Exit Strategy: How to Fix a Post-Bush Nation

It’s time to start putting the US back together. Herewith, our wide-ranging guide to the country’s most urgent, yet fixable, problems.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.



Exit Strategy

The Bush legacy—where to begin? How about eight years ago,
when we started chronicling the foibles and fiascoes of what many of
our colleagues and even some conservative commentators would eventually
recognize as the Worst. Administration. Ever. For us muckrakers, the
Bush era has been a paradoxical paradise: The more dire things got, the
more material we had. We’ve devoted hundreds of pages to the Iraq War,
the war on terror, and the war on the environment. So aside from a
hearty “Don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out,” what’s left
to say?

Actually, a lot. There are the scandals we’ve only begun to piece together—from the gutting of basic consumer protections (The Chinavore’s Dilemma) to the destruction of the very records we’ll need to assess the wreckage (What Was gwb@whitehouse.gov Really Up To?).
Bush and Cheney may ride off into the sunset, but we’ll be sifting
through their debris for years. Iraq will haunt us for a generation or
more, and the implosion of the economy could reverberate just as long.
And even a President Obama might think twice about relinquishing the
kingly powers amassed by this White House. But there are fairly quick
and painless ways to reverse at least some of the damage—like giving
the boot to the ideologues, restoring due process, and bringing science
(and common sense) back to public policy. In this package, we’ve
highlighted some of the most urgent, and most fixable, problems the
next president can tackle. The true measure of the Bush legacy may be
how much of it we’re capable of undoing.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate