As Donald Trump prepares to enter the White House for a second term, the reasons people voted him into office are becoming more clear. 

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For Micki Witthoeft, it’s cause for celebration. Her daughter, Ashli Babitt, was shot and killed by a police officer after storming the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Today, Witthoeft is confident Trump will stand by his word and pardon everyone involved. 

“He said his administration’s going to be one on ‘promises made and promises kept,’ ” she said. “I felt like he was talking right to me.”

But it’s not the same sentiment for all voters. This week, the Reveal team looks at the many contradictions behind Trump’s victory, with stories from hosts Hanna Rosin and Lauren Ober of the new podcast from The Atlantic, We Live Here Now; Mother Jones reporter Tim Murphy; and Reveal producer Najib Aminy. The show delves into January 6ers seeking pardons, “messy middle” voters who split their ballots, and members of the Uncommitted movement who wouldn’t vote for Kamala Harris despite being opposed to Trump.

As Donald Trump prepares to enter the White House for a second term, the reasons people voted him into office are becoming more clear. 

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

For Micki Witthoeft, it’s cause for celebration. Her daughter, Ashli Babitt, was shot and killed by a police officer after storming the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Today, Witthoeft is confident Trump will stand by his word and pardon everyone involved. 

“He said his administration’s going to be one on ‘promises made and promises kept,’ ” she said. “I felt like he was talking right to me.”

But it’s not the same sentiment for all voters. This week, the Reveal team looks at the many contradictions behind Trump’s victory, with stories from hosts Hanna Rosin and Lauren Ober of the new podcast from The Atlantic, We Live Here Now; Mother Jones reporter Tim Murphy; and Reveal producer Najib Aminy. The show delves into January 6ers seeking pardons, “messy middle” voters who split their ballots, and members of the Uncommitted movement who wouldn’t vote for Kamala Harris despite being opposed to Trump.

With the election on everyone’s mind, it’s a good moment to revisit a consequential election from the past. No, we’re not talking about 2016. Let’s go way further back—to what’s considered the only successful coup d’etat in US history. 

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In the late 1800s, Wilmington, North Carolina, was a city where African Americans thrived economically and held elected office. This did not sit well with white supremacists, who during the election of 1898 used violence to intimidate voters and overthrow the elected government.

The leader of the coup, a former Confederate colonel named Alfred Moore Waddell, gave a speech in which he told white people: “If you see the Negro out voting tomorrow, tell him to stop. If he doesn’t, shoot him down. Shoot him down in his tracks.”

This week, the team at Reveal looks back at that coup and its consequences. After the overthrow, North Carolina legislators passed laws segregating white and Black people in housing, trains, schools, libraries, and other public spaces. Those laws were copied in states across the South, sowing the seeds of the Jim Crow era and much of the structural racism that continues today.

Glen Harris, a history professor at UNC Wilmington, sees a direct line of connection between this white supremacist uprising and events like George Floyd’s murder in 2020. “How Blacks are treated in American society is not a one-off event,” says Harris on the episode. “Part of the problem is that to suppress it, you look at these as one-off events.”

Also on this episode: Just after the Civil War, the US government made its famous “40 acres and a mule” promise to formerly enslaved people. Most Americans assume the promise of land was never kept, but over a two-and-a-half-year investigation, journalists at the Center for Public Integrity unearthed records that prove freed people had, and lost, titles to tracts of land that once were part of plantations.  

This is an update of episodes that originally aired in October 2020 and June 2024. 

With the election on everyone’s mind, it’s a good moment to revisit a consequential election from the past. No, we’re not talking about 2016. Let’s go way further back—to what’s considered the only successful coup d’etat in US history. 

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

In the late 1800s, Wilmington, North Carolina, was a city where African Americans thrived economically and held elected office. This did not sit well with white supremacists, who during the election of 1898 used violence to intimidate voters and overthrow the elected government.

The leader of the coup, a former Confederate colonel named Alfred Moore Waddell, gave a speech in which he told white people: “If you see the Negro out voting tomorrow, tell him to stop. If he doesn’t, shoot him down. Shoot him down in his tracks.”

