Gabe Lenz
@gabelenz.bsky.social
Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley
Pinned
Gabe Lenz
@gabelenz.bsky.social
· Jul 11
New paper. What happens when a presidential candidate steps way out of line, not only with the public, but even with his own voters? And on a highly salient issue? Candidates typically don’t do that—they’re too strategic. But Trump isn’t. He’s good for social science. 🧵
Reposted by Gabe Lenz
I understand the fear and anger. But also:
1) It is connected to the belief that AI is fake and going to vanish, which means that critics who should be helping shape AI use through policy and collective work are sitting it out
2) Lumping all AI criticism/talk into us vs. "tech bros" doesn't help
1) It is connected to the belief that AI is fake and going to vanish, which means that critics who should be helping shape AI use through policy and collective work are sitting it out
2) Lumping all AI criticism/talk into us vs. "tech bros" doesn't help
I say this as someone whose entire job is finding the narrow use cases in which AI is actually useful:
All the fear about AI, all the reluctance to adopt it, is entirely legitimate, and a product of the fact that it's been foisted on the public with no consideration of its negative externalities.
All the fear about AI, all the reluctance to adopt it, is entirely legitimate, and a product of the fact that it's been foisted on the public with no consideration of its negative externalities.
I continue to have no sympathy left for whinging about how the public are rude about AI and feel threatened by it when the biggest players in the AI space have spent years very vocally and constantly *threatening the public*
December 10, 2025 at 8:03 PM
I understand the fear and anger. But also:
1) It is connected to the belief that AI is fake and going to vanish, which means that critics who should be helping shape AI use through policy and collective work are sitting it out
2) Lumping all AI criticism/talk into us vs. "tech bros" doesn't help
1) It is connected to the belief that AI is fake and going to vanish, which means that critics who should be helping shape AI use through policy and collective work are sitting it out
2) Lumping all AI criticism/talk into us vs. "tech bros" doesn't help
New paper in PNAS: Your homicide risk follows you around the country. If you’re born in the historically violent Wild West, Appalachian Highlands, or Deep South, a higher risk of violent death trails you wherever you go. 🧵1/14
December 8, 2025 at 5:19 PM
New paper in PNAS: Your homicide risk follows you around the country. If you’re born in the historically violent Wild West, Appalachian Highlands, or Deep South, a higher risk of violent death trails you wherever you go. 🧵1/14
Reposted by Gabe Lenz
Incredible parallels in this Berinsky &
@gabelenz.bsky.social paper. Politicians didn't stand up to Joe McCarthy in large part because they incorrectly inferred McCarthy/ism was extremely popular. Not standing up to McCarthy was a kind of 1950s Popularism
gated academic.oup.com/poq/article/...
@gabelenz.bsky.social paper. Politicians didn't stand up to Joe McCarthy in large part because they incorrectly inferred McCarthy/ism was extremely popular. Not standing up to McCarthy was a kind of 1950s Popularism
gated academic.oup.com/poq/article/...
September 9, 2025 at 6:45 PM
Incredible parallels in this Berinsky &
@gabelenz.bsky.social paper. Politicians didn't stand up to Joe McCarthy in large part because they incorrectly inferred McCarthy/ism was extremely popular. Not standing up to McCarthy was a kind of 1950s Popularism
gated academic.oup.com/poq/article/...
@gabelenz.bsky.social paper. Politicians didn't stand up to Joe McCarthy in large part because they incorrectly inferred McCarthy/ism was extremely popular. Not standing up to McCarthy was a kind of 1950s Popularism
gated academic.oup.com/poq/article/...
Reposted by Gabe Lenz
Research: Believing that the mass public in the opposing party supports undemocratic tactics leads people to be more supportive of undemocratic tactics themselves. Being assured that a majority of your opponents oppose such radical tactics increases support for democratic norms osf.io/my987/download
osf.io
September 11, 2025 at 12:05 AM
Research: Believing that the mass public in the opposing party supports undemocratic tactics leads people to be more supportive of undemocratic tactics themselves. Being assured that a majority of your opponents oppose such radical tactics increases support for democratic norms osf.io/my987/download
Reposted by Gabe Lenz
I went on Washington Journal to talk about Elon Musk and third parties. www.c-span.org/program/wash...
July 10, 2025 at 2:45 PM
I went on Washington Journal to talk about Elon Musk and third parties. www.c-span.org/program/wash...
Reposted by Gabe Lenz
Don’t trust an observational model with a bunch of arbitrary control variables
@gabelenz.bsky.social @alexandersahn.bsky.social Lenz, Gabriel S., and Alexander Sahn. "Achieving statistical significance with control variables and without transparency." Political Analysis
doi.org/10.1017/pan....
