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Chapter One: The Anatomy of Political Kool-Aid

These are the sources the Kool-Aid Laboratory used to examine this chapter. Every one is public. Check them yourself.

Want the plain-English verdict and the full laboratory report for this chapter? Those are in Who's Drinking the Kool-Aid? — The Official Research Companion. Get the Companion →

#2 Primary record

Dan M. Kahan, "Misconceptions, Misinformation, and the Logic of Identity-Protective Cognition,"

Cultural Cognition Project, Yale Law School, Working Paper (2017); available via SSRN (search author + title).

#3 Primary record

U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General — "A Report of Investigation Into the Department's Release of Information Related to a Pennsylvania Election-Fraud Investigation," Report No. 24-082 (July 2024).

Documents the Luzerne County discarded-ballots matter and the handling of public statements; the FBI found a seasonal worker's mistake, not fraud.

#4 Scholarly / institutional

U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Special Counsel (Jack Smith) — Final Report, Volume One: "Report on Efforts to Interfere with the Lawful Transfer of Power Following the 2020 Presidential Election…"

(137 pp.; released January 14, 2025). Primary document released by the Department of Justice. Full report and release: Coverage:

#6 Primary record

Office of the Director of National Intelligence — "Unclassified Summary of Assessment on COVID-19 Origins" (August 27, 2021)

and the updated "Declassified Assessment on COVID-19 Origins" (October 2021). Both the natural-exposure and laboratory-associated hypotheses were assessed plausible; the IC judged the virus was not developed as a bioweapon.

#7 Primary record

National Center for Education Statistics — NAEP Long-Term Trend Assessment Results: Reading and Mathematics, Age 9 (2022).

Age-9 scores fell 5 points in reading and 7 in mathematics versus 2020 — the largest reading decline since 1990 and the first-ever decline in mathematics.

#8 Primary record

National Center for Education Statistics — "The Nation's Report Card": 2022 NAEP Reading and Mathematics (main assessment, grades 4 and 8).

#9 Scholarly / institutional

Dan Goldhaber, Thomas J. Kane, Andrew McEachin, Emily Morton, Tyler Patterson & Douglas O. Staiger, "The Consequences of Remote and Hybrid Instruction During the Pandemic,"

NBER Working Paper No. 30010 (May 2022); DOI 10.3386/w30010. Later published in American Economic Review: Insights (2023).