A Quick Guide to Who’s Making Money Off Trump Paranoia

Some notable resistance hucksters.

Peter Ryan

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

The Trump era has been a bonanza for investigative journalism and Democratic fundraising. But itā€™s also inspired a host of opportunists who have capitalized on fears about Trump to hawk their own podcasts, premium Twitter accounts, and books (for children and adults). Here are a few leading lights:

 

Brian and Ed Krassenstein

Credentials: Twins, cryptocurrency speculators, and Florida men once raided by the feds as part of a possible fraud investigation

Known for: Inserting themselves into Trumpā€™s Twitter replies

Profit center: A $19 donation to their Patreon account to fund their podcast, The KrassenCast, gets you a copy of their satirical childrenā€™s book, How the People Trumped Ronald Plump.

 

Seth Abramson

Credentials: Creative writing professor, poet

Known for: Extremely long Twitter threads about collusion. Wrote a 451-tweet thread in response to Mueller report.

Profit center: His New York Times bestseller Proof of Collusion. (A sequel, Proof of Conspiracy, is out this summer.)

 

Louise Mensch

Credentials: Former Tory MP and author of the novel Sparkles

Known for: First reporting that Trump aides had been snared in a FISA wiretap. (Whoa!) First reporting that Steve Bannon might face the death penalty for espionage. (Dā€™oh!)

Profit center: A crowdfunded Russia blog called Patribotics

Eric Garland

Credentials: Futurist

Known for: Being the guy who kicked off a 120-tweet thread on Russian election meddling with ā€œItā€™s time for some game theory.ā€

Profit center: Sold access to his ā€œpremiumā€ Twitter account for $10 a month

 

Claude Taylor

Credentials: Clinton White House staffer, travel photographer

Known for: His Twitter account @TrueFactsStated, where he claimed that Trump was secretly indicted in 2017

Profit center: His Mad Dog PAC, which paid him $72,000 in 2018 for fundraising and social media consulting

 

John Schindler

Credentials: Former NSA staffer turned Naval War College professor (until he resigned after texting a dick pic to a Twitter follower)

Known for: Using his NatSec background to speculate about what Mueller really knows

Profit center: Charges $10 a month for his ā€œpremiumā€ Twitter feed (SFW)

 

Image credits: Krassenstein: Youtube; Abramson: M. Scott Bauer/Simon & Schuster; Mensch: Andrew Parsons/i-Images/ZUMA; Garland: Eric Garland; Taylor: Twitter; Schindler: U.S. Naval War College

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 canā€™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.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

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.

payment methods

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 canā€™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.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

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.

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