@gabelenz.bsky.social @alexandersahn.bsky.social Lenz, Gabriel S., and Alexander Sahn. "Achieving statistical significance with control variables and without transparency." Political Analysis
doi.org/10.1017/pan....
Achieving Statistical Significance with Control Variables and Without Transparency | Political Analysis | Cambridge Core
Achieving Statistical Significance with Control Variables and Without Transparency - Volume 29 Issue 3
doi.org
April 7, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Don’t trust an observational model with a bunch of arbitrary control variables
@gabelenz.bsky.social @alexandersahn.bsky.social Lenz, Gabriel S., and Alexander Sahn. "Achieving statistical significance with control variables and without transparency." Political Analysis
doi.org/10.1017/pan....
@gabelenz.bsky.social @alexandersahn.bsky.social Lenz, Gabriel S., and Alexander Sahn. "Achieving statistical significance with control variables and without transparency." Political Analysis
doi.org/10.1017/pan....
New paper. What happens when a presidential candidate steps way out of line, not only with the public, but even with his own voters? And on a highly salient issue? Candidates typically don’t do that—they’re too strategic. But Trump isn’t. He’s good for social science. 🧵
July 11, 2025 at 5:19 PM
New paper. What happens when a presidential candidate steps way out of line, not only with the public, but even with his own voters? And on a highly salient issue? Candidates typically don’t do that—they’re too strategic. But Trump isn’t. He’s good for social science. 🧵
Reposted by Gabe Lenz
Everything indicates that the Tesla protests are really eroding his wealth and are the only thing causing enough business/financial pain to him to possibly change his behavior. www.teslatakedown.com to find a protest near you this weekend. Something you can do to really make a difference.
March 29, 2025 at 2:42 AM
Everything indicates that the Tesla protests are really eroding his wealth and are the only thing causing enough business/financial pain to him to possibly change his behavior. www.teslatakedown.com to find a protest near you this weekend. Something you can do to really make a difference.
Reposted by Gabe Lenz
One way to think about what's happening with Trump getting elected and then waging war on the Constitution and laws is that: It's taken less than 9 months for Trump v. U.S. to almost break the American republic. /1
March 23, 2025 at 5:55 PM
One way to think about what's happening with Trump getting elected and then waging war on the Constitution and laws is that: It's taken less than 9 months for Trump v. U.S. to almost break the American republic. /1
Our institutions depend on a coalition of moderate Republican senators emerging. Give Schumer space to help it form.
March 15, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Our institutions depend on a coalition of moderate Republican senators emerging. Give Schumer space to help it form.
Reposted by Gabe Lenz
Permitting reform: sexy? Not so much. Important? Crucially.
Red tape trips up so many critical housing, transportation, renewable energy & climate resilience projects — and we can fix this. Here I talk to my colleagues about why it’s so important that we do.
www.youtube.com/shorts/v17C4...
Red tape trips up so many critical housing, transportation, renewable energy & climate resilience projects — and we can fix this. Here I talk to my colleagues about why it’s so important that we do.
www.youtube.com/shorts/v17C4...
Why should permitting reform matter to Californians in 2025?
YouTube video by Buffy Wicks for Assembly
www.youtube.com
March 7, 2025 at 1:42 AM
Permitting reform: sexy? Not so much. Important? Crucially.
Red tape trips up so many critical housing, transportation, renewable energy & climate resilience projects — and we can fix this. Here I talk to my colleagues about why it’s so important that we do.
www.youtube.com/shorts/v17C4...
Red tape trips up so many critical housing, transportation, renewable energy & climate resilience projects — and we can fix this. Here I talk to my colleagues about why it’s so important that we do.
www.youtube.com/shorts/v17C4...
An underappreciated reason why Harris lost was flat real disposable income growth in the election year. RDI was above trend, but voters care about growth in the election year itself. Between Jan. and Nov. 2024, nothing happened.
February 1, 2025 at 12:07 AM
An underappreciated reason why Harris lost was flat real disposable income growth in the election year. RDI was above trend, but voters care about growth in the election year itself. Between Jan. and Nov. 2024, nothing happened.
Reposted by Gabe Lenz
New 2024 data: Over 50% of GOP fundraising now comes from just 100 mega-donors.
Trump’s embrace of the billionaire class—and their embrace of him—will only supercharge this trend.
Trump’s embrace of the billionaire class—and their embrace of him—will only supercharge this trend.
