October 31, 2016

We are a Nearly Perfectly Polarized Nation

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With 8 days left until we elect a new president, Morning Consult decided to poll the American public about the Comeygate emails that nobody has seen and which may or may not even be anything be new. The results are kind of perfect. They asked which is worse: Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, or Donald Trump’s comments on women, Muslims, Mexicans, and other minority groups? The answer:

  • Democrats: Trump’s comments, 85-12, percent.
  • Independents: A tie, 44-44 percent.
  • Republicans: Clinton’s email server, 82-10 percent.

Elsewhere, they asked about Trump’s comment that Clinton’s use of a private server was worse than Watergate. Among Republicans, 82 percent said it was. I wonder if they would have agreed if Trump said it was worse than the Holocaust?

I do wonder sometimes what these folks think is in these emails. I mean, suppose the worst: Hillary Clinton set up the private server in a deliberate attempt to evade FOIA and allow her staff to delete embarrassing emails. What do they think she would have inexplicably fessed up to on her BlackBerry? The mythical stand down order on Benghazi? That she really did order a hit on Vince Foster? Her plan to take away everybody’s guns once she becomes president? It’s a mystery.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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