Congress has a retirement problem. And now you're going to have to deal with a goddamn tweetstorm from me about it. 1/

In #FirstView by Greg Winger, Alex Oliver, Jelena Vićić, and Adam B. Schaeffer: "Countering 'Fake News' Through Public Education and Advertisements: An Experimental Analysis" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10…

A viral graph showed the polarization of young men and women in whether they identify as liberal or conservative. BUT 1) On actual issues, the differences are smaller. AND 2) Any differences aren't unique to young people. New from me Good Authority: goodauthority.org/news/maybe-you…

Political ads vary in effectiveness, but not in consistently predictable & generalizable ways. Campaigns just have to make a bunch of ads & test them in each context cambridge.org/core/services/…

NEW: in American Political Science Review we report a treasure trove of data from inside dozens of campaigns’ own experiments on persuasion The data reveal experimentation at a vast scale that is revolutionizing campaigning challenges academic theories & could have implications for democracy 🧵

Republicans have a serious problem in 2024: unmarried women. Republicans also have a major opportunity: unmarried women. thefederalist.com/2024/03/26/rep…

Well, Scott Adams blocked me, so I'll respond to his ignorant claims using a screenshot. Scott made several absurd claims about evolution and natural selection, and then changed his argument when called out on it. But then he tried to claim that what proved him wrong

A tip on the polls you are likely to see (and have seen prior to today) on the convictions: Asking people how they will react to an event is useless. They will tell you what they think the "right" answer is. Humans aren't great predictors of their own psychology/behavior...

People often claim to be "moderate" or "in the middle," but almost always, this is not true. Almost everyone has a lean, and those who do not are not equidistant between the Democrats and Republicans. This excellent Lee Drutman ⚙️🏛 piece remains true today. fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-m…

New at PNASNews with David Broockman, christian caballero & Matty Easton: "Political practitioners poorly predict which messages persuade the public." As we head into the last week of the campaign, a good reminder that political practitioners have poor intuitions as to what persuades

Great article about reconnecting with your city from Sabrina Schaeffer ... weak ties and connections matter! nationalreview.com/2024/12/stuck-…

We need limited, #effective government that oversees & manages the most basic functions of society. Our article ran on the Sunday Opinion page in 12 papers across southern CA today, including the O.C. Register, Daily Breeze, and Pasadena Star News. dailybreeze.com/2025/01/25/the…

🚨NEW PAPER: Why are Members of Congress so extreme? We conducted a 4-wave panel of thousands of voters in 27 districts during last year’s primary AND general elections to trace polarization’s roots The results challenge conventional wisdom… and suggest lessons for parties🧵👇

From Madison’s literary society to today’s campus silencing, we forgot what democracy requires. | Sabrina Schaeffer trib.al/Mp5e7Bt

We’re forgetting how to do democracy. That’s the real lesson of 2020, 2024, the lawfare, the war on civil liberties, the insanity that’s engulfed what used to be called public life. A very thoughtful and timely piece c/o Sabrina Schaeffer nationalreview.com/2025/06/self-g…

Great article on our need to learn how to disagree

Have we lost a shared commitment to self-governance? We need to rebuild the framework to ensure it succeeds. My latest for National Review out over the weekend:

Currently in FirstView: In “Odd Profiles in Conjoint Experimental Designs: Effects on Survey-Taking Attention and Behavior,” Kirk Bansak and Libby Jenke consider how survey-takers respond to odd combinations of conjoint attributes.