There are plenty of surprises that shake up the electorate every four years, but one thing is certain: An outsize level of attention—and scorn, if things go wrong—will be aimed at Black voters. This week’s episode of our sister radio show Reveal followed one person, Michaelah Montgomery, as she navigated life under the spotlight as a Donald Trump favorite, and if you haven’t caught it, it’s a deep and nuanced look at the enduring appeal of conservatism for some Black voters, and well worth a listen:

Subscribe to Mother Jones podcasts on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Now, a lively and provocative special bonus episode explores why you shouldn’t buy the pervasive election narrative that Black men are leaving the Democratic Party to support Donald Trump over Kamala Harris.

Should you believe the polls? All of this provides Reveal host Al Letson and Mother Jones video correspondent Garrison Hayes the perfect opportunity to revel in their skepticism, as they ask their friends and acquaintances to weigh in on whether Democrats should be concerned about Black men defecting from the party, former President Donald Trump’s own plans to win them over, and why they think one of the most Democratic-leaning demographics in the US will likely stay that way.

“I do think there is something uniquely frustrating about a conversation that scolds or looks down on the second most reliable group of people for this party, right?” Hayes tells Letson during the episode. “At the same time, it’s created a national discourse. It’s created at the very least a conversation in the community that’s showing up today on this show.”

Take a listen to that conversation:

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Whatever the case, it’s true this topic has become one of the defining election stories in the final sprint to the polls. Earlier this month, former President Barack Obama stopped by a Kamala Harris campaign office in Pennsylvania and made headlines by admonishing Black men for being less enthusiastic about supporting her for president compared with the support he received when he ran in 2008—and blamed sexism.

“Part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that,” Obama said.

Within days of Obama’s comments, Harris unveiled an “opportunity agenda for Black men” in part to energize and engage this slice of the electorate. According to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, 70 percent of likely Black male voters said they supported Harris, compared with more than 80 percent of Black men who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020.

“I think the politicians also need to ask, why is it that some Black men don’t feel represented by their parties? I think that answer comes a little easier for Black folks when looking at conservatives or Republicans. There’s the anti-DEI anti-woke anti-CRT stuff,” Hayes says.

Al agrees: “Just blatant racism…it’s kind of a turn-off to Black folks!”

Here’s Garrison describing, in his own words, his monthslong reporting project “Red, Black, and Blue” and where you can subscribe to Reveal:

Black voters are at the center of the fight for the election, as Dems scramble to shore up support from Black men.

In a NEW episode of @reveal, @garrison_hayes brings us into his months talking to Black conservatives about Trump's allure.

Out NOW wherever you get your podcasts! pic.twitter.com/odHOQtbwKg

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) October 19, 2024

If you want a glimpse into what Project 2025’s education agenda might look like if implemented nationwide, look no further than Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis has already been leading book-banning, inflaming culture wars over LGBTQ rights, and dismantling comprehensive sex education.

Recent reporting by the Orlando Sentinel revealed that Florida state officials are pressuring some districts to adopt an abstinence-only approach, stripping students of basic knowledge about contraception, anatomy, and human development. Students are being taught abstinence as the sole method of avoiding pregnancy and STDs, and terms like “abuse,” “fluids,” and “LGBTQ” are absent from classrooms. “Under recent changes to state law,” reports the Associated Press, “it’s now up to the Florida Department of Education to sign off on school districts’ curriculum on reproductive health and disease education if they use teaching materials other than the state’s designated textbook.”

This week, Mother Jones Creator Kat Abughazaleh analyzes one of these state-approved plans, “Real Essentials,” which encourages “spiritual intimacy” and traditional marriage. The plan’s author has a history of citing pro-abstinence education research from the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025.

