iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

We use a set of forced choice options like do you think that winning is the only thing that matters or that it's how you play the game that matters. Or is cooperation the key to success or do only fighters get ahead. Those aren't the exact questions, but it's the gist of our approach.

110

Hypercompetitiveness and Loser’s Consent

Great Q. We've found an orientation called hypercompetitiveness relevant here. It's a desire to win at all costs, in part because you think others will do whatever it takes. A taste is here: academic.oup.com/poq/article-...

academic.oup.com

Abstract. Electoral democracy rests on the conferral of Loser’s Consent. The Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021—and the widespread sympathy for it tha

110

This same orientation relates to enthusiasm for using military force abroad and especially force that might involve targeting and killing civilians. So, seems fitting for Hegseth.

Why supporting big government, trade barriers, and unchecked executive power is still conservative—and why MAGA’s worldview is far more coherent than its critics think

It was hard for us to think about people supporting something as extreme as a televised execution, but we find a core aspect of Trumpism, a belief that life is zero-sum, correlates w/supporting the death penalty especially when it's described as long and painful. press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

press.princeton.edu

The Right Way

261

Reposted by Drew Engelhardt

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 09/10/2026

From @theathleticfc.bsky.social: Manchester United fans will welcome back a historic "ticker" flag for Saturday’s home game that takes aim at rivals Manchester City. The original flag marked when City had last won a trophy — their League Cup win in 1976.

nyti.ms

Manchester United fans bringing back Old Trafford ticker to mark City’s ‘last’ trophy – in 1976

The original flag, displayed at Old Trafford's Stretford End, marked when City had last won a trophy — their League Cup win in 1976.

0232

Reposted by Drew Engelhardt

Toby Nangle @tobyn.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Weeks old, but cool chart on AI costs epoch.ai/publications...

Line chart on a log scale showing how costs have fallen following the introduction of new tech (electricity, compute, lithium batteries, DNA sequencing, and AI)

136317

Interesting but I'm on team sell for Dem margins. Any decisions to allocate $ to places like FL rather than more in, say, ME for senate make little sense, and similarly for an expanded house map.

Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I think my favorite thing is to think about why the question is asked when it is if you look at the field points.

030

Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Good to see some validation of my "must stops." Looking forward to trying the Ryezidskie from Freigeist, which, I agree, is an argument against taking Untappd too seriously.

010

Reposted by Drew Engelhardt

John Gramlich @johngramlich.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

NEW from @pewresearch.org: 74% of Americans say they're very concerned about the price of gas and energy, up from 60% in July and 43% in January, before the Iran war. www.pewresearch.org/politics/202...

Line chart showing a sharp rise in the percentage of Americans who say they are very concerned about the price of gasoline and energy, based on recent Pew Research Center surveys of U.S. adults.

12719

Reposted by Drew Engelhardt

John Gramlich @johngramlich.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

It's not quite Dow 50K, but we had our own milestone at @pewresearch.org recently with the 200th survey on our nationally representative American Trends Panel (March 2014-present). We got stickers, not baseball hats like the Wall Streeters might wear.

Photo of a sticker showing a group of people on a surfboard with the words, "American Trends Panel Wave 200...and still surfing!"

063

Reposted by Drew Engelhardt

Jonathan Surratt @beerinator.com · 08/10/2026

Damn this sucks. Kwak glassware that fits the old wooden stands is no longer being produced.

A screenshot of @thehopleaf's instagram post. The post shows a Kwak beer in a glass being held up by a wooden stand. The post text says: "It is the end of an era. We received news today that the glassware for the Kwak wooden stands is no longer being produced, and that the brewery is moving to the flat bottom Kwak glasses.

The wooden stands are so special to us at Hopleaf and we are heartbroken to see them go. Currently we have NO Kwak glasses in circulation, we are using our house branded Tekus to serve the beer."

