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Those early moments of the focus groups were a taste of the unexpected, illuminating and nuanced opinions that surfaced over the course of the discussions, which weve published today as edited transcripts (along with video clips). By using roughly the same questions for each group, we saw some of the predictable partisan divides, but also some overlap: Not only Republicans, but Democrats had some empathy for some of the Americans who stormed the Capitol, seeing them ordinarily as people who had real, understandable frustrations with the system. The rioters took it too far, but their frustrations, with the parties, with Washington, seemed recognizable to some of the Democrats, as my colleague Laura Reston pointed out.

These focus groups are the first in a new series by Times Opinion: We want to explore the views of Americans on the most critical and urgent questions and issues of the moment. While we publish dozens of guest essays and columns a week by experts and veteran writers, we also wanted to find new ways to explore and hear the opinions of wider cross sections of Americans. The focus groups are one small way to listen to the unfiltered voices of people talking about how they see America and its future, and to expand the role of commentary and opinion journalism to include voters who often feel voiceless in the national conversation.

We wanted to kick off the focus groups with a discussion of the health of American democracy, a core priority for Times Opinion and a subject explored with great depth in several guest essays this week about Jan. 6. Rather than hold one focus group featuring just Democrats or Republicans (generally, Ive learned, focus groups dont mix them!), we decided to hold two groups to be able to hear from members of both parties. The firms of Omero and Soltis Anderson oversaw the selection of the participants, striving for a diverse mix that reflected the makeup of the parties. The Times paid Omero and Soltis Anderson to organize and lead these focus groups; they do similar work for political candidates, parties and interest groups.

There were plenty of divisions: The Democrats largely rated the health of our democracy as in critical condition, while the Republicans veered largely between poor and fair. Several Democrats were focused on blaming the system of government and politics in America for the state of democracy and the events of Jan. 6., and there was strong hunger among them for radical change amendments to the Constitution, the abolition of the Electoral College, more term limits, lobbying reform. For some Republicans, the threat to democracy came more from government mandates and guidance on Covid-19, and an unfounded claim that Democrats would use the pandemic to push for more mail-in voting in 2024.

But there was also dissatisfaction with their own party leaders.

Republicans were frustrated with G.O.P. officials whom they viewed as driven purely by self-interest. Several Republicans were willing to criticize Donald Trump, but they did not like the shows of disloyalty by his cabinet members and allies who publicly criticized him. And, as Soltis Anderson noted, some Republicans argued that the rioters were separate from the Stop the Steal protesters on Jan. 6. (Trumps people dont act like that, one Republican said of the rioters.)

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Opinion | What Democratic and Republican Voters Really Think About the State of America - The New York Times

Alicia Preston Xanthopoulos| Columnist

Former Chief Justice John Broderick is one of the smartest, kindest, thoughtful gentlemen our state is graced with and his recent words in this paper are something we should all read and take heed.

While I may not agree with every assertion in Make no mistake. America is broken., it is something to consider thoughtfully, as he clearly did while penning his opinion on the state of American discourse and our democracy.

Justice Broderick poses several questions and Id like to take a stab at answering two of them. Where are the Republican voices with the courage to speak up? Why are so many good Republicans remaining silent or objecting only in whispers or among a small circle of safe friends? While he may have been referring to our elected Republican leaders, let me answer from the perspective of a regular Republican folk. The answer is quite simple: We've been silenced.

More: Broderick: Make no mistake. America is broken.

The vast majority of we Republicans, and it is the majority of us, love our country, our democracy and dont demonize the opposition. We have friends on both sides of the political aisle and we are dismayed at the current discourse from the fringe of the Grand Ole Party. But, anytime we discuss it, we get attacked, ferociously and not just from our own side.

