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Adam Bonica

Adam Bonica

@adambonica.bsky.social

28K followers 1.2K following 790 posts

Professor of Political Science at Stanford | Exploring money in politics, campaigns and elections, ideology, the courts, and inequality | Author of The Judicial Tug of War cup.org/2LEoMrs | https://data4democracy.substack.com .. more

Economics 26%

Political science 24%

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Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 28d

Study after study shows campaign ads barely move the needle. So where does money’s real power come from? I ranked the five ways money corrupts politics—from least to most corrosive. What I’ve learned from 15 years of tracking political money:

Money Doesn't Buy Elections. It Does Something Worse.

Campaign ads barely move the needle. The real influence is hiding in plain sight.

open.substack.com

Reposted by Bryan D. Jones, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 3h

Another downside of spending ungodly amounts on the military is that you become prone to doing the things like this. It’s the international equivalent of leaving loaded assault rifles scattered around your house.

Infographic from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation comparing global military spending. A tall red bar shows U.S. defense spending at $877 billion, labeled “United States.” Next to it, a stacked bar totaling $849 billion represents the combined defense spending of the next 10 countries: China (largest segment), followed by Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, South Korea, Japan, and Ukraine. The headline reads, “The United States spends more on defense than the next 10 countries combined.” Source cited as SIPRI Military Expenditure Database, 2023.

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 1d

And if you’re thinking at least the billionaires will have to pay taxes, I’ve got bad news for you…

Buy, Borrow, Die: How Billionaires Legally Avoid Paying Taxes While the Rest of Us Can't

A Step-by-Step Guide to How the Ultra-Wealthy Minimize Their Tax Burden While Their Fortunes Multiply

open.substack.com

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 1d

The top 15 billionaires got $1T richer in 2025.

Remember the all the handwringing that stimulus checks were too generous and ruined the economy?

If we’d sent that $1T to households instead, total stimulus would’ve exceeded all 3 pandemic check rounds combined.

How is this the responsible option?

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 1d

The windmills kept turning in La Mancha. They’ll keep turning here.

I wrote more about this (including a link to the data) here: data4democracy.substack.com/p/tilting-at...

Tilting at Progress

Combining data analysis and a 400-year-old novel to make sense of Trump’s obsession with windmills.

data4democracy.substack.com

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 1d

Cervantes wrote Don Quixote as satire four centuries ago. And here we are watching a confidently wrong man charge at windmills because he cannot accept a modern world that threatens his fantasy of the past.

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 1d

Sound familiar? In 2020, Trump’s own aides told him plainly: you lost the election. “Those are just windmills.” Trump couldn’t accept it. So he sent Rudy Giuliani to Four Seasons Total Landscaping to declare that dark forces had conjured his win into a loss at the last moment.

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 1d

In the famous scene, Quixote charges the windmills. He’s thrown from his horse and hurt. Does he rethink his beliefs? No. He instead says an enchanter must have turned the giants into windmills at the last second to steal his glorious victory.

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 1d

We use “tilting at windmills” casually to mean fighting imaginary enemies. But Cervantes had something more specific in mind.

Quixote isn’t imagining things that aren’t there. He sees the windmills. He’s simply refusing to accept what they are.

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 1d

This is where Don Quixote comes in. It’s about a man who can’t accept the modern world as it is, so he recasts it as something he can heroically fight against.

In early 17th-century Spain, windmills were high technology. They represented progress and modernity.

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 1d

Here’s a breakdown of the names and accusations he's hurled at windmills (my fav: "bird cemetery").

In his telling, they cause cancer, ruin communities, destroy countries, and murder countless bald eagles and whales.

Which is a shame, because he also doesn't believe they produce electricity.

A vertically stacked infographic containing two horizontal bar charts visualizing data on Donald Trump's anti-windmill rhetoric from 2012–2025.

The top chart, titled "The Vocabulary of Vilification," ranks the specific names and descriptors used. "Ugly/Unsightly" is the most frequent term (appearing over 14 times), followed by "Disaster," "Monstrosities/Monsters," "Hoax/Scam," and hyperbolic terms like "Killing Field" and "Bird Cemetery."

The bottom chart, titled "Trump's Accusations Against Windmills," ranks specific claims of wrongdoing. "Kill birds/eagles" is the dominant accusation (nearly 20 instances), followed by economic complaints like "Too expensive" and "Ruin landscape." The list also includes specific bizarre claims including "Kill whales" and "Cause cancer."

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 1d

This is my first (and likely only) thread combining data and literary analysis of a 17th Century satire. When Trump rages against windmills, it’s deeply weird but even more so that it parallels Don Quixote. I've been tracking data on his windmill statements. Lately, he's really been tilting. 🧵

Line chart showing Trump's attacks on windmills from 2012 to 2025. Activity starts at 6 attacks in 2012, drops to near zero in the mid-2010s, rises slightly around 2019, then spikes to over 23 attacks in 2025.

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 2d

I wrote this in a dark moment after Trump’s 2nd inauguration to signal hope. It aged well. Those rays are getting brighter. And I have an even better feeling about 2026.

