February 7, 2020

The Democrats Hug It Out

Elise Amendola/AP

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A day after the four-year anniversary of Marco Rubio’s decapitation at the hands of Chris Christie, the Democrats have shown that they are not afraid to hug it out. The stakes are high for a few candidates on the debate stage. Elizabeth Warren needs to take out Bernie Sanders. Joe Biden needs to take out Pete Buttigieg. Amy Klobuchar needs to take out Biden and Buttigieg. Tom Steyer needs to take out everybody.

But after a few early digs, the Democratic candidates are upholding their reputation for bringing tote bags to a knife fight.

The debate opened with Bernie Sanders declaring unity.

“At the end of the day…everybody up here is united,” said Sanders. “No matter who wins this damn thing, we’re all going to stand together to defeat Donald Trump.”

Amy Klobuchar kept the love going, saying, “I like Bernie just fine,” before listing bills they had successfully worked on together in the Senate.

But the highlight so far was definitely the Biden-Bernie hug that happened about 45 minutes in. 

Biden Bernie hugging gif

It should be noted, this wasn’t the first Biden-Bernie hug to happen on a debate stage this cycle. They also embraced onstage in October in Ohio.

Biden, Bernie hug in October 2019
John Minchillo/AP

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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