I expect extremists in my party to get angry when we call them out for being extremists, but, we get arrows shot at us from every angle.Ive been vocal about my thoughts on the Insurrection, and I believe it was indeed an Insurrection, and Ive been told by those on the rabid left, too little too late. Ive been told the fact Im still a Republican shows complacency for everything Trump may have done or saidit is a silent support of the violent acts of those at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to not leave the Republican Party. No words are strong enough, no sentences long enough, to be simply enough to appease those that actually agree with you on certain topics, if you are members of different political parties.

If I put hypocrite or hypocrisy into the search bar at the top of the email account attached to this column, I get literally dozens of past emails sent to me responding to something Ive writtenalmost every single one of them is in response to a time I disagreed with or condemned something done by my own party, or members of it. Every time in that instance, it is by a self proclaimed liberal or Democrat who is the sender.

The reality is, while Justice Broderick is authentic in his seeking for Republicans to rally against the unAmerican acts of perpetuating The Big Lie or not calling out Jan.6 and its participants and motive, the vocal Democrats on the far left are not. They don't want us to speak out as Republicans, they simply want us to become Democrats. The problem is, being a member of a political party is not like joining a social club. Im not a Republican to have cocktails with friends. Im a Republican because I believe in conservative principals and a free market and I am not responsible for every word or act of others in my party any more than Democrats are responsible for every word or deed of theirs.

More from Alicia Preston Xanthopoulos: Beautiful memories, an ugly lamp and a beloved uncle

So, to answer your question, Justice Broderick, why do so many of us stay quiet when sometimes we want to scream at the top of our lungs for the world to hear? Because, it's not worth it, man.

Life and we should all know this more than ever before is simply too short to keep walking into the wolves den, particularly when every known breed of wolf is laying in wait. The country is just too angry.So, we stay quiet, at least more than wed like to. More than we wouldve in years gone by.

We are remaining silent or objecting only in whispers or among a small circle of safe friends, because it is no longer worth it to speak out.We wont convince anyone of anything except that its a good idea to send a nasty email saying things like, Your life is filled with hate and ugliness ruled by greed, fear, hate and ignorance. You are a pathetic role model. That came from a self-proclaimed progressive in response to my fierce condemnation of the Jan.6th attack and Trumps role in it. And, yes, that email started with telling me to save my hypocrisy.

So we, the majority of conservatives and Republicans, (yes, majority regardless of what silly polls say,) stay quiet more often than not. We take solace speaking with each other and knowing how most of us feel. Its quite simply, just healthier that way and as I noted, we arent changing anyone's mind right now. Heck, Trump can't even change his own supporters minds about the vaccine, what could be expected of the rest of us?

More from Alicia Preston Xanthopoulos: Social justice warriors ruin fun teacher fundraiser

While I have the greatest respect for Justice Broderick and I know he loves this country that he has served in many honorable ways, let me point out one place I have more optimism about America than he might.

In his piece he noted, Unless things change, America will continue its sorry decline from being a democratic beacon to a world yearning to be free to just a sad example of a noble yet failed experiment in self-government. I am more optimistic than that.

Things will indeed change. When all the things causing our nation angst right nowget better and they will get better so will our national temperature. When COVID moves out, and the inflation slows and we get further away from the 2020 election cycle, we will get better. We may be broken, but as a country, we have plenty of glue the things we all actually believe in to put us back together again. Justice Brodericks piece actually demonstrated that, if you look closely enough.

Alicia Preston Xanthopoulos is a former political consultant and member of the media. Shes a native of Hampton Beach where she lives with her family and three poodles. The views expressed are those of the writer. Write to heratPrestonPerspective@gmail.com.

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Preston Xanthopoulos: The majority of traditional Republicans have been silenced - Seacoastonline.com

ATLANTA On a day when Washingtons partisan divide felt as deep as it has in decades, lawmakers from both parties gathered in an Atlanta church on Thursday to honor one of the U.S. Senates great champions of bipartisanship, Johnny Isakson.

Mr. Isakson, a moderate Georgia Republican who once called bipartisanship a state of being, was 76 when he died on Dec. 19, having retired prematurely from the Senate in 2019 because of health complications. He was battling Parkinsons disease.