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · Feb 3

Years of studying American politics taught me this: In times of political turmoil, focus on democracy's rays of hope. Do everything you can to keep them lit. They may soon shine like the sun—and sooner than we might expect.

Reposted by Henry Jones

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 2d

Despite what we are often told, this line from Mamdani’s inauguration speech is what true pragmatism actually looks like:

“Beginning today, we will govern expansively and audaciously. We may not always succeed. But never will we be accused of lacking the courage to try.”

Reposted by Daniel Ziblatt

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 2d

What the data revealed about American democracy in 2025. And a path forward for 2026.

On Data and Democracy 2025 Year-in-Review Visualized

Tracing the money, the ideological purges, the strategic debates, and the court battles: A visual deep-dive into the data of 2025 and charting an empirical roadmap for a more resilient democracy.

open.substack.com

Reposted by Adam Bonica, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Perry Bacon @perrybaconjr.bsky.social · 2d

"We are going to win against Donald Trump, but we have a much bigger victory that we need to be aiming for. We need to Reconstruct this country," writes @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com. www.liberalcurrents.com/we-are-going...

We Are Going to Win

Trump's revolution will fail, but we still have a long and painful road ahead of us.

www.liberalcurrents.com

Reposted by Adam Bonica

Amanda Litman @amandalitman.bsky.social · 2d

Rise & shine, 2026 is the year millennials take charge.

Reposted by Rosemary A. Joyce, Adam Bonica

G Elliott Morris @gelliottmorris.com · 4d

I started Strength In Numbers in March with a goal to hit 25,000 readers by 2026.

The site is now just 1,100 people short of fully *doubling* that goal!

If you've found my independent, data-driven work valuable, I'd love it if you shared this post with a friend. ❤️

www.gelliottmorris.com/subscribe

Subscribe to Strength In Numbers

Independent, data-driven analysis of politics, public opinion, and elections. Evidence, not spin. Learn what the data really says. Click to read Strength In Numbers, by G. Elliott Morris, a Substack p...

www.gelliottmorris.com

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 5d

One of the more frustrating things about 2025 is that our society allocated $205B in wealth—nearly the combined salaries of all 2.9M civilian federal employees—to the guy who spent a few months wreaking havoc on said workforce while federal spending rose $300B anyway.

Bloomberg Billionaires Index table showing the top 5 richest people: Elon Musk ($638B, +$205B YTD), Larry Page ($270B), Jeff Bezos ($255B), Larry Ellison ($252B), and Sergey Brin ($251B).

Reposted by Michael A. Clemens

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 11d

Corruption is a team activity. So is accountability.

Hundreds of Big Post-Election Donors Have Benefited From Trump’s Return to Office (Gift Article)

Well into his second term, the president and his allies have continued aggressively raising money. Many donors have interests before his administration, The Times found.

www.nytimes.com

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 12d

So he sided with the bigots, then?

NYtimes headline: “Vance Refuses to Take Sides in G.O.P. Fight Over Bigotry
The vice president's plea for a big-tent coalition at an annual conservative gathering belied the cracks in his party over antisemitism, racism and conspiracy theories.”

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 12d

So true. I view fascism a as process that channels mass energy into hierarchical structures that serve elite purposes. Weiss’s job is to make elite interests feel like populist grievance.

Reposted by Adam Bonica, Dana R. Fisher

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 12d

For generations scholars have debated about whether fascism was driven more by elites or the masses. I’ll just say that Bari Weiss is an entirely elite phenomenon

Reposted by John McLaren, Adam Bonica, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 12d

especially in the dark hours we need to remember that we are going to win

Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 12d

Worth noting, I guess, that inside of a year we've gone from administration officials taking selfies of themselves at CECOT and bragging about how it's hell on earth to now getting their horrible little media worms to kill stories about it

Rick Steves @ricksteves.bsky.social · 13d

It’s the “season of love and giving”…but this year, doesn’t it seem more like a “season of fear and taking”? Like many of you, I’ve been saddened by the human impact of draconian government budget cuts and how angry many housed Americans are at unhoused Americans.

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Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 14d

The article isn’t a critique of Klein and Thompson. I found their diagnosis of compelling and wanted to bring hard data to validate it and help refine the mechanisms and potential avenues for reform.

When I mention abundance thinkers blaming environmentalists, this is what I mean:

Environmentalism is Antithetical to Abundance

From the Death of Environmentalism to the Abundance Movement

www.breakthroughjournal.org

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 14d

Casten won with 54% in a district Harris won 51% in 2024. The problem is with the Split Ticket WAR scores, not Casten.

Reposted by Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 14d

Environmental law has been captured—not by environmentalists, but by wealthy interests who can afford to litigate indefinitely. Fixing abundance means reforming the legal system.

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 14d

Klein and Thompson rightly recognize the overly litigious legal system is part of the problem. But it should be front and center. The path forward isn’t deregulation; it’s legal reform. Who can sue. Where disputes are heard. What happens when plaintiffs lose. Who can afford legal representation.

Reposted by Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 14d

Businesses file 20% of cases, more than twice the rate of environmental groups. Mainly to block environmental regulations or suing competitors. One gas station owner sued to stop a rival gas station across the street, claiming emissions (but not their own) required environmental review.