Not surprising, but still very important to document.

Super important thread. Every word is spot on. 👇

(1/3) I’m very grateful and excited to officially start my Vidi project today on “Factual Belief Polarization and its Attitudinal Consequences” — and even happier to announce that two incredibly talented young scholars will join my team as postdocs.

Just unbelievably stupid. I had no idea how dumb fascism would be when it came to America.

Nieuwe blog: Wetenschap in tijden van populisme https://stukroodvlees.nl/?p=17816

📢 New Publication 📢 📄 Review article in Nature Climate Change It examines how resistance to climate policy is reshaping politics & why populist right parties are the main beneficiaries? (with Valentina Bosseti, Italo Colantone & Giorgio Musto) Short 🧵 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Dank aan @scienceguide.bsky.social voor de heldere samenvatting van mijn onderzoek. 👇 www.scienceguide.nl/2025/08/popu...

Aanrader! 👇

People have no idea how valuable it is to have accurate statistics on the state of the economy and society. And yet, here we are as Trump turns to another page in the autocrat's playbook.

📢 Out now! The Handbook of Affective Polarization is officially published 🎉 📖 Open Access & packed with 30 great chapters thanks to amazing authors. Huge thanks to everyone, and in particular to @marianotorcal.bsky.social for the great (and fun) collaboration! 💙 Link below for the e-book 👇

Disinformation from the U.S. government to the people of the United States. The NIH did not cause the pandemic in any way, shape or form.

Uw vriendelijke herinnering dat het gesprek aan de talkshowtafels niet "het maatschappelijk debat" is of veel zegt over de publieke opinie. Het is een zeer selectief deel daarvan, m.n. gericht op kijkcijfers, aandacht, winst en/of een specifieke inhoudelijke agenda.

We are six months into the second Trump administration and the scale and severity of its assault on our nation's science and democracy has been unrelenting. Today, @ucs.org releases a detailed assessment of the damage so far and where we go from here: www.ucs.org/resources/sc... #ProtectScience

"Do countries with better-funded public media also have healthier democracies? Of course they do" www.niemanlab.org/2022/01/do-c... (January 2022)

(1/2) Zeer interessante bevinding van het Rathenau Instituut: Zo'n 80% van de Nederlanders met een laag vertrouwen in de wetenschap stemde op een populistische partij of helemaal niet. Sluit aan bij mijn recente artikelen over populisme en de politisering van wetenschap.

"i asked grok" "i asked chatgpt" yeah well i asked carl sagan and he said the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge 🧪

It's easy to see why Labour would want to lower the voting age. There are few places in the world where generations are as politically divided as in the UK. www.frontiersin.org/journals/pol...

Slowing the grant process down and politicizing science; this goes way beyond DEI objections

Quite a strong final statement: "Descriptive research is important and it is a pity that the general obsession with causal estimates disincentivizes researchers from attempting to publish careful and detailed description."

A coalition of leading Massachusetts and national health organizations sued Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for “arbitrarily” scrapping COVID-19 vaccination recommendations and for dismantling an expert panel that advises the government on immunizations.

Al Gore didn’t hold back: The Trump admin is “attacking the heart of truth,” twisting facts like the Nazis did in the 1930s. From climate denial to rewriting the Ukraine war, it’s all about power—not reality. Gore warned the U.S. is under siege—and every former leader should speak out like he did.

(1/5) Out now in Acta Politica: Populist parties increasingly target scientists and scientific knowledge. By analyzing 15 annual waves of representative panel data from the Netherlands (2007–2022), I examine to what extent populist parties fuel science skepticism among their supporters.

57% of Republicans say they regularly get news from Fox News, at least double the share who turn to any other news source. www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2...

Underappreciated 2024 trend: Relative dropoff in Dem vs Rep turnout among younger reg. voters. Easy to mistake this as a swing right but it’s turnout. If young Dems matched Rep turnout rates, they’d have netted 2.5-3.5M votes—might not have flipped election but likely would’ve swung popular vote.

We were lucky enough to have our YouGov/The Economist poll in field when the US bombed Iranian nuclear facilities. You can see the partisan realignment in real time

🧵 Hiring 2 PhDs in political science! Join my ERC project DEMO-LIES @uantwerpen.be 🇧🇪 We study how politicians accuse each other of lying/disinfo — and how citizens react: Does it erode trust? Polarize? Mobilize? 🧠🗳️ 💥 4-yr fully funded 📅 Start: Oct/Nov 2025 🗓️ Deadline: 21 Aug Details + apply 👇

The cat below just underwent another expensive surgery, and his owner still very much needs help. If you’d like to make a big difference for someone with a small contribution, please consider donating.

