August 19, 2017

Tens of Thousands of People Just Showed Nazis (and Donald Trump) What Really Makes America Great

This is what democracy looks like.

Michael Dwyer/AP

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One week after a bitterly violent protest in Charlottesville, Va., that left one woman dead and 19 injured, tens of thousands of counter-protesters marched in at least 30 cities, including New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. to demonstrate their opposition to white nationalism. The largest protest by far was in Boston, where an estimated 30,000-40,000 counter-protesters showed up, according to the Boston Globe. Only a handful of people attended the planned “Free Speech” protest, and they were quickly overwhelmed.

The fight over symbolism that pays homage to the Confederacy gained increasing momentum over the week after President Donald Trump criticized protesters “on both sides” of the battle,” all but defending the white nationalists who have vowed to, as they shouted in Charlottesville, “unite the Right.”

His statement was greeted with criticism from both parties, and demonstrations today were organized in anticipation of still more protests by white nationalists emboldened by his remarks. But if there were any Nazis planning to demonstrate, they were outnumbered by thousands of peaceful counter-protesters.

Here is a glimpse of what went on today, starting with Boston:

https://twitter.com/waqasahmi/status/898939138103234560

Demonstrators lined up in Chicago at the statue of a slave holder:

Here are some images from Detroit:

And from California:

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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.

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