This article was a heartbreaking (and terrifying) reminder that behind every statistic is a child who had to pay the price for willful ignorance. No family should have to go through this.

From me and @adambonica.bsky.social on Golden

www.bostonreview.net/forum/how-no...

"The rise of extreme wealth is one of the clearest signs of this imbalance. In 1987, billionaires held wealth equal to 3% of global GDP. Today this tiny elite, just 0.0001% of the world population, owns the equivalent of *16%* of world GDP in wealth."

My god. Essential, horrifying reporting here.

The funny (not actually funny) thing is that had Orban won, you know NYT would have pointed to that and gone, "See? Right-wing populism is as strong as ever! If Democrats want to win, they need to move to the right!"

It's always "heads, I win; tails, you lose" with these clowns.

This pattern holds a crucial lesson for America’s current moment. As democratic norms erode and elections become increasingly tilted, anti-corruption movements offer what partisan politics cannot: the moral authority to unite society against a rigged system. When traditional opposition fails, these movements succeed because they transcend party lines, mobilizing citizens around a cause larger than any candidate: the fundamental fairness of the system itself. Research shows that in polarized societies, the most effective opposition doesn’t fight on the traditional left-right battlefield where positions are entrenched. Instead, it creates an entirely new axis of conflict.1 Framing the stakes as clean versus corrupt shifts debate from rigid ideological divisions to a universally resonant moral question: are you on the side of the people or a corrupt elite?

Truth is, Orbán is just the latest in long list of authoritarians to be defeated by anti-corruption politics.

A Democratic landslide is possible if they can credibly take up the anti-corruption mantle. But that can’t happen if voters see them as corrupt and beholden to wealthy donors.

Table of Hungarian parliamentary seat projections from various pollsters, published between 22 Feb and 8 Apr 2026. Columns show publication date, polling date, projection source, pollster, and projected seats for each party, ending with majority size. Across every row, Péter Magyar’s Tisza Párt is projected to win a large majority — ranging from 106 to 141 seats — while Orbán’s Fidesz trails badly with between 52 and 87 seats. Most other parties (DK, MSZP, Zöldek, LMP, Mi Hazánk, etc.) are projected to win zero seats, with Mi Hazánk (MH) picking up 4–7. Tisza’s projected majority ranges from 7 to 42 seats. The most recent poll (Medián, 8 Apr 2026) shows the widest gap: Tisza 141, Fidesz 52, for a 42-seat majority.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Another Trump-endorsed foreign party cruising toward electoral disaster.

If Magyar’s Tisza lead holds, Orbán will become the latest authoritarian taken down by an anti-corruption movement.

What authoritarians fear most is an opposition with hands clean enough to credibly promise to clean house.

Not one of them has ever stood in a line for 4 hours or more to vote in person.

Not one of them has been turned away at the polls because they are suddenly “not on the list.”

Not one has had their pay docked b/c they arrived late to work b/c they went to vote in the morning.

Trump Has Detained the Parents of More Than 11,000 U.S. Citizen Kids A ProPublica analysis of new ICE data shows that Trump has detained parents of U.S. citizen children at about twice the rate that Biden did, and moms have been deported four times as often.

NEW: More than 11,000. That’s how many US citizen children have a parent who has been detained under Trump, our new data analysis shows. When Doris Flores was separated from her four-month-old who was still breastfeeding, she turned to her pastor for help.
www.propublica.org/article/trum...

How Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Vaccine Agenda Risks a Resurgence of Deadly Childhood Plagues The health secretary is spreading doubts about vaccine safety and considering changes that could prompt manufacturers to flee the U.S. market. History has shown how plagues from the past can roar back...

Vaccines were once so uncontroversial that McDonald’s restaurants put the childhood immunization schedule on their tray liners.

Now, as the U.S. government sows doubt, preventable diseases could come roaring back.

Horizontal bar chart showing new first-time Gen Z donors (under 30) by campaign, through 2025. Abughazaleh leads with 3,164, followed by the DSCC (1,880), DCCC (734), Jeffries (273), Biss (17), Fine (7), and Schumer (3). Abughazaleh's bar is highlighted in blue; all others are gray.

