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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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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