In Washington on Thursday, most Republican legislators refused to take part in the commemorations of the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol by supporters of former President Donald J. Trump. But they came together at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, in Atlantas Buckhead neighborhood, to honor Mr. Isakson.

Among the attendees were Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, and Senator Raphael Warnock, the Democrat who was elected to Mr. Isaksons old Georgia seat last January.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, delivering words of remembrance, acknowledged that the funeral resonated in a spirit of comity that the Senate was once known for, but that has lately become more scarce.

I havent seen this big of a bipartisan group of Senators together off the floor since September, he said. That, he said, was the date of an annual, Johnny Isakson barbecue lunch, a social tradition that Mr. Isakson started and that lawmakers have continued in his absence.

Former U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss, an old friend of Mr. Isaksons, also delivered remarks, noting that in his farewell speech to the Senate, Mr. Isakson said that he divided the world into two categories: friends and future friends.

Mr. Chambliss recalled that Mr. Isakson also quoted Mark Twains advice to do the right thing, on the grounds that It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

Mr. Isakson held firm conservative beliefs, opposing the Affordable Care Act and gay marriage, but he also bucked the partys status quo at times, and he was not afraid to publicly criticize Mr. Trump.

Along the way, he made numerous friends in both parties; Mr. Chambliss said that former Georgia Governor Roy Barnes, a Democrat, once quipped, If all Republicans were like Johnny Isakson, I would be a Republican.

The pews were packed with friends and admirers from both parties, including Mr. Barnes. The top statewide elected officials in attendance included Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both of whom are facing tough primary challenges from pro-Trump challengers.

A folk duo underscored the tone with a rendition of Let There be Peace on Earth. When they sang God Bless America, the mourners stood up en masse.

Originally posted here:
Republicans and Democrats Come Together to Remember Senator Isakson on Jan. 6 - The New York Times

The Ohioan hopes to repair cross-aisle relationships tattered by the panels politically charged investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and its subsequent prominence in Trumps first impeachment. Reorienting the panel toward its original mission of empowering the intelligence community, however, requires Republicans to reckon with the lightning-rod status that current Chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) maintains on the right.

Its an atmosphere that Turner himself has contributed to. Turner signed onto a 2019 letter calling for Schiffs removal, but repeatedly declined to endorse an ouster of the California Democrat in an interview this week a possible sign of a detente.

Obviously, Adam Schiff is not going to change fundamentally who he is. And that certainly is going to be a complicating factor, Turner told POLITICO. But on national security, I have a strong record of being able to work across the aisle and to try to advance whats important to our country. And Im going to continue in that vein.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy picked Turner to replace Nunes, who resigned from Congress earlier this week to take a job as the CEO of Trumps new media venture.

Turner, 61, generally shuns the press but is known for his occasionally combative witness questioning as well as his tendency to reaffirm the neoconservative foreign-policy doctrines that Trumps allies sought to eviscerate and replace with a populist, isolationist worldview. When Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggested in November that the U.S. shouldnt be taking Ukraines side in its territorial disputes with Russia, Turner tangled live on the air with the conservative icon.

Apparently you need a little education on Ukraine, Turner told Carlson. Ukraine is a democracy. Russia is an authoritarian regime that is seeking to impose its will upon a validly elected democracy in Ukraine. And we're on the side of democracy.

The exchange underscored that, on the substance, Turners ascension represents at least a partial departure from the committee's tumultuous Trump years.

I think itll be clear as to who on the committee is committed to making a transition to national security, and those who are more committed to the partisan culture that Schiff has promoted, Turner told POLITICO this week, turning his focus to overseas threats from Iran to North Korea. There are real adversaries, and we need to focus on those.

Turner lauded Nunes for his work running point on the Russia probe for the GOP. Even so, he signaled an eagerness to move beyond a period that often found Republicans dismissing or avoiding questions about Trumps more erratic tendencies as well as his campaigns repeated contacts with Russian nationals.

