December 30, 2019

Let’s Make 2020 a Better Year For Common Decency

Kevin Drum

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I am ending the year much as I began it: worn out and mad at the world. But! At least I have Mother Jones. I may not be able to do anything concrete about Donald Trump until 2020, but in the meantime MoJo allows me to vent my spleen while reminding me every day that not everyone has gone nuts. Some of us are still fighting for a world that’s not delusional—and, better still, a world where we believe in treating people decently.

And that’s it. Am I setting my bar too low these days? Maybe. But I don’t insist on brotherly love or universal kindness or generosity of spirit. Those would be nice, but I’ll settle for treating people decently. Anybody who’s committed to doing at least that much—along with a government that reflects it—is OK in my book. Sadly, it seems like we have a longer way to go on that front than we did a decade ago.

Now, it occurs to me that this is not a very uplifting start to a fundraising pitch. But common decency is undervalued, and it’s something that Mother Jones has always been dedicated to. It doesn’t matter if we’re running an article about undocumented immigrants or schools that work or Donald Trump’s latest bit of hatefulness. Read an inch below the surface and the message is that everyone deserves to be treated decently. We’ve been doing this for nearly 50 years, and one of the things that keeps us going is donations from the people who agree with us. Tomorrow is the last day of our year-end fundraiser, so if you’re a fan of common decency then this is a great time to donate some money to the cause. It will help make 2020 a better year for everyone.

To donate via credit card or PayPal, click here.

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

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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