You had me at “Academics in Space.”
Political scientist at FDU, Executive Director of the FDU Poll, studying masculinities and research methods.
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You had me at “Academics in Space.”
#MorningReads Sex is often used as a proxy for gender (in political surveys here), but this study shows it misses nuance—about a quarter of people don’t fit neatly. A finer measure of gender improves analysis and highlights the need for better survey design. #SOGIData
One thing that I try to remember, as a creator, is that, as Voltaire put it, "perfection is the enemy of good," and that perfection is also the enemy of Bargoth the Unmaker, the devourer of ten thousand suns, whose baleful eyes watch us all.
It’s certainly helpful (it’s a de facto requirement here in NJ), but there are plenty of universities I won’t name that run cop shop criminal justice programs that don’t deliver what we might want from a liberal arts education.
Talking at people- not with them, but at them- serves as a display of knowledge about it make coded areas of expertise (like politics). So it makes sense that the response - not wanting to see someone- would be one sided. The other side is ok with not talking about areas of disagreement!
I’ve run studies on this. Older men and conservatives are disproportionately likely to value aggressive stances, like “When I disagree with someone, I tell them about it,” or “It’s important for everyone to hear what I have to say on an issue.”
“We only recognize Real ID driver’s licenses,” might sound like a reasonable statement to folks who haven’t tried to get a Real ID license in New Jersey.
“Your drivers license isn’t good here,” is a wildly unconstitutional statement.
(Important context)
Bottom line is that the American Dream Mall, while as open as it’s going to get (til recently, they were still claiming it wasn’t open yet for tax purposes), is attracting big crowds and losing money hand over fist. They seem to be desperate. And they may be too big for the state to let them fail.
I can see them trying to leverage the race track already at the Meadowlands to get slot machines without a constitutional amendment, but I don’t know enough about the regulations to know if that’s a plausible move. I’m sure Monmouth would love it if it were.
The only way American Dream will ever be profitable is if they’re able to open a casino, and while they’ve been trying real hard, they’d need an amendment to the state constitution and public support is just not there.
This comes after executives promised for years that they would abide by the law, and just have attractions and restaurants open on Sundays. The mall is losing money despite not paying taxes and leaving bond holders holding the bag.
I’ve been wondering how American Dream, one of the biggest malls in the country, got an exemption from county laws preventing it from being open on Sundays. The answer is that it didn’t, and just decided the law didn’t apply to it. eu.northjersey.com/story/news/b...
Mamdani’s scavenger hunt is, implicitly, a strong counter to the increasing Republican claim that cities (and especially urban mass transit) are besieged violent hellholes.
I understand that these industry samples are difficult and expensive to get, but if you just send out emails to everyone on a list, you can’t generalize! External validity is important! I have to explain this to people in higher education all the time.
Living the dream (of eating fish like a cartoon cat).
I sound insane when I say this but I truly believe a big part of the Trump admin’s approach to energy policy is driven by gender anxiety. They think coal and oil are manly and renewables are effeminate.
You: pornbots keep randomly following me on Bluesky Me, an intellectual: pornbots are citing my books on Google Scholar
bsky.app/profile/doug...
Survey Practice 2026 Special Issue — Call for Papers “Mixed Methods Research: Deepening Our Knowledge Through Integrated Designs” Guest editors: @margaretrroller.bsky.social and Doug Currivan — Submission deadline: Nov 14, 2025 bit.ly/MMRspecialis... @surveypractice.bsky.social @aapor.bsky.social
Some of us do!
No actual money involved. “Social casino” means it’s just an online game, generally ad supported, so limited free play, and you can buy chips/tokens, but you can never cash out.
Duolingo having ads for the Amanda Knox series on Hulu in between Italian lessons is quite a choice.
You ‘run the gamut’ and ‘run the gauntlet.’ You don’t ‘run the gambit.’ gamut = entire range or series gauntlet = severe trial Gambit = Alpha-level mutant who can convert potential energy to kinetic energy
This was not what I was expecting from this issue at all, but it was fantastic. Great work!
Given the concerns about low ‘24 turnout among MENA voters in Passaic, this seems counterproductive.
(I don’t think the selective prosecution claim has much of a chance, but the discovery issues seem like a real problem for the government)
There’s a lot going on here, and the government’s case looks to be cooked. But the most interesting detail from an NJ politics perspective is that Habba isn’t signing this cases, seemingly to avoid the problems arising from her questionable hold on the office.
