So this is a government grant, funded by the NSF, which explicitly takes aim at “populist politicians,” “populist communications,” and targets the former “populist leaders” of four countries — including the United States.
To ram the radical bias home, the NSF grant explicitly says the goal of the funding is “to counter these populist narratives.” That is, point blank, just the US government using US taxpayer funds to counter the social media opinions of half of the entire US electorate.