I had plenty of conversations with people on here in early 2025 who thought Trump could never lose approval. People aren't robots. They also aren't dupes, no matter what elites tend to think. Never underestimate them.

G Elliott Morris@gelliottmorris.com · 9h ago

I am personally not sure what Trump's approval rating floor is, but it's definitely lower than pundits were predicting in early 2025. It is a possibility that he never gets above the mid-30s again (among all adults) fiftyplusone.news/polls/approv...

Quick story. My op-ed on how corporations that kept their DEI programs performed just as well financially was accepted & factchecked at TIME Magazine. Just needed "pro forma review by the legal department." Suddenly the piece is spiked Why? Benioff owns TIME and wants to ingratiate himself to Trump

OpenAI, like many for-profits, has little interest in foundational research. What they want is marketing, and that's what their AI math proofs are. OpenAI never bothered to check if the formalization of their AI proofs matched the actual text in the proof. Basic stuff. 🙄 arxiv.org/abs/2610.081...

Send your best work to PCI Psychology (psych.peercommunityin.org) where it will receive high quality & open peer review free of commercial interference. We review a variety of article types from a wide range of psychological topics (psych.peercommunityin.org/help/help_ge...).

Peer Community In@peercommunityin.bsky.social · 2d ago

1247 preprints have now received a recommendation from one of the 21 thematic PCI! Behind every recommendation is a community of researchers contributing their expertise. Could your preprint be next? 👉 Submit your research to PCI: peercommunityin.org/submit-a-pre...

🎯🎯🎯

Ever wondered what attributes are relevant in your conjoint experiment? And what assumptions you need to estimate it? Asya and I got you covered. In a new working paper we propose the APNS: the probability that an attribute's level change is necessary and sufficient for the selection of a profile.

“Our research suggests that Trump was not necessarily attracting male supporters who are as confidently masculine as the former president presented himself to be. Rather, our findings suggest that Trump appeared to appeal more to men who may be insecure about their manhood.” — Knowles & DiMuccio

Why Do Some Men Support Aggressive Policies and Politicians?

Does the idea of "precarious manhood" contribute to aggressive politics?

psychologytoday.com

@lastpositivist.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Like, I genuinely do not understand how a man this utterly risible has a cult following. The people obsessed with virile masculinity have latched onto this man, while he is visibly among the most gaudy insecure virtueless losers in the world. bsky.app/profile/rimi...

There's a lot of writing about the shifting loyalties of working class voters but very little on libertarians. Probably enough of them to swing a close election.

Sam@samd.bsky.social · 2d ago

It’s so cool how the modern conservative movement is antithetically opposed to property rights when it comes to legalizing homebuilding

All these white supremacists care about is SI (supplementary information). Mainly because they are unable to write anything coherent in the main text.

Eliot Higgins@eliothiggins.bsky.social · 2d ago

It's because the phrase is used to identify those loyal to the in-group, and identify those members of the out-group who need to be targeted and attacked.

There is secular extremism just as there is religious extremism.

Alan Elrod@aselrod.bsky.social · 2d ago

“I've seen secularists bemoan greater Democratic comfort with religion as a kind of erosion of church and state from the left. But they miss the point…It is purposefully and strategically countering a dangerous ideology rooted in a form of Christianity.” @hollybfletcher.bsky.social with a must-read

New York Times needs to edit better (are they using AI? 🤔). Currently their home page is displaying an incorrect headline (for their own article!). The professor who made anti-semitic posts is at "Haverford", not "Harvard."

This is just a relentlessly horrific story. It’s hard to adequately contextualize the moral desolation of this unfolding in the midst of a midterms against a ruling party helmed by inveterate rapists and rape apologists. www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/congres...