@katmabu.bsky.social narrowly lost the IL-09 primary last night. But here's a number worth sitting with. Her campaign brought in more first-time Gen Z donors than Jeffries, Schumer, the DSCC, and the DCCC, and her primary opponents combined. This is why campaigns like hers matter.

President Trump has renewed the push to pass the SAVE Act — a bill that would block millions of U.S. citizens from voting.

Join Brennan Center experts for a Reddit AMA on the SAVE Act on Wed., March 18, 1-3 p.m. ET.

How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism Moderation used to help Democrats win, but its advantages now have been greatly exaggerated.

"The politics of careful positioning and poll-tested moderation have been tested, and on their own, they have failed to deliver the victories needed to protect democracy. The choice is to transform the party’s strategy to meet the scale of the threat, or fail." www.bostonreview.net/forum/how-no...

The Democrats' Path Forward: Become the Anti-Corruption Party But to reform the system they first need to reform the Democratic Party.

With a fixture (Clyburn) of both the Dem establishment that keeps losing elections and the party's gerontocracy in the news, worth coming back to this @adambonica.bsky.social piece. A better party is possible. data4democracy.substack.com/p/the-democr...

US-Israeli strike on girls' school kills at least 85 students, Iran's judiciary says At least 85 students have been killed in US-Israeli strikes that hit an Iranian girls' school in Hormozgan province, Iran's judiciary said on Saturday. Washington has not commented on the reported str...

We killed 85 schoolgirls. We are not the good guys.

I can’t stop thinking about this.

These two are always the real deal on data

This tracks closely with the argument I’ve made about the U.S.: scarcity is litigated, not regulated.

Civil law countries have much more regulation but far fewer lawsuits. The housing crisis isn’t about too many rules; it’s about who can afford to sue over them.

Matthew Yglesias & @mattyglesias X.com 1-2 percentage points is a small number but it's a very big deal. bostonreview.net/forum/how-not-... Adam Bonica and Jake Grumbach claim to find only "small" electoral benefits of moderation, on the order of one to two percentage points. Their subtext is, who could possibly care about an effect of this size? In fact, campaign professionals emphasize to me that this is an enormous effect compared to what you get from spending on campaign ads or mounting field programs to mobilize and turn out voters. A swing of one to two percentage points would have been enough for Hillary Clinton to win in 2016 or for Kamala Harris to win in 2024. Two is a small number, but I don't think that's small change for the world. It's a little bit hard for me to understand what this debate is even supposed to be about given that the skeptics of moderation are willing to concede that both of Trump's election wins were within the bounds of what they say can be plausibly achieved by moderating. To underscore the point: since 2012 there have been seventeen Senate races decided by less than the Bonica-Grumbach margin of moderation. 7:29 AM • 2/3/26 • 14K Views

To begin with, Yglesias is way off in claiming that moderation increases a candidate's vote share by "one to two percentage points.' We don't know where he got these numbers, but they aren't in our essay; as our cited graphic shows, the best estimate is less than half a percentage point. He also need not speculate that moderating would have flipped important congressional races — we ran the numbers ourselves and found that moderation would have flipped none of the close House races in 2024. But we're used to seeing incorrect numbers on this subject. In any case, Yglesias's incorrect numbers are not as important as missing the central failures of popularism in recent years. Consider how it has hindered Democrats' leadership on public opinion. G. Elliott Morris is exactly right that trajectories are far more important than what polls say at any given moment. Throughout 2025, as Yglesias was arguing that Democrats shouldn't talk about immigration, the public turned dramatically against Trump on the issue in part due to the leadership of some Democratic leaders like Senator Chris Van Hollen. Now even Trump himself is reportedly "looking to change the subject to his economic agenda as his administration faces growing backlash over his

We have no idea where Yglesias got his numbers but they’re wrong. This debate has for so long been plagued by numbers basically pulled out of thin air

Right pic is from my and @adambonica.bsky.social’s response essay: www.bostonreview.net/forum/how-no...

How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism Moderation used to help Democrats win, but its advantages now have been greatly exaggerated.

This @bostonreview.bsky.social piece by @adambonica.bsky.social and @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social is an absolute must-read, as are many of the responses to it.

Spread this one far and wide.