Previous studies showed how Republicans share more misinformation. This was disputed by some, blaming fact-checking biases. Enter Community Notes. Guess what: "2.3 times more posts by Republicans are flagged as misleading compared to posts by Democrats." www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

De Tweede Kamerverkiezingen komen er aan, en dus ook het Nationaal Kiezersonderzoek (NKO)! 🗳️ Ben je een beginnende onderzoeker (aan het promoveren of max 5 jaar gepromoveerd)? Dan kun je een voorstel indienen om vragen toe te voegen aan het NKO. 💡Help mee kiezersgedrag te begrijpen! Meer info 👇

Kunnen we de duur inkorten voordat na de val van een kabinet verkiezingen worden gehouden? stukroodvlees.nl/waarom-duurt... Ja, maar niet kostenloos: 1 Minder rekening houden met nieuwe partijen die zich nog willen inschrijven 2 Minder rekening houden met kiezers uit buitenland 3 Meer ondersteuning

The PVV has left the Dutch coalition. What does this mean? Will there we be new elections? When? Who will win? Which government will form? 🧵

Uit onderzoek met @tomwgvdmeer.bsky.social en @lisajanssen.bsky.social blijkt dat zetelpeilingen meestal pas enkele weken voor de verkiezingen een betere voorspeller van de uitslag zijn dan de vorige verkiezingsuitslag. www.tomlouwerse.nl/publication/...

🚨 JOB ALERT 🚨 Universitair Docent in de Politieke Wetenschap (2x) Vragen? 👉 Ik beantwoord ze graag, of vraag het @mdigiuseppe.bsky.social www.universiteitleiden.nl/vacatures/20...

'Een kiesdrempel of districtenstelsel lijken aantrekkelijk maar centraliseren de macht en drukken kleinere partijen weg. Politieke representatie verschraalt, terwijl persoonsdemocratie verder wordt opgedrongen in een systeem dat daar helemaal niet voor bedoeld is.' vng.nl/nieuws/de-le...

Canceling research on misinformation is not only an attack on science and academic freedom. It is also a democracy, safety, and security threat. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/b...

🚨 What is the "Great Replacement Theory" & who believes it? 🚨 In our forthcoming IMR paper, @jamesrdennison.bsky.social and I treat GRT as layered narratives, from demographic change to the elite plot. A representative German survey shows broad public agreement with several of these layers.

What a delight to receive proofs of our book! In the book, Rachid Azrout and I describe 51 cases of hate speech prosecution of 42 politicians in 9 countries since 1965. We argue, and show empirically, that such legal proceedings backfire in 3 ways. Published soon with @oxfordunipress.bsky.social.

Terminating the grants to study misinformation is “an overt act of censoring and preventing accountability,” says Stephen Lewandowsky, a misinformation researcher at the University of Bristol. “Who other than a liar would cancel misinformation research?” 🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...

Job alert! We are looking for two postdoctoral researchers at the intersection of political psychology, science communication, and survey methodology: -One for my Vidi project on factual belief polarization. -One for my starting grant on the politicization of science. www.ru.nl/en/working-a...

'It was...Habermas’ mentor...Adorno, who wrote that the first step in that nation’s descent into hell was, and I quote, ‘the conversion of all questions of truth into questions of power,”’ Gore said. “The Trump administration is insisting on trying to create their own preferred version of reality.'

Harvard's Steve Levitsky, coauthor of How Democracies Die: "We are no longer living in a democratic regime." Must-listen interview - remarkably clear about the severity of the situation we now face www.npr.org/2025/04/22/n...

Vorig jaar verscheen dit rapport over democratische erosie, en de implicaties voor Nederland. @cvalebeek.bsky.social en ik schreven een bijdrage over gedrag. Na het afgelopen jaar (zie VS maar helaas ook NL) heeft het rapport niet aan relevantie ingeboet. www.kennisopenbaarbestuur.nl/documenten/2...

Can confirm that my NSF grant "How False Beliefs Form & How to Correct Them" was cancelled today because it is "not in alignment with current NSF priorities" Shocking that understanding how people are misled by false information is now a forbidden topic. Our work will continue but at a smaller scale

Mis/disinformation research officially cancelled. Understanding the creation, content, distribution, and susceptibility is one of today’s key scientific and societal challenges. Researching this is not free speech infringement. Such a claim is intentionally misleading. www.nsf.gov/updates-on-p...

Another installment in my oft repeated observation: the Trump administration does not offer policy proposals in the traditional sense, nor does he engage in good faith negotiation. He demands concessions that give him wealth, status, submission, or subservience.

Abrego Garcia's wife: "I will not stop fighting until I see my husband alive. Kilmar, if you can hear me, stay strong. God hasn't forgotten about you. Our children are asking when you will come home ... they miss their dad so much."

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

Everything ICE has been doing in recent weeks has been awful. But there's something about "Take him anyway" that should chill you even further to your bones.

7/ You may not think this case matters to you. But Abrego Garcia was legally in the U.S., just like all the rest of us. His status as an immigrant doesn't matter as a matter of law. If Trump can lock up or remove ANYONE - no matter what the courts say - we are all at grave risk.

One of hundreds of people abducted by ICE and sold to slavery in El Salvador was a 19 year old with no criminal record in the US or Venezuela and no tattoos of any kind. An ICE kidnapper who grabbed him outside his house said, "He's not the one." The other said, "Take him anyway." So they did.