August 28, 2018

Republicans and the Russell Building

Would you buy a used Senate office building from this man?

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I’m curious about something. A few hours after John McCain’s death, Sen. Chuck Schumer proposed renaming the Russell Building after McCain. Am I the only person in the world who assumed this was a political trap on Schumer’s part? Because that’s exactly what came immediately to my mind. He knew perfectly well that (a) Trump hated McCain, (b) the rest of the Republican Party didn’t like McCain all that much, especially after his surprise vote to kill Obamacare repeal, but (c) refusing to rename the building—particularly when it was a chance to take down the name of a famous Democratic racist—would be politically embarrassing.

I dunno. Maybe I’m wrong. Schumer and McCain became friendly during their work on the Gang of 8 immigration plan in 2013, but they weren’t buddy-buddy, were they? This has a strong aroma of political calculation to me, but maybe it was a completely sincere gesture of respect. Any other opinions out there?

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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