Are Americans Ready for Some Flava in the White House?

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Full disclosure: I hate Mitt Romney. In the same blind, irrational, unflinching way that he hates me and the rest of the gays. So, when I began looking at The Fix’s analysis of how Americans feel about a Mormon president, I hoped to find they weren’t interested. But I’m a good person—really!—so I had to question my own base desires. What I came up with, besides the disclosure above, is that it’s absurd for Romney to be running on a religious right platform. Since he doesn’t believe in the same Christian values as the religious right, he’s using religion, loosely defined, to justify a government that interferes in your private life without helping you out in any way (bye, bye Roe v. Wade, hello lower taxes for the rich). Either that or Romney thinks Mormonism should be the moral foundation for government, which makes far less sense than the also-problematic idea that Christianity should.

(By the way, the polls show that Americans are on the fence about voting for a Mormon candidate, which makes me think that a Mormon running on a religious platform won’t make the cut.)

The polls the good little wonks over at WaPo parsed held another surprising tidbit. While a higher percentage of people indicated they would be “more likely” to vote for a candidate who was African-American than “less likely,” fully twice as many said they would be less rather than more likely to vote for a female candidate (7 percent more/14 percent less). That’s a strong showing for the women-aren’t-as-competent contingent.

Isn’t it hard to believe we’re actually conducting polls about whether the U.S. is ready for anything other than a middle-aged Protestant white man for president? Dozens of countries have had female leaders and at least a handful have been led by members of an ethnic minority.

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That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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