Florida’s approach is a test for a much broader movement, Kat argues. Just pages into Project 2025, you’ll find a promise to register “educators and public librarians” who purvey “pornography”—a term so vaguely defined as to potentially include any term currently being weaponized in the culture war—as registered “sex offenders.” Another section calls for provisions to prevent types of sex education that might “promote prostitution, or provide a funnel effect for abortion facilities and school field trips to clinics.”

For more details, watch Kat’s full breakdown of Florida’s new sex education laws.

The role of religion in American politics has changed profoundly since fundamentalist preacher Jerry Falwell and conservative direct-mail mogul Paul Weyrich co-founded the Moral Majority in 1979. Back then, the failure of Christians to appreciate their power at the ballot box over issues they saw as challenging their faith—abortion topped the list, but also prayer in schools, homosexuality, and women’s rights—was seen as an opportunity to galvanize a voting bloc for conservatives. The Moral Majority’s support of candidates who would represent those interests as elected officials unleashed a powerful resource in the Republican Party. The Moral Majority disbanded in 1989, but by then many offshoots had appeared: the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, and the Family Research Council. Evangelical and Christian voters had largely made the Republican Party their home.

Donald Trump tapped into and exploited, and was exploited by, this long history of disaffected voters. In him, a radical-right strain found its voice. Some call themselves “Christian nationalists” while others reject that label, but the movement, by any name, has a distinctly different character from your grandmother’s Moral Majority.

Our November+December issue investigates the Christian nationalist movement that aspires to take over government at all levels, from school boards and state legislatures to Congress and the Supreme Court. Its prominent influencers, ties to militias, and pervasiveness across civil society reveal a radical movement hiding in plain sight. Read the whole package here:

The role of religion in American politics has changed profoundly since fundamentalist preacher Jerry Falwell and conservative direct-mail mogul Paul Weyrich co-founded the Moral Majority in 1979. Back then, the failure of Christians to appreciate their power at the ballot box over issues they saw as challenging their faith—abortion topped the list, but also prayer in schools, homosexuality, and women’s rights—was seen as an opportunity to galvanize a voting bloc for conservatives. The Moral Majority’s support of candidates who would represent those interests as elected officials unleashed a powerful resource in the Republican Party. The Moral Majority disbanded in 1989, but by then many offshoots had appeared: the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, and the Family Research Council. Evangelical and Christian voters had largely made the Republican Party their home.

Donald Trump tapped into and exploited, and was exploited by, this long history of disaffected voters. In him, a radical-right strain found its voice. Some call themselves “Christian nationalists” while others reject that label, but the movement, by any name, has a distinctly different character from your grandmother’s Moral Majority.

Our November+December issue investigates the Christian nationalist movement that aspires to take over government at all levels, from school boards and state legislatures to Congress and the Supreme Court. Its prominent influencers, ties to militias, and pervasiveness across civil society reveal a radical movement hiding in plain sight. Read the whole package here:

As any schoolkid might tell you, US elections are based on a bedrock principle: one person, one vote. Simple as that. Each vote carries the same weight. Yet for much of the country’s history, that hasn’t been the case. At various points, whole classes of people were shut out of voting: enslaved Black Americans, Native Americans, and poor White people. The first time women had the right to vote was in 1919. 

The reality is that one person, one vote is far from how American democracy actually works. In fact, the political institutions created by the Founding Fathers were meant to constrain democracy, and that system is still alive today. 

Institutions like the Electoral College and US Senate were designed as checks against the power of the majority. What’s more, the Supreme Court is a product of these two skewed institutions. Then there are newer tactics—like voter suppression and gerrymandering—that further erode democracy and often entrench the power of a conservative White minority.

These are some of the conclusions from Mother Jones reporter Ari Berman in his latest book, Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It.

Listen to Berman break all this down and more on the Reveal podcast:

Subscribe to Mother Jones podcasts on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

In a deep-dive conversation with Reveal host Al Letson, Berman traces the rise of conservative firebrand Pat Buchanan and how he opened the door for Donald Trump. Buchanan made White Republicans fear becoming a racial minority. And he opposed the Voting Rights Act, which struck down obstacles to voting like poll taxes and literacy tests that had been used to keep people of color from the polls. Buchanan never came close to winning the presidency, but he transformed White anxiety into an organizing principle that has become a centerpiece of much of today’s Republican Party.

