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Battles over competing priorities are the meat and drink of politics. Conservatives want to defund Planned Parenthood, liberals want to cut defense spending. But Republican strategists have long understood that there’s a deeper level to politics, one where the goal isn’t merely to fight the opposition’s agenda, but to actively undermine the infrastructure and funding that allow the opposing party to exist at all. In the past, the GOP has focused on three primary defunding strategies: Killing off private sector unions, packing minority voters into gerrymandered districts, and championing tort reform as a way of eating into the earnings of defense attorneys:

You can think of this triumvirate—unions, minority redistricting, and tort reform—as Defunding 1.0. And most of it hasn’t stopped: Republicans are still battling private-sector unions and pressing for tort reform. But private-sector unions have mostly been beaten, and tort reform has turned out to be a tough nut to crack. So the GOP has moved on to Defunding 2.0, with a brand new trio of pet projects.

This is from my short piece on defunding the left from the upcoming issue of the magazine. To find out what Defunding 2.0 is all about, you know what to do. Just click the link.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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