How the Watergate scandal changed Washington

· Leave a Comment

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.

CBS Sunday Morning

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

Americans agree on one thing: D.C. isn’t getting the job done

· Leave a Comment

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.

Pew has been measuring how Americans feel about Washington’s ability to make the right decisions for years and the general trend since 2000 has not been good.

There was a brief bump up in the public’s trust in government around the turn of the century, following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In October of 2001, 60 percent of Americans said they trusted government “to do what is right just about always or most of the time.”

That moment of rallying around the flag did not last, however. Since then, the number has largely slid downward until today where the figure is stuck in the basement. CONTINUED

Dante Chinni, NBC News

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

Watergate happened 50 years ago. Its legacies are still with us.

· Leave a Comment

On Friday, America will mark the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in. The scandal that riveted the nation and forced the resignation of a president is taught in schools as a dark chapter in history. It is more than that, however. Its legacies have shaped the conduct of politics and public attitudes toward government ever since.

Watergate, along with the Vietnam War, marked a dividing line between old and new, ushering in a changed landscape for politics and public life — from a period in which Americans trusted their government to a period in which that trust was broken and never truly restored. “It’s a hugely important historic moment,” said Julian Zelizer, a historian and professor at Princeton University. “And we entered a new era when it was over.” …

Those who have studied Watergate see a line that travels from that scandal to the Trump presidency. Part of this is because of the similarities between Nixon and Trump — the self-pitying nature of their personalities, the venality exhibited during their presidencies, the demonization of their opponents. …

Trump’s presidency can be seen as the culmination of what began with Watergate. Today is a time of heightened distrust in government, weakened institutions, a more polarized electorate, greater partisanship, a fractured and more politicized media, and a Republican Party with a stronger anti-government ideology and more ruthless in its approach. CONTINUED

Dan Balz, Washington Post

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

Oz had Trump’s endorsement, but didn’t win in Trump country

· Leave a Comment

After more than two weeks of counting and recounting in the Pennsylvania Republican Senate Primary, TV host and physician Mehmet Oz emerged victorious. But one analysis of the primary vote suggests the newly-minted GOP nominee may need to craft a different strategy for his fall campaign against Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D).

The impact of former President Donald 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. Moreover, he performed better in places in the state where Trump struggled. CONTINUED

Dante Chinni, NBC News

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

Donald Trump has become more popular since the January 6 Capitol attack

· Leave a Comment

… 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. He left office with the lowest approval rating of any president at the end of his first term (39%) and the highest disapproval rating (58%) thanks in part to a late swoon following the events of January 6, 2021.

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? The answer is probably simple: time. Trump is no longer the president. Americans’ memories tend to be very short. Issues that once seemed important (e.g., controlling the coronavirus pandemic) have sunk to the bottom of the priorities list for most voters, as new concerns arise (e.g., inflation). CONTINUED

Harry Enten, CNN

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

The Most Important Study in the Abortion Debate

· Leave a Comment

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. … Foster, the director of the Bixby Population Sciences Research Unit at UC San Francisco, was at a meeting of abortion providers, seeking their help recruiting people for a new study. …

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.

The legal and political debate about abortion in recent decades has tended to focus more on the rights and experience of embryos and fetuses than the people who gestate them. And some commentators—including ones seated on the Supreme Court—have speculated that termination is not just a cruel convenience, but one that harms women too. Foster and her colleagues rigorously tested that notion. Their research demonstrates that, in general, abortion does not wound women physically, psychologically, or financially. Carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term does. CONTINUED

Annie Lowrey, The Atlantic

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack