Trump: We’ll Probably Open Up the Economy Pretty Soon

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I’m taking my own advice and not watching Donald Trump’s coronavirus briefing right now, but apparently our president is bored with all the shutdowns and lockdowns he’s had to endure for the past [checks notes] seven whole days. So how much longer will this stuff last? “I’m not looking at months,” he says, even though nearly every expert says that months are indeed what we have to look forward to. “This is going away,” he says, despite abundant evidence that it’s not going away anytime soon.

If there’s any silver lining here at all, it’s the fact that it’s mostly governors who have the authority to shut down businesses and enforce quarantines. This is faint comfort for anyone living in a red state, who probably has a governor that slavishly follows Trump’s direction, but at least some of us will still be doing the right thing.

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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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