In addition to tracing the historical inequities in American politics and charting the modern-day rise of minority rule, Berman also shows how everyday people are fighting back to expand democracy, telling the improbable story on one activist’s crusade to end gerrymandering in Michigan.

This is an update of an episode that originally aired in May 2024.

As any schoolkid might tell you, US elections are based on a bedrock principle: one person, one vote. Simple as that. Each vote carries the same weight. Yet for much of the country’s history, that hasn’t been the case. At various points, whole classes of people were shut out of voting: enslaved Black Americans, Native Americans, and poor White people. The first time women had the right to vote was in 1919. 

The reality is that one person, one vote is far from how American democracy actually works. In fact, the political institutions created by the Founding Fathers were meant to constrain democracy, and that system is still alive today. 

Institutions like the Electoral College and US Senate were designed as checks against the power of the majority. What’s more, the Supreme Court is a product of these two skewed institutions. Then there are newer tactics—like voter suppression and gerrymandering—that further erode democracy and often entrench the power of a conservative White minority.

These are some of the conclusions from Mother Jones reporter Ari Berman in his latest book, Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It.

Listen to Berman break all this down and more on the Reveal podcast:

Subscribe to Mother Jones podcasts on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

In a deep-dive conversation with Reveal host Al Letson, Berman traces the rise of conservative firebrand Pat Buchanan and how he opened the door for Donald Trump. Buchanan made White Republicans fear becoming a racial minority. And he opposed the Voting Rights Act, which struck down obstacles to voting like poll taxes and literacy tests that had been used to keep people of color from the polls. Buchanan never came close to winning the presidency, but he transformed White anxiety into an organizing principle that has become a centerpiece of much of today’s Republican Party.

In addition to tracing the historical inequities in American politics and charting the modern-day rise of minority rule, Berman also shows how everyday people are fighting back to expand democracy, telling the improbable story on one activist’s crusade to end gerrymandering in Michigan.

This is an update of an episode that originally aired in May 2024.

In her latest video, Mother Jones video creator Kat Abughazaleh traces the history of former President Donald Trump’s dangerous lie that some states allow parents to “execute” babies in so-called “post-birth abortions.”

“You can look at the governor of West Virginia,” Trump said during last week’s debate, prompting an incredulous head shake from Vice President Kamala Harris. “He said the baby will be born and we will decide what to do with the baby. In other words, we’ll execute it.”

Northam, of course, did not say that. Trump wasn’t even correct about his own right-wing smear. His reference was to a wildly out-of-context quote from former Virginia governor Ralph Northam (not West Virginia). Northam’s 2019 radio appearance, in which he explained the tragic medical emergencies that can result in late-term abortions, has since been selectively edited by Republicans and used to claim their opponents are permitting infanticide—a lie that has been repeated with relish across Fox News, again and again.

As Kat explains, “There’s no such thing as a ‘post-birth’ abortion. These procedures are extremely rare and reserved for cases where the mother’s life is in danger or when a fatally ill or deformed baby needs palliative care.” In this video, Kat shows how this wasn’t Trump’s first time exploiting these tragedies, which are “designed to demonize grieving mothers and doctors,” while clarifying the facts about late-term abortion care that are too often lost to political noise. She notes that less than one percent of abortions occur after 21 weeks of pregnancy.

“By limiting abortion access in the first place, whether it’s totally or at the six-week mark, or by making parents jump through hoops just to get the medical care they need,” Kat explains, “Republicans are ensuring that there will be more cases that require traumatic medical intervention than if people were allowed to have control over their bodies in the first place.”

This week, Fox News was in a rare position: Covering its ass live on air.

