June 15, 2019

Meghan McCain Asked Twitter for Father’s Day Dad Stories. Thousands of People Replied.

With tributes that are incredibly moving.

Haraz N. Ghanbari/AP

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Meghan McCain, the daughter of Arizona Senator John McCain who died of brain cancer in August 2018, on Wednesday asked her Twitter followers in the “#DeadDadsClub” to share stories of their dead fathers on her timeline ahead of Father’s Day.

“Anyone else out there who is dreading Father’s Day this Sunday – I feel you, and have been trying to come up with something positive to do Sunday,” she wrote. “Maybe we will all feel less alone?” What the co-host of The View may not have expected, perhaps, is the outpouring of support and personal stories thousands of her followers shared in response to her tweet.

McCain’s ask came a few days before President Donald Trump’s critics decided to dub Friday, June 14, #JohnMcCainDay, in an apparent effort to troll the president on his birthday. Started by Andy Lassner, the executive producer of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the hashtag went viral.

(It’s no secret that Trump wasn’t a fan of the senator when he was alive, a feud which continued past McCain’s death. In May, the president’s staff reportedly asked the Navy for the USS John S. McCain to be out of sight ahead of the president’s visit to Japan.)

The Census Bureau announced Saturday that more than 60 percent of the 121 million men in the United States are fathers, the Associated Press reports. In honor of fatherless children, and belatedly, #JohnMcCainDay, here are some of the moving and remarkable stories shared on Meghan McCain’s timeline:

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

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