Opinion Today

June 13, 2022

Is the World Better for Gay People Than It Was 10 Years Ago?
Justin McCarthy, Gallup
Half of the world's adults (50%) now say their city or area is a "good place" for gay or lesbian people to live -- a figure that has doubled over the past decade and represents a new high in Gallup World Poll's trend dating back to 2005. The latest figure, based on surveys in 110 countries and areas in 2021, reaffirms several other global studies that show acceptance appears to be growing across the world.

Americans agree on one thing: D.C. isn't getting the job done
Dante Chinni, NBC News
Poll after poll finds American voters are in a sour mood, believing the country is on the wrong track. But a new survey from the Pew Research Center shows a complicating factor: Voters on the left and right don’t feel very good about Washington’s ability to fix the situation.

Senate compromise on guns is a real breakthrough -- yet a tenuous and modest step
Stephen Collinson, CNN
Ten Republican senators appear ready to answer pleas from anguished relatives of recent mass shootings to "do something" by defying their own party's dogma on gun reforms. The group struck a deal with Democrats on Sunday that could lead to more spending on mental health care, school security, extra scrutiny of young gun buyers and incentives to states to temporarily confiscate weapons from those deemed a threat. But the fact that a set of measures that is so modest is on the verge of creating its own piece of history tells its own story about Congress' paralysis in the face of so much death.

K-12 Workers Have Highest Burnout Rate in U.S.
Stephanie Marken & Sangeeta Agrawal, Gallup
More than four in 10 K-12 workers in the U.S. (44%) say they "always" or "very often" feel burned out at work, outpacing all other industries nationally. College and university workers have the next-highest burnout level, at 35%, making educators among the most burned out groups in the U.S. workforce.

Donald Trump has become more popular since the January 6 Capitol attack
Harry Enten, CNN
Analysts like me remarked over and over again during Trump's time in office that he was one of, if not the most unpopular presidents. Today, Trump's polling position with Americans overall is one of his best, and he remains the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination. So just what happened to allow Trump to become less unpopular?

January 6th: past and prologue
G. Elliott Morris, Democracy by the Numbers
Partisans listen to their partisan opinion leaders. The GOP is doing little to nothing to stop another attack after 2022/2024.

Trump Is Still a Threat
Charles M. Blow, New York Times
The political system has proved too compromised by Trump’s own influence to hold Trump accountable. We must now wait to see if the Jan. 6 committee has the goods not to change the minds of voters, which feels increasingly like a lost cause, but to change the minds — or quicken the spirits — of prosecutors at the Department of Justice.

A 1955 book on right-wing extremists predicted the Jan. 6 attack
Theo Zenou (Cambridge), Washington Post [via opiniontoday.com]
The authors of the book “The New American Right” wrote that far-right activists who wrapped themselves in the American flag actually posed a grave threat to the country’s core principles. In the name of protecting U.S. democracy, they warned, the radical right would employ the language and methods of authoritarianism.

Vulnerable Dems run against Washington — and their party
Steve Peoples, Associated Press
Many of the nation’s most vulnerable Democrats are actively trying to distance themselves from Washington — and their party. Responding to deep frustration from voters who will decide their fate in November, Democratic candidates in swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Hampshire are railing against the institutions their party has managed for the last 16 months.

Pennsylvania: Oz had Trump’s endorsement, but didn’t win in Trump country
Dante Chinni, NBC News
The impact of Trump's endorsement of Oz has gotten a lot of attention in the wake of the primary. But a closer look at the results shows that Oz actually did not fare well in places where Trump scored big victories in 2020.

The shadow race is underway for the Republican presidential nomination
Michael Scherer, Josh Dawsey & Isaac Stanley-Becker, Washington Post
At least 15 potential 2024 candidates are traveling the country, huddling with donors or testing out messages — even if Trump runs

Should Biden Run in 2024? Democratic Whispers of ‘No’ Start to Rise.
Reid J. Epstein & Jennifer Medina, New York Times
In interviews, dozens of frustrated Democratic officials, members of Congress and voters expressed doubts about the president’s ability to rescue his reeling party and take the fight to Republicans.

The Most Important Study in the Abortion Debate
Annie Lowrey, The Atlantic [via opiniontoday.com]
The demographer Diana Greene Foster was in Orlando last month, preparing for the end of Roe v. Wade, when Politico published a leaked draft of a majority Supreme Court opinion striking down the landmark ruling. When Alito’s draft surfaced, Foster told me, “I was struck by how little it considered the people who would be affected. The experience of someone who’s pregnant when they do not want to be and what happens to their life is absolutely not considered in that document.” Foster’s earlier work provides detailed insight into what does happen. The landmark Turnaway Study, which she led, is a crystal ball into our post-Roe future and, I would argue, the single most important piece of academic research in American life at this moment.

Why America won't go metric
Harry Enten, CNN
America looked like it was on its way to joining the rest of the world back in December 1975. That's when President Gerald Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act into law. It declared metric "the preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce." There was just one big problem with the law. Everything was voluntary.

Watergate happened 50 years ago. Its legacies are still with us.
Dan Balz, Washington Post [via opiniontoday.com]
Trust in government was shattered and never recovered. Efforts at reform were successful and unsuccessful. Both political parties were affected, as was the practice of journalism. And then there was Trump.

How the Watergate scandal changed Washington
CBS Sunday Morning
Fifty years after the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at Washington's Watergate complex, we are still piecing together the story of a crime, and a coverup, that brought down a presidency. CBS News' Robert Costa talks with journalist Garrett Graff, author of "Watergate: A New History," about what we are still learning of a political tragedy, and in what ways the unfolding scandal has shaped Washington today.