Host Jesse Watters has a history of making misogynist remarks. But on Monday, he took it too far, apparently, by Fox’s low (low) standards. During a roundtable discussion, he made a vulgar remark about Vice President Kamala Harris, claiming she’d be “paralyzed in the Situation Room while the generals have their way with her.”

This week, Fox News was in a rare position: Covering its ass live on air. pic.twitter.com/gKNDvdk397

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) August 30, 2024

Fox News isn’t exactly known for issuing apologies or corrections—they paid almost $800 million in a settlement to avoid doing just that when Dominion, a voting machine company, sued Fox over its rampant 2020 election lies. But, as Mother Jones creator Kat Abughazaleh points out, the real question is how long can Fox indulge “smug assholes” like Watters without getting burned?

When even Jeanine Pirro tells you to “take it back,” you should know you’ve crossed the line, and Watters tried to clean up his mess the next day, claiming his comments were being “misconstrued.” But his smirk said it all.

As their rhetoric becomes increasingly racist and misogynistic and the stakes rise as the election campaign charges forward, Fox may find its credibility finally spent. Because when you’re willing to risk it all for Jesse Watters’ weirdly horny takes, maybe it’s time to reconsider just how much you’re willing to lose.

Jade Dass was taking medication to treat her addiction to opioids before she became pregnant—which scientific studies and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend. But after Dass delivered a healthy daughter, the hospital reported her to the Arizona Department of Child Safety.

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Even as medications like Suboxone help pregnant women safely treat addiction, taking them can trigger investigations by child welfare agencies that separate parents from their newborns. Why are women like Dass being investigated for using addiction-treatment medications during pregnancy?

To understand the scope of the dragnet, the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Shoshana Walter and Melissa Lewis, with a team of researchers and lawyers, filed 100 public records requests, putting together the first-ever tally of how often women are reported to child welfare agencies for taking prescription drugs during pregnancy. 

This week on Reveal, in an episode first aired in July 2023, follow Dass as she grapples with losing custody of her baby—and makes one last desperate attempt to keep her family together.

For more about Dass and other mothers facing investigation for taking medication-assisted treatment, read Shoshana Walter’s investigation in collaboration with the New York Times Magazine.

Chicago’s rollicking festival for Democrats this week serves many purposes: to channel enthusiasm for Vice President Kamala Harris, now at the top of the ticket and hoping to capitalize on momentum; to honor and thank President Joe Biden for passing the torch; and, of course, to attack former President Donald Trump while offering Americans a contrast to his potential second presidency. Among the many side events and panel discussions programmed this week, a prominent through-line for speeches and appeals by elected officials has been the specter of Project 2025, the conservative manifesto and blueprint for a new Trump administration, spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation.

In the hallways of DNC spaces, delegates carried signs declaring “Fuck Project 2025,” and prime time speeches have deriding the plan as draconian and radical. As Mother Jones’s Pema Levy recently wrote, the right-wing initiative “outlines a radical restructuring of the federal government that combines the authoritarian goals of the MAGA movement with the deregulatory dreams of America’s plutocrats.” Under this proposal, government agencies would be used to end abortion access, prosecute Trump’s enemies, unwind EPA regulations, and shutter the Department of Education. Mother Jones’ Julia Métraux recently reported Project 2025 would dramatically roll back workplace discrimination protections. Getting a whiff of just how unpopular this roadmap for his presidency is, Trump has continually tried to distance himself from it.

Democrats won’t let it go that easily. Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow even brought a giant Project 2025 prop to the DNC stage on Monday night, warning of an unprecedented “expansion of presidential powers” if Trump wins the White House.

Mother Jones caught up with several delegates and officials to explore the Democrats’ strategy for foregrounding the Heritage Foundation document as a threat to democracy, and asked how they plan to discuss it with voters in the weeks leading up to the November election.

