May 5, 2019

Upon Further Review, I Am Annoyed by Donald Trump’s Tweet About the Derby

Because he’s not totally wrong. Replay is a scourge! Seize the issue, sports fans of the left!

AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

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Donnie from Queens, you’re on WFAN:

(This replaced an earlier tweet that was identical but for the president’s having spelling Kentucky “Kentuky.”)

He is referring to the unsatisfying conclusion of Saturday’s muddy Kentucky Derby, in which a replay review voided Maximum Security’s apparent victory, giving the win to 65-to-1 long shot Country House. The knowing coves all say it was the correct call, that the stewards would’ve made the same call had the race been a Wednesday maiden claimer at Del Mar and not the crown jewel of the sport of kings.

Trump is having a dumb laugh here, in that barking-seal way of his, and he’s wrong on the merits besides. But as ever his instinct is unerring for harnessing the inchoate discontents of millions of Americans to the structures of reactionary thought. Replay is a scourge; it’s reduced sports to the captious overprecision of law school and certain bar trivia nights. Witness the NBA playoffs, which have become an exercise in post hoc pettifogging by teams and media and even some wayward fans. And the crowd goes ahem! It is incumbent upon replay haters of the left not to let the president seize the beachhead here. Progressives must make the issue theirs. It’s about consumer rights, about the freedom enjoyed by league monopolies to degrade their product unto hideousness. It’s about worker rights, about the ever-fattening layer of middle-management anal retentives, hired to judge the labors of talented individuals. Alert Liz Warren’s policy shop. Get Beto on a table outside the Toyota Center. Put a microphone in the infield of Churchill Downs and see if Mayor Pete wanders over. Don’t let Trump have this one.

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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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