July 31, 2020

Once Upon a Time, Presidents and Words Didn’t Fail

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If the grammatically grotesque tweets, bizarrely unhinged speeches, and wrecking-ball words of a certain president wear you down day after day, week after week, you might want to search your memory, and the news archives, for a time when the presidency was synonymous not with a disorganized, myopic mind but with a historically informed one. Today is Friday. The week was not easy. The news was chilling, but the energizing eulogy by former President Barack Obama for John Lewis was a bright light. If you missed it, here you go. Have a healthy, safe weekend, and take your recharge where you can. Drop a line to recharge@motherjones.com to share weekend wisdom and stamina-building words of your own.

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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.

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