“Project 2025 is about turning the clock back,” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) told us—but she warned it’s not new. “It’s just now being exposed. And so people need to know it’s real and they want to do this. And so we’re not gonna let that happen.”

“This is part of the Trump-era MAGA extremist Republican Party’s agenda, and then here he denies it,” Lee added. “I mean, it’s like, come on, please. Pathological liar.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) emphasized that Trump can run, but he can’t hide from Project 2025—and Democrats like Khanna are keen to keep pressing the point. “His whole transition team and all the people he’s going to staff government with are basically devotees of Project 2025,” he told Mother Jones. “But voters know that that is the agenda his appointees would implement.”

For decades after its founding in 1924, the Border Patrol was a bureaucratic backwater: poorly funded and largely left to its own devices. Then came 9/11, and a flood of federal resources to “secure our borders” and add thousands of new agents. Yet the oversight necessary to manage a huge federal agency—let alone one that long had made its own rules—never really caught up, and scandals quickly followed: infiltration by cartels, corruption, assault, rape, murder. Within a few years, the Border Patrol had become one of the nation’s largest, and least accountable, law enforcement agencies. At the same time, the US-Mexico border became even more politicized. And then Donald Trump entered the fray.

For our September+October issue, we shined a light on the Border Patrol’s growth, its troubling record on civil liberties, its culture of impunity, and its role in shaping the current political moment—one that echoes the anti-immigrant fever that led to the agency’s creation a century ago, and that could once again put the Border Patrol at the center of Trump’s nativist plans.

Adam Aurand spent nearly a decade of his life stuck in an endless “churn” of emergency rooms, psychiatric hospitals, jails, prison, and life on the streets in and around Seattle. He picked up diagnoses of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and schizoaffective disorder. He also used opioids and methamphetamine.

Each time he entered an institution for care or incarceration, he was released back into homelessness. And the cycle started again.

In 2023, his mother Heidi made a last-ditch effort to break the pattern. “I don’t know what the answer is, but I know that wasn’t the answer,” she said.

Subscribe to Mother Jones podcasts on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

On this week’s episode of Reveal, reporters from the Lost Patients podcast by KUOW and the Seattle Times try to answer a question: Why do America’s systems for treating serious mental illness break down in this way? 

Finding the answer took them to the present-day streets of Seattle, decades into America’s past, and into the minds of people who experience psychosis.

Adam Aurand spent nearly a decade of his life stuck in an endless “churn” of emergency rooms, psychiatric hospitals, jails, prison, and life on the streets in and around Seattle. He picked up diagnoses of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and schizoaffective disorder. He also used opioids and methamphetamine.

Each time he entered an institution for care or incarceration, he was released back into homelessness. And the cycle started again.

In 2023, his mother Heidi made a last-ditch effort to break the pattern. “I don’t know what the answer is, but I know that wasn’t the answer,” she said.

Subscribe to Mother Jones podcasts on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

On this week’s episode of Reveal, reporters from the Lost Patients podcast by KUOW and the Seattle Times try to answer a question: Why do America’s systems for treating serious mental illness break down in this way? 

Finding the answer took them to the present-day streets of Seattle, decades into America’s past, and into the minds of people who experience psychosis.

“You hear ‘DEI’ and you probably think of your job’s HR department,” explains Kat Abughazaleh. “But for your QAnon uncle, ‘DEI’ is an activation phrase to send the most unhinged memes in the family group chat.” In her new video for Mother Jones, Kat dives into the right’s obsessive co-opting of the term “DEI”—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—to attack Donald Trump’s new 2024 foe, Vice President Kamala Harris:

Kat dissects how this innocuous little acronym became the latest dog whistle for Fox News hosts and elected Republicans, drawing parallels to Nixon’s Southern strategy, which also deployed coded language to appeal to old bigotry.

