March 20, 2018

Science® Says Mitch McConnell Is the Most Hated Politician in America

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Matt Yglesias points today to an interesting chart from a new paper by Larry Bartels. Basically, Bartels is looking at partisanship in the Trump era, and finds that Republicans aren’t very divided on cultural issues while Democrats are. Here’s how the divisions play out:

Much of this is no surprise, of course, but there are a few interesting tidbits:

  • Aside from explicitly partisan figures and groups, no one is all that disliked. Among Democrats, even Wall Street bankers can only manage 3.5, and among Republicans it’s the same story for journalists. Sure, they’re disliked, but not really all that much.
  • Nobody likes politicians all that much. Among Democrats, Barack Obama scores around 8.2. Among Republicans, no one does even that well. The NRA is the most liked group at about 7.2.
  • Among political figures, Mitch McConnell is uniquely disliked.
  • Poor old atheists can’t catch a break. Republicans rate them lower than Mitch McConnell, while Democrats barely tolerate them too, rating them slightly below Walmart. Sigh.
  • Republicans claim to like poor people and single mothers. They are lying.

Among politicians, Republicans hate Hillary Clinton the most. Democrats hate Donald Trump the most. No surprises there.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

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