritter, EdChoice
June is here, folks. For America’s parents, we hope this means it’s time to lay back, relax, and enjoy a well-earned vacation. For many, though, it means closing the book on a tumultuous year of schooling amidst a global pandemic. How do Americans feel about the past year, and how do they view the future? These are the questions we tried to answer with the May wave of our Monthly Public Opinion Tracker.

Proper Context
Clifford Young & Sarah Feldman, Ipsos
This week we are taking a step back and looking at the rest of the world, how anti-establishment opinion has held up during the pandemic, the main issues globally, and three case studies examining how these dynamics are playing out in elections.

Opinions About Cancel Culture Stem From Media
Grace Piotrowski & Sabrina Jacobs, Data for Progress
According to a new poll by Data for Progress, 74 percent of voters are aware of cancel culture, including 73 percent of Democrats, 76 percent of independents, and 72 percent of Republicans.

Minnesota: MinnPost poll shows majority support for stronger gun laws in the state following Uvalde massacre
Greta Kaul, MinnPost
A new MinnPost/Change Research poll found a sizable majority of Minnesota voters in support of stronger background checks for gun purchasers, for red flag laws that allow guns to be temporarily taken away from people who may be a danger to themselves or others, and for requiring gun buyers to be 21 or older. Support for other gun control measures was more tepid.

What Ordinary Republicans Think About January 6
David French, The Third Rail
The Trump coalition is broadly built on two categories of Republican voters—those who know exactly who Trump is and either don’t care about his flaws or love him precisely because he’s so pugilistic and cruel, and those who even now don’t know who he is and would very much care if they know the whole truth. It’s the latter group that can deny him a second bite at the presidential apple, and it’s the latter group that most needs to watch the January 6 hearings in prime time.

There’s a Reason the Watergate Hearings Were Explosive — and the Jan. 6 Hearings Won’t Be
Jeff Greenfield, Politico Magazine
Looming over Thursday’s event, and the hearings to follow, is one key fact: In the broadest sense, we know what happened. We may learn compelling details, and we may see a clear, coherent picture of what happened, but we know the sitting president of the United States oversaw an attempt to overturn an election and seize power the voters denied him.

The Other Cause of January 6
Kate Shaw, The Atlantic
The Electoral College today is dangerously susceptible to manipulation. Indeed, as 2020 showed, the complex process through which a candidate becomes president contains a number of postelection opportunities to contest or undermine the results of an election—and to do so for reasons purportedly having to do with law and legal process.

The Authoritarian Playbook
Protect Democracy
Our report, The Authoritarian Playbook: How reporters can contextualize and cover authoritarian threats as distinct from politics-as-usual outlines the seven fundamental tactics used by aspiring authoritarians, describes examples from in and outside the United States, and offers a framework journalists can use to differentiate between politics-as-usual and something more dangerous to democracy.

The California primary
Elaine Kamarck, Brookings Institution
What happened to the revolution?

Boudin and the Debacle of Urban Left-wing Politics
Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine
Why the left and liberals are fighting in the cities.

What Chesa Boudin Revealed About an Undemocratic Election System
Annie Lowrey, The Atlantic
This week, San Francisco voters recalled Chesa Boudin, the city’s district attorney and the face of the nationwide progressive-prosecutors movement. It was part of an underrecognized national trend: a boom in recall efforts across the country, targeting all kinds of officials, of all political stripes. That recall surge is due in no small part to voter anger at incumbent politicians and everything else. Yet it is also a symptom of a long-standing political disease.

Politico Paints Gen X as ‘Trumpiest Generation’—on Flimsiest Evidence
David W. Moore, FAIR
A recent Politico article (5/20/22) had the headline, “How Gen X Became the Trumpiest Generation.” Yet the article’s focus seems to be mostly on Iowa state Rep. Cherielynn (“Cherie”) Westrich, a former rock singer who got into politics at age 50 as a solid supporter of Donald Trump. Given her idiosyncratic, late-blooming political background, it’s a mystery why Politico tried to showcase Westrich as the poster child of her generation. But if that part of the article is dubious, its characterization of Gen X as the “Trumpiest generation” is even more questionable.

Congress is polarized. Fear of being ‘primaried’ is one reason.
Richard C. Barton (Cornell), Monkey Cage
As incumbents face more primary challenges from the extremes, expect a more gridlocked Congress, my research suggests

Military-style weapons get the star treatment in Hollywood
Dan Romer (Annenberg Public Policy Center), The Hill
Now that serious discussions are underway in Congress about how to reduce gun violence, it is time to consider a factor that is often ignored: Hollywood’s glorification of military-style firearms. Our team of researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania has documented the increasing use of firearms since the late 1980s — including military-style weapons — in movies and television shows available without restriction to children, namely, those with PG-13 and TV-14 ratings.

Leadership Lessons From an Expert
Poll Hub podcast, Marist Institute for Public Opinion
He's a doctor and an organizational leader. That gives Dr. Stanley Harris, author of The People Value Proposition: See one, Do one, Teach one... LEAD, A Physician's Journey to Leadership, a unique perspective on leadership, diversity, and inclusion. We speak with Dr. Harris to learn from one of the best. Then, we're going deep into the data in our powerful new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll on gun rights vs. gun reform.