April 17, 2020

“LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” Trump Pours Gasoline on Mounting Tensions Over Stay-at-Home Orders

The latest signal that social distancing has turned into a culture war.

Paul Sancya/AP

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As the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic continues to rise, thousands across the country—many of whom were seen wearing MAGA hats and chanting “lock her up” in reference to Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer—took to the streets on Wednesday to protest stay-at-home orders that states have put in place to curb the spread of infections. 

The scenes were a kind of depressing manifestation of President Donald Trump’s own frustrations with the public health crisis and the social distancing measures—largely endorsed by his own administration—that he blames for tanking the economy. The hellish timeline continued on Friday with the president blurting out in quick succession:

The trio of tweets, which target states controlled by Democratic governors, is the latest signal that social distancing has fully warped into a culture war, one that depicts Democrats as oppressors willing to sabotage the economy and perhaps, in turn, the president’s reelection chances. The increasingly partisan dynamic comes as Trump’s poll numbers continue to slide amid his botched handling of the crisis.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Trump’s outburst seems to be linked to a segment he saw on Fox News.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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