This week, the team at Reveal looks back at that coup and its consequences. After the overthrow, North Carolina legislators passed laws segregating white and Black people in housing, trains, schools, libraries, and other public spaces. Those laws were copied in states across the South, sowing the seeds of the Jim Crow era and much of the structural racism that continues today.

Glen Harris, a history professor at UNC Wilmington, sees a direct line of connection between this white supremacist uprising and events like George Floyd’s murder in 2020. “How Blacks are treated in American society is not a one-off event,” says Harris on the episode. “Part of the problem is that to suppress it, you look at these as one-off events.”

Also on this episode: Just after the Civil War, the US government made its famous “40 acres and a mule” promise to formerly enslaved people. Most Americans assume the promise of land was never kept, but over a two-and-a-half-year investigation, journalists at the Center for Public Integrity unearthed records that prove freed people had, and lost, titles to tracts of land that once were part of plantations.  

This is an update of episodes that originally aired in October 2020 and June 2024. 

Just a few years ago, Elon Musk seemed to be just another Silicon Valley billionaire with no true political compass. He once described himself as “half-Republican, half-Democrat” and often donated money to candidates from both parties. But all that seemed to change during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tha’ts when Musk started taking much more right-wing stances about lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and many other divisive political issues, often spreading misinformation in the process.

Today, Musk has donated almost $120 million of his own money to get Donald Trump reelected. He recently campaigned with Trump at New York’s Madison Square Garden, where he said he wasn’t just MAGA, he was “dark, gothic MAGA.”

In this Reveal podcast extra, host Al Letson talks about Musk’s political evolution with Mother Jones senior reporter Anna Merlan, who’s been covering the many ways Musk has tried to influence the 2024 election.

“There have always been billionaires and titans of industry who get involved in politics,” Merlan says. “But I think the scale of Musk’s involvement is really different because it’s not just that he’s a billionaire. It’s not just that he’s endorsing Trump. It’s also that he controls a powerful and widespread communication medium.”

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

Listen in the player above, or subscribe to Reveal wherever you get your podcasts.

After Joe Biden’s debate debacle and Donald Trump’s near-assassination, the 2024 election looked like it could be a GOP blowout. Then Biden dropped out, Kamala Harris stepped up, the Democrats raised $1 billion-plus, the Republicans went full fascist … And here we are, a week before what feels like (another) Most Momentous Election of Our Lifetimes, and—if you believe the polls—no one has a clue who will win. 

Much depends on the outcome of the vote in seven states—the same ones that mattered in 2016 and 2020. This week on Reveal, my Mother Jones colleagues turn their attention to two of the swingest states of this election cycle, while I dig through my reporting archives to unearth a never-before-broadcast interview from 2013 that provides an intriguing glimpse into what makes Harris tick. 

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First, national correspondent Tim Murphy goes to Arizona, where flag-waving, gun-toting protesters swarmed outside the Maricopa County election center in 2020, insisting the election had been stolen from Trump. Since then, dozens of court cases across the US have found those claims to be a big fat lie. Yet threats and harassment against Arizona election workers continue to be so common, Stephen Richer, the Maricopa County recorder, told Tim, that top election officials in the state “have been turning over at the rate of a lunch shift at Taco Bell.”

Richer, a Republican who voted for Trump in 2020, has spent much of the past four years trying to dispel the election lies Trump helped create. To see how it’s going, Murphy visits the recently fortified Maricopa County election center, where Richer’s staff are on a mission to demonstrate to voters that the election process is free and fair and deserving of their trust. 

Meanwhile, in Georgia, where Trump and his minions have been indicted for their attempts to find enough votes (11,780, to be exact) to undo Biden’s victory in 2020, new MAGA-friendly members of the State Election Board have been trying to rewrite the rules to favor the former president this time around. Mother Jones national voting rights correspondent Ari Berman explains the fight to control election results in this crucial 2024 battleground and how it mirrors similar efforts in other swing states.

