Even Republicans and the Laid-Off Think We Need to Go Slow on Opening the Economy

Whenever I suggest that liberals should be less snarky toward conservative-leaning voters—as I did yesterday—I always get at least a few responses along these lines: Are you kidding? Have you seen these lunatics? They aren’t going to change their minds because we ask them nicely.

Sure. But the mistake here is watching TV and assuming that the tiny, lunatic crowds represent ordinary conservative voters. They don’t. They represent some of them, but probably not even a majority. The rest are up for grabs if we don’t lose them out of the gate by endlessly mocking them. Here’s a recent poll that backs this up:

This is solely a survey of people who have been laid off from their jobs, so it includes those who are suffering the most from lockdowns. This is as much Trump’s base as the Democratic base, but even so only about 40 percent approve of Trump’s performance. What’s more, only 13 percent think we should lift lockdown restrictions faster, and only 19 percent say we should open up the economy even if it means more people would get the coronavirus. The lunatics, it turns out, speak for only a very small portion of the country.

As you’d expect, the crosstabs show higher support for Trump among Republicans than Democrats. But even among Republicans, only 31 percent think lockdown restrictions should be lifted more quickly, and only half think we should open up the economy even if it means more people would get the coronavirus. Regardless of their support for Trump, it’s obvious that there’s a big chunk of Republicans who don’t agree with his lackadaisical attitude. And you know what? There are going to be even fewer by the end of the month when the infection numbers start to go up again.

At that point, of course, I imagine that Trump will try to blame it all on state governors. What else does he have left in his bag of tricks? But eventually even his fans are going to stop buying it.

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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.

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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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