Joe Phillips

Conditionally accepted at the APSR (w/ @scottclifford.bsky.social & @patrickpliu.bsky.social):

Why does political information so often change beliefs but NOT attitudes? We highlight the role of belief relevance, or the extent to which beliefs bear on attitudes.

An illegal war by USA & Israel, propped up by missions from UK air bases.

Supported by Nigel Farage.

Over 1000 civilians dead & now the threat of global economic fallout. Trump's disaster makes us all less safe, less secure - and we will remember those who backed it.

Trump is the deranged figurehead and thus analysis will focus primarily upon him but none of this happens without a cadre of elites pushing for it and that is the more terrifying thought — the Republican Party proper could stop this at any time and they won’t. The party wants it.

An interesting data point showing Labour has successfully distinguished itself ideologically from the rest of the left bloc in the eyes of voters. But it should give Labour pause that this change in perception has not done them favours in the ballot box

🧵/ 70% of Britons see Reform UK as pro-Trump, while also tending to see the Tories as being in favour of the US president

Reform UK: 70% see as pro-Trump / 2% anti-Trump
Conservatives: 35% / 13%
Labour: 21% / 36%
Lib Dems: 3% / 48%
Greens: 1% / 56%

yougov.com/en-gb/articl...

The consequences of this war for Americans will be bleak and take decades to unfold, but it will impoverish and provincialize them in ways that would have been unimaginable ten years ago

the united states may be the leading world exporter of radicalization.

Homeland Security @DHSgov Democrats must end this DHS shutdown NOW.

it is not normal for official government social media channels to behave like arms of the Republican Party

It helps if you start from the perspective that actually saying 'due to this war, things will get worse' is more helpful than making unduly optimistic claims.

If you missed the excitement of my Constituency App over the weekend - here it is for your delectation. Two versions:

Less pretty but more stable and faster loading:
benwansell.github.io/constituency...

Prettier but prey to server hiccups:
livedataoxford.shinyapps.io/Constituency...

Have fun!

They are murdering civilians on the high seas.

They are murdering civilians in 🇮🇷.

They are murdering civilians in concentration camps.

They are murdering civilians on the streets of 🇺🇸 cities.

These are not problems that can be fixed with new laws or more court orders.

bsky.app/profile/mcop...

A whole lot of US political commentators really do seem to believe in a kind of MAGA Ephemeralism - nothing Trump does truly matters, because he’ll chicken out, and there will be no consequences. And it led them to treat “murdering the whole leadership of a large nation” as another empty spasm.

“I didn’t vote for THIS,” say the manosphere podcasters who simply had no way of knowing that Trump would lie about being a populist to get into office and then govern like a autocratic lunatic once in power, other than the fact that he did it for 4 entire years before that.

A handful of Republicans in Congress & Supreme Court can end this nightmare any time they choose, and history will remember them as saviors of the republic, no matter what terrible things they did to US in last 10 years: insane we cannot find a few volunteers for this plum deal!

DC folks actually sort of need to demand that heads roll over this. It’s a real problem if law enforcement in the capital is so pathetic, weak, and supine that their instinct is to act as stormtroopers for illicit federal power grabs.

Americans have no idea how much the world is shook, folks. Here in Thailand they have a running tally of how many days' worth of fuel the country has left.

The paradox of inequality that isn’t: rising economic inequality depresses and polarizes citizens’ belief in meritocracy Abstract. This study examines how rising income inequality has been impacting individuals’ belief in merit-based success, using three decades of survey dat

🔍 How does economic inequality impact beliefs in meritocracy?

Using comprehensive survey data from 39 advanced capitalist democracies over more than three decades, Markus Gangl & I examine how rising economic inequality has been shaping citizens' belief in meritocracy.
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwag016

The British general election of 2029, in which we are *really* going to stress test 'the governing bloc has, through both forces inside and outside its control, presided over a *really* miserable time for the country' versus 'the opposition bloc just can't stop itself picking up unpopular stances'.

On financial insecurity and Labour's losses:

We showed in Feb 2025 Labour losing young insecure voters to Greens, mid-life/older to Reform: www.jrf.org.uk/public-attit...

And we explain how econ insecurity is a push factor, magnifying other reasons for vote losses: www.jrf.org.uk/public-attit...

This reminds me of that line I saw someone say once (which rang true) that something that makes Trump uniquely able to connect with low-information voters is that he is a low-information voter.

There were many flaws with the old US as a global hedgemon, but at least there was a lip service, and a broad commitment, to international norms and law. A attempt to enforce it, if flawed.

The US losing that commitment, and celebrating atrocity, is a very bad development

🧵Speculation about Tory reshuffle means its worth looking at whether there has been any Badenoch bounce? The data I think unambiguously shows there has, the fact it is not translating into change in party ratings is arguably a worse sign for Tories than if there hadn't been one

If you have headphones, sit somewhere and listen to literally anything on them. It’s not as good as silence, but it’s *your* noise

Back in 2010, Chris Cantwell, now known as the “crying Nazi” after Charlottesville, added me as Facebook friend and tried to get me to vote for him for congress. Even though I was 14, didn’t live in his district, and was left wing. Last thing he ever said to me was he hoped I would die of dysentery.

Immigration, Innovation, and Growth (March 2026) - We propose a novel identification strategy to isolate exogenous immigration shocks across US counties, by interacting quasi-random variations in the composition of ancestry across count...

Immigration causes an increase in per capita patenting activity (primarily by _native_ inventors), per capita wages (including wages of _natives_), and productivity--with _positive_ spillovers for nearby counties.

CC: Trump, Miller, etc
www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

Every time a woman runs for president I hear that she’s too emotional and unstable to make wartime decisions, unlike the men in charge who make really reasonable decisions like bombing kids to death, starting water wars, and poisoning the entire planet

Acknowledging reality means admitting they were wrong about Trump.

That they’re not as smart as they think.

They’re not in on the con, they’re some of its biggest marks.

And people they don’t like had a point.

The psychic pain of that is too much. They’ll avoid it as long as physically possible.

And then I, Jake Tapper, will host Republicans after the vote to lie about the war & platform the view that Democrats are voting against the troops. I have no agency of my own. I am but a humble mirror reflecting public opinion & conveying The Questions that Must Be Asked of The Democrats.

Britain is in a deep structural economic hole thanks to austerity, Brexit and global shocks that is nearly impossible to get out of. It is rather unfair to expect government to reverse those long-term drags on national prosperity, but it needs to start explaining to voters why we are where we are.