For the show’s final segment, I travel back almost 12 years, to when Harris was California’s attorney general—the first woman and first African American ever elected to that job—and I was an editor and reporter covering San Francisco. By then, Harris was a rising star in national Democratic politics, and editors at New York-based DuJour magazine wanted their readers to understand why. I jumped at the assignment.

I’d written about Harris a couple of times before; I’d even interviewed her mother. So when we reconnected in 2013, Harris was comfortable in my presence—far more so than with some of the journalists who’ve interviewed her in recent years. We spent about an hour together—an unimaginably generous amount of time in the current political climate—talking about many of the same substantive issues (the housing crisis, gun control, prosecuting sex crimes, and tech privacy and regulation) at the center of her campaign today. After my profile was published, I stored the audio on my laptop’s hard drive and forgot about it—until Harris replaced Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket and reporters started complaining about how few interviews she was granting.

Listening back to our conversation, I’m struck by the similarities between Harris then and now—and not just when it comes to policy priorities. When she ran for AG in 2010, very few people—even in her own circle—thought she could win. Her Republican opponent Steve Cooley, the district attorney of Los Angeles County, was extremely popular with the tough-on-crime types who had long dominated California criminal justice circles, not to mention he was older and white. “A lot of people thought it couldn’t happen,” Harris told me then. “What motivated me was I really wanted the job. I felt that I could do it well.” She campaigned hard in communities that were not her obvious constituencies. “I never foreclosed any group or constituency as being off limits,” she explained. “Everything and everybody is on the table, and I’m not going to accept that that door is not open to me.” On Election Night, Cooley declared victory—and many Harris supporters assumed she would concede. But she didn’t.

Three weeks later, in one of the closest elections in California history, Cooley was the one to finally concede, and Harris became the new attorney general.

The big unknown, of course, is whether she can do it again—this time against a Republican opponent who refuses to believe that he will lose and a disinformation machine intent on making sure he doesn’t. Here’s what Harris told me then: “I’m an eternal optimist. I really am. I’m a realist and an optimist. I think that those two can coexist, and they do in me.”

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

Every four years, the presidential election brings with it a perennial question about an essential voting bloc: Who will Black voters turn out for? 

Mother Jones video correspondent Garrison Hayes has spent months on the campaign trail talking to Black voters about how they see the goals and limits of their own political power. He paid special attention to Black Republicans, including a new crop of Black supporters of former President Donald Trump. 

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

This week on Reveal, we hear from voters at the Republican National Convention, a graduate from a historically Black university whose star is rising on the right after appearing in a viral video hugging Trump at a Chick-fil-A, and a Republican organizing other Black voters to turn out for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Here’s me, explaining more about what to expect from the episode:

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/GjyHLXD1zi

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) October 20, 2024

There’s a quickly growing religious movement whose followers believe Christians are called to wage a spiritual battle for control of the United States. The New Apostolic Reformation, as it’s known, seeks an explicitly Christian command of the highest levels of the government, including the presidency and the Supreme Court—but its leaders are working on the hyper-local level, too.

In the latest episode of Reveal, my colleagues traveled to a church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to see how these Christian nationalists have inserted their ideology into the very fabric of local civic life rather than merely be the “head-in-the-sand, Jesus-loves-you kind of Christians.”

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To Pastor Don Lamb, this is not a Christian takeover. Yet his congregation is influenced by the elusive, hard-to-pin-down New Apostolic Reformation movement whose followers believe that Christians are called to control the government and that former President Donald Trump was chosen by God.

There are prophets and apostles, and a spiritual war is underway, not just in Pennsylvania. “Estimates of Christians influenced by NAR vary widely, from 3 million to 33 million,” wrote Mother Jones reporter Kiera Butler in her feature story on the movement in our latest magazine issue. As Butler noted, “Its laser focus on starting a spiritual war to Christianize America has led the Southern Poverty Law Center to call NAR ‘the greatest threat to US democracy that you have never heard of.'”

This week, Reveal’s Najib Aminy and Butler explain what the New Apostolic Reformation is and what happens when it seeps into small-town churches like Lamb’s.

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.

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.