Opinion Weekend
August 8-9, 2026
Some US progressive goals win support of independent voters, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds Joseph Ax and Jason Lange, Reuters Progressive Democratic proposals including "Medicare for all" and new taxes on billionaires have powered insurgent candidates including Abdul El-Sayed to primary victories this year, shaking the party establishment and leading it to worry about how Democrats will perform in November's midterm elections. But a Reuters/Ipsos poll concluded early this week found those ideas -- though by no means all of the progressive agenda -- are supported by independent voters who could be decisive in determining whether President Donald Trump's Republican Party maintains its congressional majorities for the next two years.
Progressives are most likely to say the political system needs "major, disruptive changes" G. Elliott Morris, Strength In Numbers And anti-system voters rate figures like Zohran Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez higher than mainstream Dems, even controlling for age and ideology
Short-Term Inflation Expectations Tick Down; Household Finance Expectations Improve The Federal Reserve Bank of New York The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data has released the July 2026 Survey of Consumer Expectations, which shows that households’ inflation expectations decreased slightly at the short-term horizon and remained unchanged at the medium- and longer-term horizons. Gas price growth expectations rebounded partially after their sharp decline in June.
Americans’ Surprising Bipartisan Acceptance of Gun Control Searchlight Institute Voters generally think it should be harder to own and use a gun but aren’t persuaded by politicized arguments.
Americans Feel Free Expression is Eroding Knight Foundation Just over half of Americans think of themselves as ‘very’ or ‘mostly’ free to express their political views without government interference or punishment today.
One in five US workers now delegates tasks to AI instead of other humans Caroline Falkman Olsson, Yafah Edelman and Amreeta Das, Epoch AI We surveyed 1,106 employed US adults about how they use AI for ten work tasks. For each task, we asked workers whether they use AI for the task, how much of the task AI performs, whether it now handles work previously delegated to someone else, whether AI has yielded time savings, and the extent to which they edited AI outputs.
What workers are saying about AI Clifford Young and Bernard Mendez, Ipsos When it comes to artificial intelligence in the workplace, workers are constantly told different stories about how the technology could reshape the future of work. AI might lead to a “white-collar bloodbath.” Or it might make human judgement more valuable than ever. AI might automate grunt work. Or it might turn once-loved jobs into something unrecognizable. The forecasted possibilities are endless. Thus, it should be no surprise that workers’ views of AI are complicated.