Im coming in at a time where the biggest threat to our country is our external adversaries, and making certain that as a country, we focus on those and rise to those occasions," Turner said, adding that Nunes was pushing back on narratives that were absolutely false about Trump.

Schiff's communications director, Lauren French, said: "Even amidst the necessity of investigating the former president, the Committee continued to meet its immense responsibility of overseeing the intelligence agencies and keeping the country safe."

Our work will go on with the new ranking member, and we hope it will be productive, French added. We will not allow false personal attacks to distract us from conducting the important business of the committee.

Nunes was a loyal foot soldier for the Trump cause on Capitol Hill and a trusted confidant of the ex-president. During his final months in Congress, though, Nunes grew disengaged from the committee, skipping hearings and briefings while preventing the passage of a bipartisan intelligence authorization bill that the panel has long prioritized.

Democrats and Republicans alike say they expect Turner to be much more active than Nunes, given his interest in the committees core duties chiefly, oversight of the intelligence community.

I think this year is a good chance for Mike and Adam Schiff to reset the relationship, said former Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), a former member of the committee who retired from Congress in 2021.

I have a lot of respect for Mike Turner, said Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, a senior Democrat on the panel whom some Republicans see as a potential successor to Schiff. He gets into the substance of national security in a way that I think is really good. And I know hes committed to it. Ive been sad to see [Nunes] sort of pull away.

Rep. Mike Turner speaks during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on Nov. 19, 2019. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo/Pool

Turners new position is unlike any other panel leadership role; the Ohio Republican will join the so-called Gang of Eight, the group of senior lawmakers privy to the most sensitive classified information. The group includes party leaders in the House and Senate, as well as the top Democrat and Republican on both chambers intelligence committees.

Inside the committee room, however, Republicans believe the hard work of restoring the panels bipartisan nature likely will require a full leadership shakeup that replaces Schiff as well as Nunes. Discussions have occurred within the GOP about potentially removing Schiff from the intelligence committee if Democrats lose the House majority this fall, despite Turner's unwillingness to entertain that prospect.

While Republicans seem to be more serious about yanking another member from the panel Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), another popular bogeyman for his political opponents Schiff is not off the table if he again assumes this committee role. But making any move against panel Democrats after the midterms would undoubtedly risk throwing the committee back into partisan war footing.

And that's not how Turner, first elected in 2002 with a background as a mayor and trial lawyer, tends to play his hands. GOP colleagues see him as poised to try to rebuild the panel's bipartisan reputation, with or without Schiff leading its Democrats.

His flashes of independence from Trump will help him there: The Ohioan condemned the then-presidents infamous 2019 phone call with Ukraines president, which sparked impeachment proceedings. Earlier that year, Turner blasted Trump for racist tweets about four female lawmakers of color, in which he said they should go back to the crime infested places from which they came.

After their combative interview, Carlson went after Turner on Twitter for voting against Trumps bid to defy Congress by redirecting funds for a southern border wall that were initially appropriated for military construction projects.

While he's willing to buck prominent conservatives, Turner is also prepared to singe Democrats. During a more recent appearance on Fox News, Turner slammed Schiff as largely discredited and accused him of pushing the Russia hoax a favorite phrase of Nunes' for political purposes.

Turner said the California Democrat had transformed the committee from its focus which is protecting our national security and the intelligence community, to being a vendetta against the Trump family and even the Trump campaign.

That Nunes-like language aside, those who have worked with Turner believe he'll take a sharp turn toward the previous legacy of the panel.

That committee is really important and really powerful, and has a lot to do with why we live the way that we live, said former Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.), who served on the intelligence committee with Turner. And I think that it's just better served to go back to being a special committee that works well together.

