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Email from a reader my age in the the Midwest:

Trouble with the base comes and goes for a variety of reasons. Even in the troubled periods, there are people (like me) who will work hard. I stumped hard in 1984 — of all years — and actually ran for the state legislature against an incumbent Republican in 1994 (duh).

Last weekend after the [xxx], I gave up my County Central Committee seat (which was hard because no one wanted it) for the first time in fifteen years. And before that I was on the Central Committee from a different precinct and before that in two different [xxx] counties. And that decision was based on my reaction to the health care nonsense. The spending freeze is actually dumber. Now I’m just one guy, but I’m one of the ones traditionally telling Democrats not to give up. In 1984, I was door knocking before the polls closed to get people out for Mondale. If the party loses a bunch of me’s, it is in trouble. If they have to spend time motivating me the party is in bigger trouble.

But by the time you wrote that you had never been more embarrassed to be a Democrat, I had already said similar things, though less eloquently and using terms that my children should not hear.

This is a very big mess. And I feel like I’ve wasted thirty-two years of political work. We are the majority party for crying out loud. In the prophetic words of Bugs Bunny, “What a bunch of maroons!”

No comment. I’m just sharing.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

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 find 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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