January 23, 2025 at 11:11 PM
New 2024 data: Over 50% of GOP fundraising now comes from just 100 mega-donors.
Trump’s embrace of the billionaire class—and their embrace of him—will only supercharge this trend.
Trump’s embrace of the billionaire class—and their embrace of him—will only supercharge this trend.
Reposted by Gabe Lenz
More evidence for the long-term stability and persistence of party id. A change induced by a major early life experience does not decay.
being bused to an inner-city school significantly increases White support for the Democratic Party and its candidates more than forty years later
www.nber.org/papers/w33365
www.nber.org/papers/w33365
A Different World: Enduring Effects of School Desegregation on Ideology and Attitudes
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
www.nber.org
January 21, 2025 at 10:36 PM
More evidence for the long-term stability and persistence of party id. A change induced by a major early life experience does not decay.
Reposted by Gabe Lenz
Imagine if employees of the IRS could give out cards to their friends and family and those with cards didn't have to pay taxes. I could see an argument that this is even worse.
January 17, 2024 at 2:17 AM
Imagine if employees of the IRS could give out cards to their friends and family and those with cards didn't have to pay taxes. I could see an argument that this is even worse.
Reposted by Gabe Lenz
Since their rollout, I have made heavy use of the custom GPT tools in ChatGPT. Here is a thread of some of the tools that I use regularly (all of them require ChatGPT 4). I think they are most useful for people doing quantitative social science, but some are more general.
January 5, 2024 at 7:29 AM
Since their rollout, I have made heavy use of the custom GPT tools in ChatGPT. Here is a thread of some of the tools that I use regularly (all of them require ChatGPT 4). I think they are most useful for people doing quantitative social science, but some are more general.
It's added to the fun of writing papers in markdown that copilot tries to write not only the R code but also the paper, suggesting what I should say next. The spooky part is that once in a while it guesses correctly.
January 3, 2024 at 5:07 PM
It's added to the fun of writing papers in markdown that copilot tries to write not only the R code but also the paper, suggesting what I should say next. The spooky part is that once in a while it guesses correctly.
Reposted by Gabe Lenz
Across 93 countries, the preferences of the lowest socioeconomic group, rather than those of the median or upper strata, are most predictive of realized redistribution. This finding contradicts the expectations of both leading experts and regular citizens.
www.nber.org/papers/w31974
www.nber.org/papers/w31974
Whose Preferences Matter for Redistribution: Cross-country Evidence
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
www.nber.org
December 27, 2023 at 12:18 PM
Across 93 countries, the preferences of the lowest socioeconomic group, rather than those of the median or upper strata, are most predictive of realized redistribution. This finding contradicts the expectations of both leading experts and regular citizens.
www.nber.org/papers/w31974
www.nber.org/papers/w31974
Reposted by Gabe Lenz
NY Fed measure of underlying inflation also more or less says we won the war
December 26, 2023 at 7:12 PM
NY Fed measure of underlying inflation also more or less says we won the war
Been working on the unicorn problem for years only to read it’s been solved by GPT-4. AGI must be close.
December 26, 2023 at 9:24 PM
Been working on the unicorn problem for years only to read it’s been solved by GPT-4. AGI must be close.
We should adopt the phase planetary destabilization in place of global warming. It sounds worse and is the even greater threat posed by global warming. lhttps://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1259855
Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet
Developments in the planetary boundaries concept provide a framework to support global sustainability.
www.science.org
December 17, 2023 at 4:33 AM
We should adopt the phase planetary destabilization in place of global warming. It sounds worse and is the even greater threat posed by global warming. lhttps://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1259855
Reposted by Gabe Lenz
In the aftermath of the financial crisis austerity advocates claimed that contractionary policy was actually expansionary bc of confidence — which I mocked as belief in the Confidence Fairy. It seems to me now that we're seeing a somewhat parallel myth: the Credibility Fairy 1/
December 16, 2023 at 7:38 PM
In the aftermath of the financial crisis austerity advocates claimed that contractionary policy was actually expansionary bc of confidence — which I mocked as belief in the Confidence Fairy. It seems to me now that we're seeing a somewhat parallel myth: the Credibility Fairy 1/
The real threat to humanity is humans, not AI. Every decade technology makes it easier for a small group to wipe us out. Will AI improve fast enough to protect us from ourselves? Sure hope so.
December 15, 2023 at 6:14 AM
The real threat to humanity is humans, not AI. Every decade technology makes it easier for a small group to wipe us out. Will AI improve fast enough to protect us from ourselves? Sure hope so.