October 26, 2016

In Era of Trump, Competition for Stupidest Man Alive Heats Up

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In the same category of cluelessness as “Keep the government out of my Medicare,” one of my favorite dumb whinges comes from people who complain that the mainstream media isn’t covering something—and then illustrate that “something” by linking to a piece in the New York Times. Stephen Moore, in a brave attempt to keep his title of Stupidest Man Alive in the era of Trump, provides us with this classic of the genre today:

Every news outlet in America had a big headline about the Obamacare premium increases. It was plastered everywhere and blathered about endlessly on cable news. You could stay unaware of this only by hiding in a nearby fallout shelter like Kimmy Schmidt and not coming out for a week. As for the Washington Post, well:

In fairness, this is yesterday’s edition. The Post actually covered it before anyone else. I guess Moore somehow missed it.

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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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