Earlier attempts to caricature Kamala Harris caught right-wing pundits somewhat flat-footed, when compared to their other misogynistic masterpiece: their attacks on Hillary Clinton (a phenomenon documented by Kat in her first video for Mother Jones). But in the days since Harris locked up enough delegates to be the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, talking heads have filled the airwaves with what is now considered a three-letter epithet, twisted by figures like Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk to mean people who got jobs even though they are talentless and incompetent, especially from minority groups. Harris is their new prime example.

“Because, sure,” explains Kat. “You can hold six elected offices, you can have an entire law career before that, you can even be the Vice President of the United States, but if you just add those three little letters, DEI, it is instantly invalidated by the assertion that every single one of your accomplishments is because of how society treats your race and gender rather than despite it.”

With DEI being used as a scapegoat term for societal issues, from bridge disasters to aviation policy failures, the pundits have found their term d’art and appear to be sticking with it.

“Now it’s in the hands of right-wing assholes,” Kat jokes. “So like Pepe the Frog, fedoras, and the okay symbol, these losers have perverted another innocuous thing.”

Secret Service personnel surrounded Donald Trump and rushed him off stage on Saturday after his rally speech in Butler, Pennsylvania, was interrupted by a series of popping sounds that turned out to be gunshots. As the popping began, Trump winced and touched his right ear, as though struck by a projectile, before ducking down. A second series of shots could then be discerned.

Trump later released a statement on Truth Social saying he’d been hit by a bullet: “I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin.”

The Secret Service has confirmed that one audience member was killed, as was the shooter, and two more people were in serious condition as of about 9 p.m. Eastern on Saturday.

Potentially shots fired at Trump at his rally in PA.

Later in the clip, when he is back on his feet, he has blood on his face. pic.twitter.com/hF5gbWPWRO

— jordan (@JordanUhl) July 13, 2024

The former president had blood on his ear and face, but wasn’t badly hurt. (A Secret Service spokesman posted soon after on X that Trump was safe.) Before leaving the stage, he could be heard saying, “Wait!” At which point he pumped his fist a few times and the crowd cheered, although many were screaming.

An incident occurred the evening of July 13 at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania. The Secret Service has implemented protective measures and the former President is safe. This is now an active Secret Service investigation and further information will be released when available.

— Anthony Guglielmi (@SecretSvcSpox) July 13, 2024

Little is yet known about the shooter, except that the person, according to ABC News, was firing with an AR-15 from a rooftop outside the rally venue, from several hundred yards away, which will undoubtedly raise hard questions for the Secret Service. Eight shots were fired, ABC News reports.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), whose husband was attacked in 2022 by a right-wing conspiracy theorist, and former Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head at a 2011 public appearance in Tucson, both posted statements on X decrying political violence.

As one whose family has been the victim of political violence, I know firsthand that political violence of any kind has no place in our society. I thank God that former President Trump is safe.

As we learn more details about this horrifying incident, let us pray that all those…

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) July 13, 2024

Political violence is terrifying. I know.

I’m holding former President Trump, and all those affected by today’s indefensible act of violence in my heart. Political violence is un-American and is never acceptable—never.

— Gabrielle Giffords (@GabbyGiffords) July 13, 2024

The White House press office released a statement from President Joe Biden.

“I have been briefed on the shooting at Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania. I’m grateful to hear that he’s safe and doing well. I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally, as we await further information.

“Jill and I are grateful to the Secret Service for getting him to safety. There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it.”

As recriminations were already brewing on social media, New York Times White House reporter Katie Rogers posted that the Biden campaign will pause, for now, its ads attacking Donald Trump.

"The Biden campaign is pausing all outbound communications and working to pull down our television ads as quickly as possible," a Biden campaign official says.

— Katie Rogers (@katierogers) July 14, 2024

In his own statement, Trump thanked the Secret Service and law enforcement for their quick response, adding “I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the Rally who was killed, and also to the family of another person that was badly injured. It is incredible that such an act can take place in our Country.” 

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.