If you’ve read one story, you’ve read them all, but the craft is so good, why would you want to stop?
Mostly the same? Power Fantasy Assorted Crisis Events Fantastic Four GI Joe: ARAH Lazarus: Fallen Sleep Usagi Yojimbo (so perennial it’s easy to forget)
You can catch me tonight on PIX11 News, talking about the outcomes of today’s summit between Putin and Trump. No formal deal, but both men got some of what they wanted.
Native American tribes were long considered to be sovereign states, and treated as such. So Native Americans living on tribal lands were not taxed, and not considered citizens, while those living outside of tribal lands (and therefore paying taxes) would be counted (but might not be citizens).
Although, there is a case to be made that voter disenfranchisement (of any kind other than relating to a conviction) should lead to a reduction in representation of a state.
The 14th Amendment is not ambiguous on who gets counted.
He has demon powers and guns and a lair. Because his whole deal is maximalist everything. Loved that comic when I was 13. It’s been running for 30 years, and hasn’t changed a bit.
I think it’s tied to the belief that existing institutions are unfair, fixed against them (like white men believing that they face discrimination). If you think everything is fixed, that it’s all a scam, cheat codes like LLMs for knowledge, or crypto for wealth start to make sense.
On the air with PIX-11 in just a few minutes to talk about whether the administration can send federal forces into NYC, the way they have DC.
This also works as a critique of the state of New Jersey.
If it did, you’d expect to see fewer divorces in years where housing prices increased more than normal, but there’s no sign of that in the data. I think the reverse- declining values causing economic stress that leads to more divorces- might be happening, but you’d need very small scale data.
Yes, it’s all based on candidate recruitment. If the most qualified candidates stay in the State House (or wherever), their party underperforms.
Congrats to @michaelwconrad.bsky.social for putting out what is objectively the most heavy metal comic in Heavy Metal magazine. Millstone feels like a Frazetta fever dream from the side of a van, and I love it.
Either way, it’s all candidate selection. If Dems or Republicans do well in the midterm, it’s not just national trends: it’s the rational decisions of the most qualified candidates to run, or not.
There’s also a lag effect- if a party outperformed last cycle, they do worse this cycle- but that’s also a candidate selection effect. If a party had a good environment last time, they need time to rebuild the bench.
As such, the median Democratic candidate is likely to be *better* than a generic Democrat, and/or the median Republican candidate is likely to be *worse,* thereby overperforming or underperforming the expected generic ballot vote.
So, in 2-3 months, qualified Republican candidates are going to look at Trump’s approval and economic indicators, and likely say, “I’ll wait for 28 or 30.” Dems who have been thinking about it are going to jump in.
The key is that about one year out- so about 2-3 months from now- is when candidates are deciding to run. If things look good, highly qualified candidates throw their hats in the ring. If not, they stay in the jobs they have now.
The President’s Party benefitting or being punished for his popularity and the state of the economy isn’t surprising, but the lag is: why a one-year lag? Shouldn’t it be approval and the economy on the cusp of the election?
This is based on a study I published 7 or 8 years ago, but the data holds up. The best predictor of deviation between the House generic ballot (right before the election) and actual results is the state of the economy and the President’s approval 12 months before the midterm.
A note on generic ballot measures. The generic ballot measures you’re seeing (generally, D+3 or +4 right now) are a biased estimate of vote share in next year’s election. They’re biased because parties don’t run generic candidates: they run actual ones, and that means Dems are likely to do better.
See, Beeks is still dressed as a gorilla, and so, humorously, is sent to Africa in a cage with an actual gorilla.
The twist in book 6 is one of the craziest things I’ve ever encountered in a book. Worth it just for that.
That series is addictive. Loved every minute of it.
As my son said when I was telling him the 6th book of My Struggle, “That guy knows way too much about Hitler.”
TS Eliot, because I don’t actually like Ezra Pound’s work. And if you thought modern artists had cancellable views…
I think it’s that they wanted to avoid going through Texas (even though it was the fastest way to Mexico).
I know from experience how rarely people actually want to listen to PhD level experts.
If minor changes in question wording change attitudes, those weren’t really attitudes to begin with.
Poll finds NJ is split on who to blame for rising electricity rates newjerseymonitor.com/2025/08/07/p...
Read it all!
It’s funny- looks like almost all the writers are new, but they really captured the voices.