Congressional candidate is raped while repairing her campaign signs

Embarrassed, she initially didn’t want to report attack. Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office's investigation is ongoing. A Phoenix New Times exclusive.

phoenixnewtimes.com

Agnostics are smarter than atheists, finally we have proof

Conrad Hackett@conradhackett.bsky.social · 3d ago

American adults with a four-year college degree Hindus 70% Episcopalians 67% Jews 65% Agnostics 53% Atheists 48% Muslims 44% Buddhists 41% Catholics 35% National average 35% Evangelicals 29%

blog post: 2 different uses of simulated data 1. Simulated data to learn about the external world. 2. Simulated data to understand how a model works

Survey Statistics: 2 different uses of simulated data statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2026/10/06/s...

BTW this means no funding for GSS, ANES, or PSID. GSS 2026 is in the field now, but then it looks like that's it. Devastating for social science.

Dan Garisto@dangaristo.bsky.social · 4d ago

NEW: In March the White House released an FY27 budget request that zeroed out the National Science Foundation's directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). For months it was unclear what would happen. Now, with FY26 over, the damage to SBE is coming to light. My reporting:

One surprising thing from the Trump era is the level of cowardness and capitulation exhibited by institutions of power. Even in the face of evidence that pushback works and that the law is on their side, they continue to fall in line. It's a stain that will be hard to erase from history.

Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 4d ago

(Politico) - ABC programs are already tempering their election coverage ahead of the midterms to avoid angering President Donald Trump, a lawyer for the broadcast company told a federal judge on Tuesday .. @politico.com $DIS www.politico.com/news/2026/10...

If we can infect chatGPT with the woke mind virus, perhaps the world can still be saved 🦸

Grace@gracekind.net · 4d ago

Holy shit

People are allowed to think, but not about their social, economic, or political context 🤔

Noam Ross@noamross.net · 4d ago

Even within the Behavioral and Cognitive division, the topics that NSF SBE funded were really quite narrow: mostly cognitive and computational neuroscience. 🧪 bsky.app/profile/dang...

NEW: In March the White House released an FY27 budget request that zeroed out the National Science Foundation's directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). For months it was unclear what would happen. Now, with FY26 over, the damage to SBE is coming to light. My reporting:

‘Complete devastation’: How NSF gutted its social sciences research

Agency body that funds sociology, linguistics, and archaeology studies in U.S. gave 90% fewer new grants this year

science.org

How did this happen? Officially, proposals went through the same process as before: peer review, program officer recommendation, section head approval. Unofficially, the choice was taken out of SBE's hands, going above the directorate head, Christina Freyman and to NSF leadership.

I am looking forward to seeing studies of the effect of campaign finance from this election. My impression is that big spending has been wildly ineffective so far (though of course we don't observe the counterfactual, etc).

A few weeks ago, US Citizenship and Immigration Services released quarterly data on the legal immigration system through June. The data presents a stark picture of an agency going through a period of total dysfunction. As of June, net application backlogs have risen by 80% since Trump took office.

Binders full of women!

The Upshot@upshot.nytimes.com · 5d ago

Democrats Expect Record Number of Women in Party in House After Midterm Elections (Gift Article) www.nytimes.com/2026/10/05/u...

The next big indie folk band should be named Trending Toward Significance.

Yeah, this is a big time impeachment abuse of power.

Michael Froomkin@mfroomkin.bsky.social · 5d ago

Relative got a $500 check from US Treasury and a shocking letter full of lies signed by Trump and ending with "May God bless you". Basically a pre-electoral bribe. News reports say they're sending almost a million of these. Full text in alt below. (I told him to cash it quick before it bounces.)

The race between Hinojosa and Abbott has become sooo close. Two recent polls come to divergent numbers based on "likely voters". This means the two polls made different assumptions about who will turn out to vote. Personally, I'd go with NYT over Fox News for sophistication. In which case, ... 😱

I mean we already let them get away with violating an astonishing amount of copyright, why is anyone surprised that they want to break other laws?

Mike Boylan-Kolchin@mbkplus.bsky.social · 5d ago

This is the kind of stuff cartoon villains say before they do something really bad

No one is talking about South Carolina... The two most recent polls have Lindsey Graham's sister up by only 1 point over the Democratic challenger--including a poll by a GOP polling house (!!). Not a Paxton situation per se but giving the seat to Graham's sister did put the seat back in play.👀