Thomas Zeitzoff

Quantifying the impact of misinformation and vaccine-skeptical content on Facebook Low uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine in the US has been widely attributed to social media misinformation. To evaluate this claim, we introduce a framework combining lab experiments (total N = 18,725), c...

A great example of combining the strengths of various methods is this paper by Allen et al. (a recent favorite of mine):

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Agree with much of what Cyrus says in his blog post and the comments below.

I'd add that some of the best recent work in poli sci is mixed methods, and uses a combo of observational data, experiments/quasi-experiments, and in-depth interviews/case studies to answer a puzzle from multiple angles.

New paper! @william-dinneen.bsky.social @guygrossman.bsky.social Yiqing Xu and I use GPT to code 91k articles from 174 polisci journals (2003–2023)and track research designs, transparency practices, and citations. How has the credibility revolution reshaped the discipline? doi.org/10.31235/osf...
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4) Final assignment was a 4-page take-home paper with in an in-person, oral defense.

It’s not perfect. And I average 25 to 30 students per class, so some of these techniques might be infeasible for larger classes. But I found they made a big difference.

3) I did in-class polls at the beginning of class to hear what students thought about different theories of political violence, and then had them defend their positions. Then circled back at the end of class to see if their opinion had changed and why.

2) Started class with a Socratic exercise about the biggest questions/puzzles raised by the readings.

Every professor I know is struggling with AI in a different way. I found a few things that really helped this semester.

1) I banned cellphones and laptops in class— made a huge difference in attention and quality of discussions.

U.S. pushing Ukraine to sign peace deal by Thanksgiving or lose support The U.S. is now sending “signals” that everything could be off the table if Kyiv does not quickly sign a proposal, which was drawn up by special envoy Witkoff.

This is not a peace deal and it’s not asking anything of the Russians. It’s just the US on behalf of the Russians pressuring Ukraine to surrender www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

new paper by Sean Westwood:

With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research

In Mexico, the share of income captured by the 1% has declined noticeably in recent years. This shift toward lower income concentration—alongside poverty reduction—helps explain not only the popularity of AMLO and Sheinbaum, but also some of the ongoing political battles and sources of polarization.

4. The result is rising uncertainty and serious potential for crisis.

3. But weakness cuts both ways. Because Trump’s position is slipping, expect more pushback from judges and elected officials—especially after the recent electoral drubbing.

CNN: Trump briefed this week on options for military operations in Venezuela

NYTImes: AG Pam Bondi Assigns Prosecutor to Look into Epstein's ties to Prominent Democrats

2. This combination of unpopularity + economic trouble creates incentives for escalation: adventurism abroad (Venezuela) and repression at home (prosecuting political opponents).

AKA "gambling for resurrection."

The Economist: Trump at -18% approval

Reuters: IMF sees signs of US economic strain

NYTimes: Epstein Alleged in Emails that Trump Knew of His Conduct

A few things are true at once:

1. Trump is deeply unpopular and increasingly seen as a lame duck. The economy is also looking shaky.

And the Epstein Files.

Releasing 20,000+ pages of Epstein files related documents as .jpgs via a shared google drive owned by oversight.gop.119 is sorta wild, but also sort of exactly where we're at.

The drive: drive.google.com/drive/folder...

Politico: Vance is the frontrunner for 2028, Rubio privately confides President Donald Trump has repeatedly named Vance and Rubio as his two most likely successors.

The Atlantic: Marjorie Taylor Greene Knows Exactly What She’s Doing The “Jewish space lasers” lady may be positioning herself to lead the MAGA movement. By Jonathan Chait

Trump is still the charismatic leader and driver of the MAGA movement.

Yet, ambitious Republican politicians are already jockeying to inherit his base.

History and academic research suggest that replacing a charismatic leader is hard, and that they’ll struggle to replicate his appeal.

4) Be wary of claims that these 2025 election results were mainly about persuasion or voters changing their minds.

Turnout was likely an import part of the story (see @electproject.bsky.social ->
bsky.app/profile/elec...)

Wag the Dog movie title

Time Magazine: Trump Wants Venezuela’s Maduro Out. Will He Pull the Trigger? Ideas world affairs Ian Bremmer

3) Given his unpopularity, watch for “gambling for resurrection” behavior in foreign policy. He and his advisors may try to escalate or manufacture crises to distract or recover his political support. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamblin...

And at home, expect increased repression.

Millions turned out for anti-Trump 'No Kings' protests across US The demonstrations against the US president - which Republicans had called "hate-America rallies" - were boisterous but peaceful.

2) Coordinating a broad, pro-democracy movement is *hard*.

But these results matter. They signal to both the public and political elites that Trump is vulnerable and they help galvanize opposition. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Trump approval rating stands at 39% from The Economist/YouGov polling

Cook Political Report: A Blue Wave Wave is Building: What We Learned from Election Night 2025

A few observations based on this week's election results

1) Trump is unpopular and the elections were a rebuke to him and his unpopular policies.

Cool new working paper on why and how cable news threw gasoline on the culture war fire. The culture war isn't optimal for electoral candidates, but it's optimal for cable news companies.

ungated: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/27v4x...

Tally sheet of 101 trick or treaters!

Big night for Big Candy!

Exactly, those two things will definitely influence each other. Public opinion is one of the few checks right now.

NYT op-ed headline about his Trump's authoritarian ambition

Screen shot of Trump approval rating, 39% approve, 57% disapprove

The two competing dynamics that will define Trump's second term:

1) He wields more unchecked power than his first term—and arguably than any other president in history.

2) He is deeply unpopular, and getting more so.

Opinion | In Trump’s America, Are We Losing Our Democracy? (Gift Article) Donald Trump has wielded power as no previous president has.

An authoritarian...

stifles dissent/speech
persecutes opponents
bypasses legislature
uses military domestically
defies courts
declares false emergencies
vilifies groups
controls info/media
controls universities
creates cult of personality
uses power for profit
manipulates law to stay in power

Prosecuting the Powerful Historical data shows putting leaders on trial is a healthy democratic practice.

Sarkozy is going to jail but he’s not the first one. In our new dataset we track modern leaders who have been prosecuted by their own states. There are 215 of them. Turns out leader prosecution is a common & healthy practice in democracies. Full access link: foreignpolicy.com/2025/10/28/d...

Screenshot of paper: “Representativeness and Response Validity Across Nine Opt-In Online Samples” Stagnaro MN , Druckman J , Berinsky AJ , Arechar AA , Willer R , Rand DG Author information Preprint from PsyArXiv, 22 Feb 2024 https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/h9j2d

Figure 2. Deviation on demographics from probability sample benchmarks for each sample. Bars indicate the average deviation from the probability sample benchmarks for each demographic across samples. Symbols depict each sub category: Political party affiliation, religious affiliation, income, race/ethnicity, age and education level. Red dotted line shows the average deviation collapsing across all samples. Y-axis shows average absolute deviations in percentage points.

This previous paper had been my guide europepmc.org/article/ppr/...

Survey folks, what are people’s recent experiences with online panels in terms of:

1. Panel quality (bots/LLMs)?
2. Representativeness?
3. Cost + time to complete?

Planning a 700–800 US nat-rep pilot.

Best practices welcome!

My main takeaway on the “moderation” debate is that Democrats would be better served by other debates besides left-right positioning, like how to develop new valence issues (corruption!) as wedge issues, and how to get attention for their policy proposals in the first place

Picture of a bowl of chili and sharp cheddar cheese + corn muffin

Chili night in the DMV