Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Trump's plot to overthrow the election in full focus this week
Sarah Longwell/Atlantic:
The January 6 Hearings Are Changing Republicans’ Minds
GOP voters want political power. And they’re no longer sure Donald Trump is the best way to get it.
I conducted dozens of focus groups of Trump 2020 voters in the 17 months between the storming of the Capitol on January 6 and when the hearings began in June. One measure was consistent: At least half of the respondents in each group wanted Trump to run again in 2024. The prevailing belief was that the 2020 election was stolen—or at least unfair in some way—and Trump should get another shot.
But since June, I’ve observed a shift. I’ve conducted nine focus groups during this period, and found that only 14 percent of Trump 2020 voters wanted him to run in 2024, with a few others on the fence. In four of the groups, zero people wanted Trump to run again. Their reasoning is clear: They’re now uncertain that Trump can win again.
“He’s just too divisive and controversial,” a participant in Washington State said about Trump. “There are good candidates out there waiting to shine.”
Robinson Meyer/Atlantic:
Manchin and Schumer’s Astonishing Climate Deal
If passed, the energy provisions of the senators’ new bill would represent the most significant climate action in a generation.
But on climate and energy in particular, the bill is a landmark. It authorizes $369 billion of new climate spending, the largest investment in emissions reduction in American history—and, more important, the biggest blow against climate change ever struck by the U.S. government. “This is it. This is the real victory,” Sam Ricketts, a co-founder of Evergreen Action, a climate think tank, and a former adviser to Governor Jay Inslee of Washington State, told me. “I struggle to find enough superlatives to describe this deal.”
The legislation is so big, so multifaceted, that I don’t think it’s possible to summarize in this narrow space. But I will hit a few highlights that are crucial to understanding how the bill’s energy provisions work and what they could mean for the country and the world:
Adam Serwer/Atlantic:
Republicans’ Cowardly Excuses for Not Protecting Marriage Equality
There is absolutely no reason to believe that fundamental rights of same-sex couples are safe.
Republican senators such as Marco Rubio and Ben Sasse, as well as conservative outlets such as National Review, have insisted that the Respect for Marriage Act is unnecessary because there is no case currently on its way to the Supreme Court that has the potential to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the decision that recognized the right of same-sex couples to marry. Rubio said he would vote against the bill because it was a “waste of our time on a non-issue.” Sasse told reporters that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was “trying to divide America with culture wars. I think it’s just the same bullshit. She’s not an adult.”
This is nonsense. The majority reasoning in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overturned Roe v. Wade, is one that would invalidate Obergefell and allow states to destroy hundreds of thousands of families, notwithstanding the majority’s weak and insincere disclaimer that the decision applied only to abortion. In his concurrence, Justice Clarence Thomas took aim at Obergefell among other decisions as one granting rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, and therefore a decision that should be overturned. There is absolutely no reason to believe that fundamental rights of same-sex couples are safe. Conservative activists want Obergefell overturned, and will try to make it happen at the first opportunity, because they do not believe that same-sex couples should have the right to marry. Reassurances to the contrary are meaningless, because the same sources that say these rights are not now at risk said similar things about Roe. It is also political strategy: Because they know that repealing marriage equality is an unpopular position, they wish to deny what they are doing right up until the moment it becomes possible. Although no one can predict what the justices themselves will do with complete certainty, Republicans in Congress are now on record as overwhelmingly supportive of the agenda Thomas outlined and the society it would impose.
Liz Sly/WaPo:
Ukraine could be turning the tide of war again as Russian advances stall
The lack of progress may be explained at least in part by the “operational pause” declared by Russia’s Defense Ministry after the seizure of Lysychansk — to allow Russian troops a chance to “rest and develop their combat capabilities,” in the words of President Vladimir Putin.
But the so-called pause did not halt Russian attempts to probe and penetrate Ukrainian lines — and the official end of the pause, announced by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on July 16, has brought no noticeable increase in the intensity of Russia’s assaults, said George Barros, a geospatial and Russia analyst with the Institute for the Study of War.
What It Will Take For Lisa Murkowski To Win Reelection In Alaska
First, Murkowski’s approval rating has improved more than almost any other senator since President Biden took office. New survey data from Morning Consult found that 46 percent of Alaska registered voters approved of Murkowski in the second quarter of 2022, while 39 percent disapproved. This marked the first time Morning Consult had found Murkowski in net-positive territory during Biden’s presidency. The data also showed how Murkowski is an atypical politician: She had better ratings among those who identify with the opposing party than among her own. The survey found that 62 percent of Democrats approved of her, while 23 percent disapproved. By comparison, 41 percent of Republicans approved of her versus 46 percent who disapproved (she ran about even among independents). However, Murkowski still needs some GOP support in red-leaning Alaska to win, and she might be able to retain it: Those numbers among Republicans were much better than in the first quarter of 2021, when 76 percent of them disapproved of her.
Still, it’s not hard to see why Democrats now have a better opinion of Murkowski than Republicans do. Murkowski supports abortion rights, and she’s tallied a number of conservative apostasies in recent years, including her 2017 vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act and her vote to convict Trump in the impeachment trial following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The latter vote even led the Alaska GOP to censure her. Going back to 2010, her tea party-backed primary challenger, Joe Miller, cast her as a RINO — “Republican in name only” — and narrowly defeated her for renomination. But Murkowski bucked her party to mount a write-in campaign and, remarkably, won that November. (She also beat Miller in 2016, when he ran as a Libertarian.) So she’s overcome a stern intraparty challenge before, although it took an extraordinarily unusual campaign.
Caitlin Rivers, PhD/Substack:
A look at the CDC monkeypox technical report
Detailed epidemiological data now available!
I encourage a full review of the new U.S. report. The following highlights stood out to me:
Over 99% of cases are in men (or assigned male sex at birth), and 99% of cases are in men who have sex with men. This confirms that men who have sex with men are currently the primary population at risk, and that public health interventions (e.g., outreach, education, vaccination, treatment) should be tailored to them.
The mean incubation period was estimated at 7.6 days (CrI 6.2-9.7). with 95% of cases developing symptoms within 17.1 days. The time from exposure to rash onset is slightly longer, at 8.7 days (CrI 6.9-11.7). CDC has previously said that fever, lymphadenopathy and malaise are commonly reported before rash onset, so those may be the symptoms that patients are experiencing in the 2 days before the rash becomes apparent.
The median number of days between symptom onset and a positive test result was 8 days, which has remained stable or declined slightly over time. In my opinion, this is one of the most important findings of the report. Rapid diagnosis is critical for enabling public health interventions which are needed to break chains of transmission. A diagnosis is also what enables people who are affected to receive proper treatment. I am glad that CDC chose to report this important metric week by week so that trends can be assessed. Time to diagnosis can and should be reduced through education, case finding, accessible diagnostic testing, and quick turnaround times for lab results.
Sarah Gollust/Twitter:
New study in @JAMANetworkOpen led by @rtopazian @colleenlbarry & colleagues reports concerning finding that a growing percentage of U.S. adults said harassing or threatening public health officials over COVID-19 business closures was justified {thread}
Summary of their findings is here:In my accompanying commentary, I link these survey findings to reports elsewhere that strongly suggest these beliefs endorsing harassment translated to actions taken
Supporting the Public Health Workforce Elsewhere in JAMA Network Open, Topazian and colleagues1 report the striking finding that more than 1 in 5 US adults believe that harassing or threatening public health officials because of business c…https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2794794