Some good news. ActBlue just announced major updates to crack down on deceptive fundraising. New rules ban impersonation, fake matches, and excessive spam. Big step in the right direction. Shout out to Josh Nelson and everyone who has been advocating for these changes.
Just out at @polbehavior.bsky.social w/Carey Stapleton: Voting by mail has the upside of boosting correct voting. When people vote by mail rather than in-person, they are more likely to choose the presidential candidate best aligned with their preferences. link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Congrats! The chapter looks great!
(Any relationship to current political leaders is something you said, not me)
And I can’t believe that I have to say this, but Thanos is not Killmonger. He does not have a point. He’s a deluded genocidal maniac with way too much power. If you think he was right, you need to take a walk down by the river and think about some stuff.
And by “people,” I mean “men.” Because it’s all men. Men who lionize traits like decisiveness, strength, doing what’s “rational” no matter who it hurts. It’s not that they like bad guys- it’s that they legitimately think Thanos had a point.
My chapter uses survey data on which MCU characters people say that they admire to answer the question: “Why does anyone look up to Thanos?”
My author’s copy of “The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe vol 2,” arrived today! Love seeing the contributions from all of the other authors!
This is a lot easier now that gender measures are on the ANES and GSS: it’s a positive step, but we have to put our data where our theoretical mouth is, and actually measure gender, and include it in our models of voter behavior.
I argue that we have to start taking gender seriously in elections, and not just assume that sex and gender are the same thing. Variation within sex categories is considerable, and drives voting behavior within and between parties.
My reflection on the gender gap in the 2024 US Presidential election for APSA is now available at politicalsciencenow. politicalsciencenow.com/bringing-gen...
If my eyebrows looked like that, the barber wouldn’t even ask before trimming them.
And just finished up copy edit proofs on "Bitcoin Bros."
Appreciate the dogged reporting on this. It's all so sketchy, but it also seems like that might be par for the course in these kinds of proceedings.
Helps that there are something like 10 monthly Spawn books now. No question that it’s a whole aesthetic that some people really like.
I would think the many women he had affairs with should probably get tested for heartbreak over the inevitable defeat of the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War.
Reading a collection of Cesar Vallejo’s work, and the introduction tells us that he died of either heartbreak over the inevitable defeat of Republican forces in Spain, or syphilis, and no one knows which.
“Name of the Rose” really holds up!
Wouldn’t be that hard! N-gram usage + Google Scholar by year for the DVs, and I guess I’d *need* to play the installments I missed to see when term were introduced (for science).
I have proofs to do, papers to finish, and here I am plotting out a side project measuring the effect of the introduction of new terms in Civ games on their use in scholarly works and general English usage.
“Fourth-class cities” sounds less like a designation and more like a sick burn about Bay Head.
They even change reports of what levels were in the past to get to the conclusion that things are better when their party is in charge! Motivated reasoning is a hell of a drug, and I legitimately don’t know if there’s a reality brake on it.
What’s wild to me is the extent that Americans don’t notice price and unemployment increases. When we ask people if there are more or fewer jobs, if they’re worried about their job, if prices generally, or for gas, are going up… the responses are just partisanship.
I don’t like that.
You’d be doing us all a big favor if you could pick Linear B, then give whoever they bring by the existing corpus to translate.
It’ll be unavoidable tomorrow morning.
OK - the results of the FDU Poll's first NJ Gov poll of the general election have gone out to our friends in the media; if you should have gotten it, but didn't, let me know.
Many people claim to believe misinformation not because they’re misinformed, but to show support for their political side. During the 2020 U.S. election, this partisan signaling often shaped what people reported believing or seeing, making it hard to tell who was truly misled vs defending their team
The show is at the Whitney now, and it’s fantastic.
Two good reads on recent polling: From @nataliej.bsky.social: "A good rule for polling is that if you’re squinting to see an effect, it’s probably not there...You don’t have to make hay of small bumps to see the larger points." www.nationaljournal.com/s/729032/bew...
You know what you did.
Very excited that Men and Masculinities is officially starting their search for a new editorial team. Kristen, Joseph and I will rotate off our second term at the end of the year. Please share and apply if you're interested. Feel free to reach out: journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/PD...
I probably should have started thinking about it at the point of “this book is written by Bill Willingham.”
I read it, and just moved past it without really thinking about it. Really should have been paying more attention.
Feels like a PhD in political science should have led me to pick up on that sometime in the first 20 years I was reading it.