Let’s Be Glad That Meghan McCain Now Supports Paid Maternity Leave

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Meghan McCain has had a revelation:

In my little corner of the twittersphere, this has mostly generated mockery. Typical Republican. Can’t understand anyone else’s problems unless it happens to them too.

There’s an old saying that conservatives look for converts while liberals look for heretics. What this means is that when liberals see the light, conservatives welcome them to the fold. But when conservatives see the light, liberals sneer until they’ve proven themselves for a decade or three.

This is self destructive behavior. It is, after all, human nature—not conservative nature—for people to become more attuned to problems when they experience them personally. If you’re rich and your husband dies of prostate cancer, you start up a charity aimed at prostate cancer. Parents of autistic kids try to draw attention to autism. Movie stars who go through drug rehab dedicate themselves to funding drug rehab charities.

When we find an ally, we should welcome them even if they’re allies only on one or two issues. So welcome to the fold, Meghan. The next step is for you to help us figure out how to convince other conservatives that paid maternity (and paternity!) leave is a good idea.

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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.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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