November 13, 2015

Donald Trump Insulted Every Evangelical in Iowa Last Night

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Apropos of Donald Trump’s temper tantrum in Fort Dodge last night, a number of people have hastened to make the point that you can’t blame it on the fact that Trump is now losing to Ben Carson. He’s not losing. He’s just not as far ahead as he used to be. That’s true enough, on a national level. But in Iowa—which is where Trump was speaking—he really is losing. The Iowa GOP is heavily dominated by evangelicals, and they love them some of that old time Ben Carson. Trump, by contrast, apparently doesn’t understand evangelicals even slightly. I suppose he doesn’t run into them much in New York developer circles. For example, here’s part of yesterday’s attack on Ben Carson:

“He goes into the bathroom for a couple of hours and he comes out and now he’s religious,” Trump said. “And the people of Iowa believe him. Give me a break. Give me a break. It doesn’t happen that way. It doesn’t happen that way….Don’t be fools, okay?”

But this is precisely how evangelicals think it happens. Trump is bluntly insulting every evangelical in the audience with this show of temper. He just doesn’t get it, and it’s driving him nuts.

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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.

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