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Hoover Daily Report | April 23, 2026 · Hoover Daily Report

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  Welcome to "the Hoover Daily Report". Ideas Advancing
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  Freedom. It's Thursday, April 23rd, twenty twenty six.
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  Today, Victor Davis Hanson reviews the strategic blunders that now leave Iran’s
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  fragmented regime on the geopolitical ropes; Andrew Hall explores why
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  prediction markets are becoming a key tool in American political analysis; and
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  Hoover announces the 2026 cohort of entrepreneurs using market mechanisms to
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  enhance conservation efforts and environmental quality.
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  How Iran Committed Suicide.
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  “Iran’s half-century-long deadly terrorist reputation peaked with the
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  October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel that it helped fund and coordinate,” argues
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  Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson in a new post at his Blade of Perseus site.
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  Now, “Iran has no government,” and “apparatchiks from the military, the
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  Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the government, and the theocracy . . . fear
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  a popular uprising and an overdue noose strung over the collective neck of the
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  regime.” Hanson’s essay traces the strategic decline of Iran’s power,
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  focusing on the abandonment of the theocratic regime by erstwhile patrons in
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  Beijing and Moscow. Rather than implode after October 7, Israel went on the
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  offensive and dismantled Iran’s regional proxies. The Gulf States and Europe,
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  Hanson says, have little interest in continued appeasement of the regime in
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  exchange for peace and oil. Taken together, these shifts mean “Iran can no
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  longer credibly bluff, threaten, or delay,” and the ruling regime “is in
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  ruins.”.
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  Prediction Markets Are Eating American Politics.
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  In a post at the Free Systems Substack, Senior Fellow Andrew B. Hall and coauthor
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  Pairie Koh explain why prediction markets are eclipsing opinion polls as go-to
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  measures of the future course of politics and world events. “For decades, the
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  polling number was the default quantitative input into political
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  conversation—the main way to use data to ‘monitor the situation’ with elections,”
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  Koh and Hall write. Their research has found that “prediction markets were once
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  a small fraction of the relevant creator content, but the 2024 election was a sea
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  change.” Today “prediction markets are . . . the dominant data source for creators
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  making videos about politics who need to draw on probabilistic information.”
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  Unpacking the drivers of this shift in the “information layer,” Hall and Koh
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  note that, unlike polls, prediction markets update in real time and “carry
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  financial skin in the game that partially disciplines them against wishful
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  thinking.” But these new markets also have unique downsides as signals “about
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  political reality,” which the authors will continue to research.
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  Hoover Institution Introduces 2026 Environmental Entrepreneur Fellowship
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  Cohort.
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  The Hoover Institution is proud to announce the 2026 cohort of eight
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  professionals named to its highly selective Enviropreneur Fellowship
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  Program. This fellowship, falling within Hoover’s Markets vs. Mandates Research
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  Program, invites conservation professionals and innovators in
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  environmental technologies to apply market solutions to pressing
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  environmental issues, combining intellectual rigor and entrepreneurial
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  spirit to foster meaningful change. "Successful enviropreneurs convert
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  economic prosperity into environmental health and vice versa. This program aims
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  to amplify their success by increasing their visibility and helping them see
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  hidden opportunities and barriers,” said Senior Fellow Dominic Parker, who directs
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  Markets vs. Mandates alongside Senior Fellow Terry L. Anderson. The Hoover
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  Enviropreneur Fellowship integrates entrepreneurial insight and academic
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  expertise to develop profitable businesses that enhance environmental
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  quality and conservation.
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  A Tale of Two Countries.
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  The gap between high-tax states and low-tax states suggests we’re a country
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  divided on tax policy, Research Fellow David R. Henderson writes at Defining
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  Ideas. The effects of this divide? Taxpayers are migrating to those states
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  that hold the line on income taxes, to the financial benefit of those
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  governments, Henderson says. In those jurisdictions, a percentage cut in the
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  tax rate will cause revenue to go down less than that percentage, thanks to the
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  power of incentives broadening the tax base. Henderson reminds readers that the
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  Laffer curve, made famous during the Reagan presidency, explains the process
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  at work: Raising tax rates leads to less of the activity being taxed—potentially
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  yielding less money for the government. This mechanism should give states a clear
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  incentive, Henderson concludes, to keep taxes low or eliminate them, or risk
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  continued population and revenue drain.
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  Improving Care for Medicare Beneficiaries in Long-Term Care.
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  More than 1.2 million Americans live in nursing homes, and that number is rising.
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  Institutional Special Needs Plans (I-SNPs) are Medicare Advantage plans
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  designed for long-term-care residents that reduce hospitalizations through
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  on-site clinical teams and aligned financial incentives. Yet few eligible
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  beneficiaries are enrolled. This new Hoover Institution Press essay by
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  Visiting Fellow Brian J. Miller and coauthors John Connolly and Anthony
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  DiGiorgio reviews the evidence on I-SNPs and recommends regulatory reforms to make
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  I-SNPs more successful and accessible. The paper notes that the prevalence of
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  Medicare beneficiaries requiring long-term institutionalized care is
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  rising, which makes improving insurance design for these beneficiaries a national
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  imperative.
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  This Month in Hoover History: Hoover Hosts House Select Committee on China’s
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  Communist Party.
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  On April 6–7, 2023, the Hoover Institution hosted the US House Select
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  Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese
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  Communist Party. A bipartisan group of 10 members exchanged ideas with Hoover
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  fellows—including Glenn Tiffert, Amy Zegart, Larry Diamond, and Gen. Jim
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  Mattis—on the conduct of the Chinese Communist Party in areas including
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  critical mineral supply, digital currencies, and the “no limits”
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  relationship between Russia and China.
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  That’s your Hoover Daily Report for Thursday, April 23rd, twenty twenty six.
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  Each weekday, we bring you research, analysis, and commentary focused on
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  public policy, national security, and the ideas shaping American society and
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  government.
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  The Hoover Institution at Stanford University is grounded in constitutional
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  principles with a commitment to sustaining the safeguards of the American
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  way of life.
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  Thank you for listening.
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  For links to all the articles and interviews mentioned today, visit
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  hoover.org slash, HDR.