Mother Jones January/February 2022

ON THE COVER We tried a few versions of our spin on a “Help Wanted” sign, including: “Help Really Really Really Wanted” and “Better Bosses Wanted.” What we landed on, illustrated by GUILLEM CASASÚS, strikes the perfect balance between tragic and fed up. CONTRIBUTORS Tell us about a job you quit or almost quit. A Burger King where I had to sweep the parking lot late at night. I peered into the darkness, thought, “I can do better than this,” and drove home. —Lori Teresa Yearwood (“I Am Not Your Project") Working as a receptionist in a small community center in Evanston, Illinois—absolutely the most boring job one could find. —Ramenda Cyrus (“Vanishing Point”) I was hired at a bike shop in Little Rock, Arkansas. After a stressful start, they realized I did not know how…

If you've been following Mother Jones for a little while, you may have seen our tagline: “Smart, Fearless Journalism.” I like that line, but if I’m being completely honest, the “fearless” part is kind of impossible. There are things that scare us, but there’s also a big reason why we don’t have to run and hide. Back in January 2019, my colleague Clara Jeffery, MoJo’s editor-in-chief, saw videos online of a rally in Washington, DC. They captured a confrontation between MAGA-hat-wearing high school students and Native American elder Nathan Phillips. Clara tweeted about what she saw and the media coverage that followed. Eight months later, a local newspaper reported that a defamation suit had been filed in Kentucky on behalf of several of the students’ families. It named Clara and 11 other…

As of this writing, 695 people have been charged for federal crimes related to the January 6, 2021, Capitol breach—crimes motivated by the lie that Joe Biden won because of nationwide election fraud. Of those 695 people, not one has been charged with sedition, defined in the US Code as two or more people conspiring to “overthrow, put down, or to destroy” the government, “prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law,” or “by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States.” January 6 defendants came armed with bats and bear spray and stun devices and guns and zip ties, aiming to overthrow the election by any means necessary. They called for the execution of the vice president. They assaulted law enforcement, bludgeoning officers with American…

The trouble began in 2017, when Rafael Bolaños’ sprinklers started to falter. He’d bought his three-bedroom, one-bath house on 2 acres in 2002, when supply from the property’s well was plentiful. But over the years, more pistachio groves sprouted in the grassy fields surrounding his town of Madera, California. After an epic four-year drought, the once-reliable well struggled to pull from the underground aquifer that the Bolaños family and their neighbors shared with the new trees. So Bolaños, a construction worker who lives with his wife, Lorena, and their 14-year-old daughter, shelled out more than $3,000 to deepen the well by 70 feet and replace its pump, worn from drawing ever-deeper water. He let his lawn and most of their prized fruit trees—orange, lime, and peach—die back, and took to…

in October, about 75 people gather inside an airy insulation installer’s warehouse on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, ready for a daylong lesson in resisting tyranny. The mostly white, middle-aged crowd sports Trump 2024 hats and shirts extolling the Second Amendment—but no masks. As attendees grab donuts and coffee, the event’s headliner, Richard Mack, founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), genially chats with them and hawks his self-published books, including The County Sheriff: America’s Last Hope. Tall and tan at almost 69, Mack has the look of an aging game show host and carries himself with the self-assurance of a minor celebrity. He has deep, decades-long ties to militia and extremist groups. He even wrote the foreword to a book by his friend Randy Weaver, the white separatist whose…

Who joins a militia, and why? Members often give similar, flattering answers—to protect the Constitution, preserve freedom, or defend their community. But we obtained a leaked database of 25,000 Oath Keeper sign-ups that tells a much darker story, with interest spiking around events that energized the far right. 1. Sept. 12, 2009: Major tea party march in DC 2. March 23, 2010: President Obama signs Affordable Care Act 3. April 19, 2011: Anniversaries of first Oath Keepers rally, Oklahoma City bombing, and end of the Waco siege 4. Dec. 2012–Jan. 2013: Sandy Hook shooting and Obama’s second inauguration 5. Oct. 2013: Oath Keepers launch armed “Community Preparedness Teams,” modeled after special forces 6. April–May 2014: Standoff between Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management 7. Nov. 24, 2014: Ferguson, Missouri, erupts in protest after…