A Year After Withdrawal, 50% Call Afghanistan War a Mistake

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One year after the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, 50% of Americans say the U.S. made a mistake in sending troops to the country, while 46% say it did not. This close division of views is similar to two readings last year — one taken before the withdrawal was complete and one afterward — as well as in February 2014. At all other times since the start of the war in 2001, a majority of Americans thought that going to Afghanistan was not a mistake. CONTINUED

Megan Brenan, Gallup

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Democratic enthusiasm surges at polls after SCOTUS abortion ruling

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Abortion bans in GOP-controlled states have sparked a surge of Democratic enthusiasm at the polls, says Chuck Todd. Since the Dobbs decision, Democrats have topped President Joe Biden’s 2020 performance in four special elections.

Meet the Press, NBC News

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Republican voters continue to view Trump as the party’s leader

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Less than three months from the midterm elections, a new USA Today/Ipsos poll finds that former President Trump continues to be seen as the head of the Republican party, as a majority of Republican voters believe that he can win the next presidential election and should be the party’s nominee in 2024. In contrast, Democratic voters are less enthusiastic about President Biden, and a slim majority believe he should not run for re-election in 2024. In the wake of the Inflation Reduction Act’s passage, the American public gives the Democratic Party an advantage over the Republican Party on the ability to push their agenda through Washington. However, the GOP holds the advantage on being good for the economy, at a time when inflation/increasing costs are the single most important issue to Americans. CONTINUED

Mallory Newall & Johnny Sawyer, Ipsos

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What do voters want in 2024? Democrats want a unifier, Republicans want a fighter

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It’s not just that Democratic and Republican voters disagree about who should be the next president. A new USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds they also have different visions of the crucial characteristics to do the job.

Democratic voters say they want most of all a unifier who will focus on bringing the country together and finding compromises, while Republican voters value first and foremost a fighter who will battle on behalf of “the freedom and dignity of all Americans.”

Partisans on both sides do want this: a nominee who can win. CONTINUED

Susan Page & Ella Lee, USA Today

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What I Learned About Media Rage After Getting Fired From Fox

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… As a journalist, I believe that what is wrong with my vocation and the industry in which I work is harming Americans left, right and center. Major players in the news business are abusing their privileges and shirking their duties, and we all pay the price. The agenda at many outlets is to move away from even aspirational fairness and balance and toward shared anger and the powerful emotional connections it can create.

Unable to sell large, diverse audiences to advertisers, news outlets increasingly focus on developing highly habituated users. To cultivate the kind of intense readers, viewers or listeners necessary to make the addiction model profitable, media companies need consumers to have strong feelings. Fear, resentment and anger work wonders. It helps news outlets create deep emotional connections to users not just as users of a product, but as members of the same tribe.

Reporters increasingly disdain the old virtues of fairness and balance as “bothsidesism,” reimagining the ancient vice of bias as something honorable. Opinion pages become more homogeneous. Story selections become more predictable. Most ominously, post-journalism produces stifling groupthink inside news organizations and serious consequences for journalists who dissent. CONTINUED

Chris Stirewalt (American Enterprise Institute), Politico Magazine

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Smoking weed is now more popular than smoking tobacco

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“It’s the economy, stupid,” Democratic operative James Carville once famously noted. Usually, that assertion holds when it comes to elections. But as we have seen from the changing political tides since Roe v. Wade was overturned, sometimes the economy takes a back seat to social issues.

Abortion, though, won’t be the only major social issue on voters’ minds this year. Marijuana legalization is on the ballot in a number of states, including Arkansas, Maryland and Missouri.

The chance for voters to decide whether weed should be legal comes at a time when newly released polling suggests cannabis is more popular than ever. CONTINUED

Harry Enten, CNN

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