Direction of the country
Topic direction-of-country
Confidence: STRONG
5 of 6 tiers have recent data.
✓ polls
✓ outcomes
✓ social
○ audience
✓ narrative
✓ forecast
⚖️ Media vs Public — INVERTED
last 30d · updated Oct 18
Mainstream media
-0.17
30 articles
vs
The public (social)
+0.20
3497 posts · L +0.20
Gap
-38 pts
The media-public gap here is real and inverted: mainstream outlets are running net negative on the country's direction while left-leaning public posters on BlueSky and Reddit are running net positive — a 38-point spread. That divergence tells you something about framing and selection, not about ground truth. Major outlets are leading with polling on Trump approval, geopolitical instability, and commodity supply disruptions; public posters in the same window are apparently weighing something differently, or weighting the same facts differently. Worth noting that the public sample here is exclusively left-leaning, which means this is not a left-vs-right split — it is a media-vs-public-left split, and that is the more unusual and more interesting signal. Whether the media's negativity reflects accurate coverage of documented conditions or reflects editorial selection bias toward conflict-framing is a separate question the data here cannot answer, but the inversion is the kind of persistent gap that historically precedes either a correction in coverage tone or a shift in public sentiment — and tracking which moves first is how you identify who was leading and who was lagging.
Sentiment −1…+1 (VADER) — not truth. A gap means coverage and public mood point different directions, not that either is right. See all gaps →
Tier 2 — Pollster readings (20)
| Date | Pollster | Sample | Margin (+R / -D) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9/15 - 9/18 | Quantus Insights | 1389 | -25.0 |
| 9/17 - 9/20 | Reuters/Ipsos | 979 | -49.0 |
| 9/16 - 9/21 | Wall Street Journal | 1500 | -41.0 |
| 9/19 - 9/22 | Economist/YouGov | 982 | -38.0 |
| 9/21 - 9/25 | Rasmussen Reports | 1847 | -21.0 |
| 9/25 - 9/28 | Economist/YouGov | 1007 | -35.0 |
| 9/26 - 9/28 | Harvard-Harris | 2200 | -21.0 |
| 9/27 - 10/1 | Rasmussen Reports | 1782 | -25.0 |
| 10/2 - 10/5 | Economist/YouGov | 1181 | -32.0 |
| 10/4 - 10/8 | Rasmussen Reports | 1788 | -28.0 |
| 10/7 - 10/10 | Cygnal | 1500 | -31.0 |
| 10/10 - 10/12 | Economist/YouGov | 1184 | -36.0 |
| 10/9 - 10/13 | ABC/Wash Post/Ipsos | 2032 | -41.0 |
| 9/28 - 10/12 | NBC News Decision Desk | 19135 | -42.0 |
| 9/7 - 10/13 | RCP Average | — | -31.1 |
| 9/15 - 9/18 | Quantus Insights | 1389 | -25.0 |
| 9/17 - 9/20 | Reuters/Ipsos | 979 | -49.0 |
| 9/16 - 9/21 | Wall Street Journal | 1500 | -41.0 |
| 9/19 - 9/22 | Economist/YouGov | 982 | -38.0 |
| 9/21 - 9/25 | Rasmussen Reports | 1847 | -21.0 |
Tier 0 — Outcomes (1)
| Recorded | Kind | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-19 | event | +47.00 | ↗ |
Tier 5 — Latent forecasting (the Clif-High layer)
Modal-language intensity + attention momentum + Wikipedia pageview signal. Predictive, not descriptive — what these signals suggest is coming.
Attention momentum (last 3d vs prior 3d)
-22.0%
FALLING
Modestly falling (-22.0% over 3 days).
Modal-language intensity (current day)
anger
1.0
-26% vs prior 7d
fear
0.5
+33% vs prior 7d
hope
0.5
-24% vs prior 7d
dread
0.5
+108% vs prior 7d
certainty
3.4
-8% vs prior 7d
doubt
0.5
+36% vs prior 7d
urgency
2.9
+5% vs prior 7d
complacency
1.0
-30% vs prior 7d
Hits per 1,000 words. Delta is 7d-vs-prior-7d change. Rising fear/dread/urgency + falling certainty/complacency = typical "crisis warm-up" pattern.