2162

Reposted by Drew Engelhardt

JLRay @jlray.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

This reminded me that I... actually wrote these postcards, *thousands* of them, once upon a time! I do not believe postcard campaigns do very much. I believe there are ways to help campaigns win without the tedious and time-consuming activity of writing them. johnlray.github.io/posts/post_2...

222

Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

New piece in @polbehavior.bsky.social shows that policy support, here TANF, can be increased by including "effort" requirements that activate deservingness beliefs. Experiment also finds people were more likely to want to end requirement-free/low burden programs. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

083

Reposted by Drew Engelhardt

Elizabeth (Bit) Meehan, PhD @elizabethbitmeehan.com · 08/10/2026

They cut ~$152 million for social science funding at the NSF this year www.science.org/content/arti...

Every part of NSF has lagged in grantmaking: The agency has underspent its $8.8 billion budget for this year by some $1.4 billion and awarded about 6200 new grants, the lowest number in decades. But SBE was uniquely paralyzed. It spent just $95 million for 2026, a 62% decline relative to the $247 million average between 2021 and ’24, and awarded just 91 new grants, an 89% drop from its average of about 800, according to data compiled by Grant Witness, a watchdog nonprofit. An analysis by Science found more than 30 program areas—including archaeology, anthropology, and sociology, which typically make hundreds of new grants—distributed zero new awards.

0244

Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The American voter only pays for what they need.

0113

Reposted by Drew Engelhardt

svateboje.bsky.social @svateboje.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

great piece from T Barron on the complex terrain of ethnic identity in civic education for our liberal regime, with loving attention to particularities for Black id. and a nice secular application of Aquinas. and all in a conservative pol theory forum. politicalsciencereviewer.com/index.php/ps...

politicalsciencereviewer.com

To Be Both Black and American: African American Identity in the American Republic | The Political Science Reviewer

101

Reposted by Drew Engelhardt

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Meanwhile, over on X, the Secretary of Homeland Security is posting about "vandalizing the demographics of America," a phrase which is either a chilling suggestion of white nationalism from Mullin or just straight pablum which means nothing but sounds just fash enough to excite the faithful.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
@ReichlinMelnick
·
7m
“Vandalize the demographics of America” is either a chilling phrase suggesting that Mullin is a white nationalist or an absurdly meaningless bit of pablum which ignores 250 years of the constantly shifting demographics of a nation of immigrants.

Underneath is a picture of Mullin with a quote "How do you turn a country from democracy to socialism? You have to change the demographics."

951232365

Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

"But to narrow displeasure with Trump to immigration alone repeats a mistake of the last decade, in flattening the Latino vote down to a single issue." Informative piece from @carlosodio.bsky.social and Stein here on "America first" Latinos. thenewdynamic.weareequis.us/p/america-fi...

152

Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Funny that we had these insights in 1975 but present studies of political alienation, cynicism, etc stick with agree-disagree.

030

Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

We also need a tag for "in a convenience sample" or "among college students" like the old "in mice" account

Nick Carnes @carnes.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Reposted by Drew Engelhardt

It's finally publication day for this decade-in-the-making book. @noamlupu.bsky.social and I explain why working-class jobs make up 70% of the average democracy's labor force, but only 2% of the average democracy's national lawmakers had working-class jobs when they got into politics.

1120270

Reposted by Drew Engelhardt

YouGov America @today.yougov.com · 06/10/2026

A range plot of YouGov polling data with the headline: "How Americans describe the Democratic Party and the Republican Party." The chart has the sub-headline: "Which of the following terms do you think describe the [Democratic Party / Republican Party]? Select all that apply. (% who choose each term)." The chart has the note: "Note: Negative terms are colored red and positive terms are colored purple. Responses of "none of the above" are not shown."

002

Reposted by Drew Engelhardt

Jake Berg @jacobsberg.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Here's a take: the beers coming off Guinness' 10 bbl system didn't make it to DC, which is flabbergasting. Diageo is a giant company and they never put their cans or kegs into DC distro beyond Baltimore Blonde and a milk stout in 2019! It's malpractice! There's a giant market just south of you!