Senator Chuck Schumer conducts a news conference in the U.S. Capitol in May 2025. Image: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images FORUM How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism Moderation used to help Democrats win, but its advantages now have been greatly exaggerated. Adam Bonica, Jake Grumbach With responses from → Cori Bush, Amanda Litman, Matthew Yglesias, G. Elliott Morris, Julia Serano, Eric Rauchway, Suzanne Mettler & Trevor E. Brown, Thomas Ferguson, Timothy Shenk, Jared Abbott & Milan Loewer, Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, Lily Geismer, Danielle Wiggins, William A. Galston, and Henry Burke

We have a Boston Review Forum out today on the Democratic Party in a time of authoritarianism

www.bostonreview.net/forum/how-no...

A Pregnant Woman at Risk of Heart Failure Couldn’t Get Urgent Treatment. She Died Waiting for an Abortion. In a state that had legislated its commitment to life, Graham spent her final days struggling to find anyone to save hers.

This woman died of heart failure because she couldn't receive treatment while pregnant, and couldn't access an abortion.

President Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act into law on August 14, 1935, with Perkins among those witnessing the signing (third from right) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Signing_Of_The_Social_Security_Act.jpg

1/ I recently wrote about Frances Perkins—FDR’s Labor Secretary and first woman cabinet member. She is best known as the architect of the New Deal but she had a lesser-known achievement:

She dismantled her era’s version of ICE.🧵

over the course of 1871, congress held seven months of hearings on ku klux klan and other white vigilante violence in the south, they took detailed testimony from hundreds of black men and women attesting to klan terror. (1/?)

The Wall Looks Permanent Until It Falls On the optimism of preparation in a time of democratic decay.

"The wall looks permanent until the day it comes down."

data4democracy.substack.com/p/the-wall-l...

Several people I know have used the word "beautiful" for this piece, and that's exactly right. A beautifully phrased essay on the bind we're in— until we aren't.

Recommended, in an extreme way.

Screenshot of a data visualization titled “The Cost of American Exceptionalism,” subtitled “What would change if the U.S. matched the OECD average?” The page explains that each card shows how outcomes would change if the U.S. matched the average of 31 peer democracies. Below, a section labeled “Economy & Inequality” displays eight cards comparing U.S. figures to OECD averages. Highlights include: +$19K per household per year in redistributed income and +$96K in redistributed wealth if the top 1% matched OECD shares; a 71% lower CEO-to-worker pay ratio (from 354× to 101×); 50 million more workers with union coverage; 26 million more people with health insurance; $2.1 trillion saved annually in healthcare spending; $691 less per person per year in prescription drug costs; and intergenerational economic mobility being twice as high. Each card shows the U.S. value alongside the OECD average.

If there's one empirical insight I'd want everyone to understand about American politics, it's this:

America's problems are solved problems. Just not here.

What would change if the US simply matched the average of 31 peer democracies? Not Denmark or Norway. Just the middle of the pack. 🧵

Economy and inequality: Each household would gain $19,000 per year from a fairer income distribution and $96,000 overall from a fairer wealth distribution. 50 million more workers would have union coverage. Intergenerational economic mobility--the core of the American Dream--would be doubled.

Healthcare: 26 million more Americans would have health coverage. We'd save $2.1 trillion annually on healthcare ($16K per household). Prescription drugs would cost $691 less per person. Medical bankruptcy—a term that puzzles citizens of other wealthy nations—would essentially disappear.

Screenshot of a data visualization section titled “Family & Livelihood,” showing what would change if the United States matched the OECD average. Eight cards compare U.S. outcomes to OECD norms. They show: +25 weeks of guaranteed paid parental leave (U.S. 0 vs OECD ~25); +27 days of guaranteed paid time off (U.S. 0 vs OECD 27); 231 fewer annual hours worked per worker (U.S. 1811 vs OECD 1580); childcare costs 60% lower as a share of wages (U.S. 32% vs OECD 13%); 5 million fewer children living in poverty; 15 million fewer workers in poverty-wage jobs; 180,000 fewer unsheltered homeless people; and 500,000 fewer medical bankruptcies per year (common in the U.S., effectively zero in peer countries). Each card lists the U.S. figure alongside the OECD average.

Family and work: Parents would get 25 weeks of paid parental leave. Workers would get 27 days of guaranteed paid time off per year. We'd work 231 fewer hours per year—nearly six fewer weeks. Net childcare costs would fall by 60%.