Tier 4 — Mainstream narrative coverage
VADER sentiment over 30 recent articles from operator-curated mainstream sources. This is what the major outlets are telling readers about this topic.
Average sentiment
+0.14
VADER compound · 30 articles
Source mix
ABC News: 7 · +0.07
CNBC: 4 · +0.16
Bloomberg: 9 · -0.02
The Hill: 9 · +0.36
Financial Times: 1 · -0.10
Recent mainstream coverage
ABC News · 2026-10-18 ·
+0.92
CNBC · 2026-10-18 ·
-0.23
Bloomberg · 2026-10-18 ·
-0.49
The Hill · 2026-10-18 ·
+0.65
Bloomberg · 2026-10-18 ·
-0.36
Bloomberg · 2026-10-18 ·
-0.65
The Hill · 2026-10-18 ·
+0.98
The Hill · 2026-10-18 ·
+0.53
Tier 3 — Prediction markets (20)
Money-on-the-line probabilities. When market price diverges > 10pts from the poll average, somebody is wrong.
| Platform | Question | YES probability | Volume | Captured | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| polymarket | Kraken IPO by March 31, 2027? | 10% | $2,300 | 2026-10-19 01:15 | ↗ |
| polymarket | Kraken IPO by June 30, 2027? | 22% | $1,404 | 2026-10-19 01:15 | ↗ |
| polymarket | Kraken IPO by December 31, 2027? | 62% | $1,493 | 2026-10-19 01:15 | ↗ |
| polymarket | Kraken IPO by March 31, 2026? | 0% | $545,639 | 2026-10-19 01:15 | ↗ |
| polymarket | Kraken IPO in 2025? | 0% | $494,517 | 2026-10-19 01:15 | ↗ |
| polymarket | Kraken IPO by June 30, 2027? | 22% | $1,404 | 2026-10-19 00:15 | ↗ |
| polymarket | Kraken IPO by March 31, 2027? | 10% | $2,300 | 2026-10-19 00:15 | ↗ |
| polymarket | Kraken IPO by December 31, 2027? | 61% | $1,493 | 2026-10-19 00:15 | ↗ |
| polymarket | Kraken IPO by March 31, 2026? | 0% | $545,639 | 2026-10-19 00:15 | ↗ |
| polymarket | Kraken IPO in 2025? | 0% | $494,517 | 2026-10-19 00:15 | ↗ |
Tier 1 — Social (paired, never merged)
Sentiment (avg compound, −1 to +1) split by platform political coding. Profoundd never merges left-coded and right-coded sources into a single number.
Left-coded platforms (BlueSky, r/politics, r/news…)
+0.19
avg VADER compound · 3550 posts
Sample left-coded posts
bluesky ·
-0.44
Feel for Ben Simmons. Things were really pointing in the right direction for him. This sucks.
link ↗
bluesky ·
+0.89
It’s okay if you are quiet sometimes and chatty other times, but keeping the line open is an excellent choice. Sometimes a picture or compliment is just enough to push the day in the right direction 🩷🐈⬛🐾
link ↗
bluesky ·
-0.23
Or they just have a stupid system for calculating property taxes. If assessments were updated every two years like they are here, they'd at least be directing their ire in the right direction (at the politicians who set the municipal budget…
link ↗
bluesky ·
+0.61
Yeah. You just gotta do what Mommy says instead of Daddy. Which is both a step in the right direction and also authoritarian lol.
link ↗
bluesky ·
+0.67
Nothing is decided yet in terms of payment processors. Just opening the conversation to get creator feedback. Would love your feedback about what the right direction is to go in!
link ↗
Sample right-coded posts
Tier 6 — Profoundd audience signal
Your readers' signal, not American public opinion. Last 30 days.
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