Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of June 28

Manchin and Sinema now face the weight of history: As Democrats attempt to convince them to more openly support the voting rights bill, many turn to future historical perception as a potential motivator

A neat article about the 2 "enlightened centrists" on the Democratic side of the Senate and the people pushing them to support more enthusiastically the new voting rights bill.

The battle over access to the ballot is entering a precarious new stage. Democrats and civil-rights groups are pursuing a two-track strategy to preserve their embattled hopes of passing federal legislation establishing a nationwide floor of voting rights. What happens next will likely determine whether Congress can act at all.

Advocates are betting that a combination of what might be called inside proof and outside pressure will yield their best chance of persuading the last Democratic holdouts to restrict use of the filibuster that Republicans employed on Tuesday to block consideration of the Democrats’ sweeping voting-rights and political-reform legislation.

The reason for that measured optimism, they say, is that Democrats believe the only way the party’s last holdouts will ever agree to reform the filibuster is if Republicans repeatedly deploy it to block key Democratic priorities, particularly on voting rights. From that perspective, the GOP filibuster Tuesday was not only an inevitable, but also an indispensable, step toward reformation. The only surprise was a positive one: that Manchin joined all the other Democrats in voting to open debate on the legislation.

The emerging Democratic strategy to revive the legislation places Manchin, and to some extent Sinema, in a central position. Although the voting-rights principles Manchin issued contained some obvious red flags for Democrats—in particular a provision mandating that every state adopt a voter-identification system—his proposal incorporated more Democratic priorities than many expected, including making Election Day a national holiday, mandating that all states provide early voting and automatic voter registration, and establishing new rules to prevent partisan gerrymandering.

Representative John Sarbanes of Maryland, one of the lead sponsors of the House version of the voting-rights bill, says the real impact of greater public engagement would be to raise the stakes in the choices Democratic senators face in the coming weeks. “What the public pressure is doing is conveying the historical dimension of this,” Sarbanes argues. “I think, ultimately, that’s what is going to land this plane—that people like Senator Sinema, Senator Manchin, and others are going to feel the pull and push of history here. They are going to begin to put it in that context, and no member of the Democratic caucus is going to want to be on the wrong side of this historic opportunity to repair and restore our democracy at a moment of great challenge.”

Americans are worried about crime, but that doesn’t mean they’re blaming Democrats

Another pollapalooza article by 538. This one's main focus is crime, although it has some segments on CRT, trans athletes, and some other things.

Rising murder, aggravated assault and auto theft rates have increased concern about crime among the American public. According to polling from YouGov/The Economist, the share of Americans who say crime is the most important issue facing America has increased since President Biden took office — to a greater degree than any issue except national security. Relatedly, a May 22-25 Fox News poll found that 73 percent of registered voters thought there was more crime nationwide than there was a year earlier. Only 17 percent thought there was less crime, and 7 percent thought the level of crime had stayed about the same.

Fewer, but still a majority, believed crime was up in their local area, too: 54 percent, compared with 28 percent who thought there was less crime in their area and 15 percent who thought it was about the same.

But at this point, it’s not really clear that the crime issue will hurt Democrats and anti-police progressives politically. For starters, Americans are actually pretty divided on what the best solution to stopping crime is. In a YouGov/Yahoo News poll from May 24-26, 32 percent of adults said that law enforcement is not tough enough on most offenders — but about the same amount, 27 percent, said law enforcement is too tough on most offenders.

[...] When asked whether Biden or former President Donald Trump has done a better job handling crime, 34 percent of respondents to the YouGov/Yahoo poll said Trump, while 32 percent said Biden. [...] that just bolsters the theory that crime isn’t an issue that’s changing anybody’s mind.

A new YouGov/CBS News poll found that adults believed, 60 percent to 40 percent, that transgender student athletes should play on the team of their sex assigned at birth. However, respondents who personally knew a transgender person believed they should play on the team that matches their gender identity, 55 percent to 45 percent.

Given the difference between the polling on this and something like gay marriage, I think this to some extent validates my guess that there is a large contingent of moderate conservatives and perhaps even among some to the left-of-center that are okay with LGB issues but oppose trans people.

According to YouGov, 73 percent of adults thought it was “very important” to vote in local elections. But in reality, nowhere near 73 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in local elections; for example, in this week’s New York City mayoral primary, only 18-20 percent of voting-age citizens cast ballots.