0164

Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

A couple interesting trends in media attitudes by partisanship from Gallup.

053

Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Congrats Justin! How much of this can be blamed on the Morton basement?

110

There are also questions about whether relationships are direct or not. For instance, initial piece shows more demobilization than AfD gain, but if AfD pulls from anti-system folks, and this is downstream from loneliness, then loneliness can produce a base of support (at least that's my interpret).

010

I think interesting open Qs are what features of populist parties are attractive. The anti-elitism? The Manicheanism? The people-centrism? Presumably the latter, but important to parse. Then also curious if the solutions to emptiness necessitate populist appeals or if there's a left alternative.

140

ProPublica @propublica.org · 05/10/2026

Have seen some new work demonstrating this. For instance, this paper links loneliness to AfD voting: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... I've also seen work in progress that loneliness predicts lower political trust, stronger populist attitudes, and greater likelihood of Trump vote.

sciencedirect.com

3196

Reposted by Drew Engelhardt

We're continuing to report on sports betting apps, and we need your help. ProPublica is looking for at least 250 people who use DraftKings and FanDuel to share their data with us and help us understand how the apps respond to user behavior. ➡️ How to help: projects.propublica.org/sports-betti...

A neon green tracker shows that ProPublica has received 28 people's sports betting data, just over 10% of the way towards its goal of 250. Text below reads: If you’re one of millions of Americans who have placed an online bet on a sporting event, you know how quickly you can go from celebrating your wins to feeling like the odds are stacked against you.

ProPublica is trying to understand how sports betting apps incentivize users to keep playing and when they warn users to pump the brakes. To do that, we need your help: We’re aiming for at least 250 people to upload their gambling history from apps like FanDuel and DraftKings. We’re not quite there yet, so if you’ve used these apps, you can help our journalists. If you’ve worked in the industry, you can also help us by answering a few questions. (You can also reach us on Signal.)

8409207

Reposted by Drew Engelhardt

Opinion Today @opiniontoday.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Nearly half of voters say the word “corrupt” describes the Republican Party “extremely” or “very well”; 37% say the same about the Democratic Party. More say the GOP is focused on helping the rich and powerful than say the same about the Democrats. (AP-NORC) More: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/261004

066

Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I hope these edc knives come with kandi

010

Folks should check out this (open access) article from Dr Solís providing great context for Latino Republican partisanship. Folks offer nuanced links between their panethnic attachments and partisanship, among other themes. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

0278

Reposted by Drew Engelhardt

Efrén Pérez @efrenpolipsy.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I’m proud of all my PhD students in poli and psych. Yesterday, Rodolfo Solís completed his PhD 😎 He weathered the pandemic & an anti-Latino climate to produce one of the best dissertations I’ve supervised. Watch out for more of his timely work on Latino Republicans 🇲🇽 @solisrodolfo.bsky.social

2484

Reposted by Drew Engelhardt

John Burn-Murdoch @jburnmurdoch.ft.com · 04/10/2026

What’s the evidence on rent control? I charted the findings from 112 studies: Great for rent-controlled tenants ✅ But: Pushes up rents for other people ❌ Pushes down new housing construction ❌ Pushes down building quality ❌

36607159

Reposted by Drew Engelhardt

Dave Infante @dinfontay.com · 04/10/2026

“The devices, the first of which were rolled out in 2024, are distributed across 13 city school zones and are only active from 7:15 to 9:15 a.m. and from 2:15 to 4:15 p.m. on school days.”

richmond.com

Richmond police officers warned, ticketed 95 times for speeding through school zones

A Richmond police spokesperson said some of those tickets may be dismissed, but did not say how many were currently under review.

1303

Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

We also show how a willingness to break norms or rules isn't conservative. But it's this small share of the Trump coalition that defines Trumpism and allows for anti-democratic actions around elections. In fact, typical conservatives oppose this reactionaryism, so tensions in the GOP coalition.