April 25, 2019

How Should Liberals Fight a Citizenship Question on the Census?

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Let’s suppose, as seems likely, that the Supreme Court lets Donald Trump go ahead with adding an obviously partisan citizenship question to the 2020 census. How should liberals react?

  • Mount a big educational campaign telling undocumented workers not to be afraid of telling census takers that they aren’t citizens.
  • Mount a big educational campaign telling undocumented workers to just go ahead and lie about being citizens.

This is what makes the cynicism of modern conservatism so toxic. The best bet for liberals is almost certainly the second one, but that merely fights cynicism toward governance with yet more cynicism. When does it end?

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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