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House Intels next top Republican prepares a sharp turn from the Trump years - POLITICO

After Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential election, the Republican National Committee published what became known as the GOP autopsy report, an effort to identify and address the partys ongoing political weaknesses. But eight years later, after losing another close race, the GOP appears wholly uninterested in reviewing or reforming its agenda. In fact, despite capturing the presidency, the Democratic Party has been far more interested in developing an attractive issue agenda. There is only one political party that is terrified of losing an election because it looks too extreme, said Seth Masket, a FiveThirtyEight contributor and political scientist at the University of Denver. Theres a huge party asymmetry.

But despite the fact that the GOP is quite unpopular and that much of its current agenda such as overturning the Affordable Care Act or advancing restrictive immigration policies does not appeal to a majority of voters, the party is in an enviable position heading into the 2022 midterm elections and beyond. What is to make of this glaring disconnect?

On the one hand, the GOP is fundamentally opposed to the type of legislation that tends to garner widespread public support: generous social-welfare policies. Most Americans want a single-payer health care system, paid parental leave and a higher minimum wage. But most Republicans are ideologically opposed to these policies either because they do not believe they are the federal governments responsibility, or because they think that these policies will ultimately prove counterproductive. A Pew Research Center survey from May 2021 found, for instance, that more than three-quarters of Republicans said that the government was taking on too many roles that were better left to private citizens and businesses.

But the biggest reason why the GOP may not be pushing more popular policies is that recent history suggests its unnecessary. Former President Trumps startling 2016 election victory showed that an unpopular candidate with little interest in public policy can still win. For conservative activists disappointed in the outcomes of Romneys and the late Sen. John McCains campaigns, the lesson of 2016 was that political candidates with personal baggage or extreme political views are no longer a liability.

The current structure of the Electoral College and the U.S. Senate also allows Republican candidates wider discretion in eschewing popular legislation. For instance, former FiveThirtyEight reporter Perry Bacon Jr. argued last March that the GOPs structural advantages over the Democratic Party has allowed legislators to pursue more conservative policies than the average voter prefers. And as Laura Bronner and Nathaniel Rakich also wrote at FiveThirtyEight, Republicans have done this while often being in the minority: Republican senators have not represented a majority of the population since 1999 yet, from 2003 to 2007 and again from 2015 to 2021,Republicans had a majority of members of the Senate itself. That means that, for 10 years, Republican senators were passing bills and not passing others on behalf of a minority of Americans. Furthermore, gerrymandering, particularly in state-legislative races, insulates Republican members from popular sentiment.

Recent work in political science offers another plausible explanation. In an increasingly polarized political system, individual issues may matter less than partisan identity. In other words, partisan loyalty to ones own team is paramount. So instead of voting on issues, Americans appear to more readily adopt the views of party leaders. In a 2019 interview with The New York Times, Stanford political scientist Shanto Iyengar suggests that this is diminishing the relevance of political issues: There is a growing body of work showing that policy preferences are driven more by partisans eagerness to support their party rather than considered analysis of the pros and cons of opposing positions on any given issue.

There is one crucial caveat to all of this. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, the 1973 opinion that established a constitutional right to abortion, the issue of abortion may provide the most critical test to the GOPs ability to defy political gravity yet. Even if Americans have conflicting views on abortion, few believe it should be completely illegal. Which is why a ruling that overturned Roe would put tremendous pressure on Republican elected officials to fully embrace the most extreme position the complete illegality of abortion. It would almost certainly become a campaign issue in 2022, and Republican elected officials would be forced to defend a position that is broadly unpopular.

The first and overriding goal for national political parties is to win elections. So if Republican candidates keep winning elections without offering an agenda that garners widespread public support, there is no reason to expect the party to change. The party is already poised to make gains in 2022 without putting forward a governing agenda. What would force the GOP to reevaluate? It would take a sustained series of election losses, said Masket. They would need to lose elections they didnt expect to lose.

Even then, though, its not clear whether a course correction would be the end result. If the GOP is able to keep convincing itself that election losses are due to voter fraud and/or electoral malfeasance, there is no reason to expect the partys agenda will change anytime soon.

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Why The Republican Party Isnt Concerned With Popularity - FiveThirtyEight