Are Democrats In a “Fearful Frenzy”?

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Every day I get an email newsletter from Bloomberg. I’m not sure why, but I suppose it’s for the same reason I get email newsletters from everyone else on the planet. Normally I just delete them en masse each morning, but today I read Bloomberg’s. It turns out they’re doing their best to keep everyone on the edge of their seats and waiting for their next Bloomberg newsletter:

In five days, America will make history, one way or another. We will either select our first female president, pick a true mold-breaking non-politician, or face a 2000-esque stand-off that paralyzes courts, fuels a media maelstrom and inflames passions around the country. No big deal. So where does the race actually stand as we dive headlong into Tuesday?

There are several new polls that double down on the narrative that the race has tightened….These numbers, the ongoing hum of controversy from the FBI and WikiLeaks, and the positive tone and spin coming from the Trump camp has some Democrats in a fearful frenzy.

Oh settle down. Sure, there’s a rogue cabal at the FBI determined to take down Hillary Clinton. Sure, there’s a lunatic cooped up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London determined to take down Hillary Clinton. Sure, there’s a despot in Russia determined to take down Hillary Clinton. Sure, there’s an entire media edifice determined to take down Hillary Clinton.

But she’s still around, isn’t she? And the polls really aren’t tightening all that much. So relax and read instead about Donald Trump’s illusory wealth:

On the financial disclosure forms that Donald J. Trump has pointed to as proof of his tremendous success, no venture looks more gold-plated than his golf resort in Doral, Fla., where he reported revenues of $50 million in 2014….But this summer, a considerably different picture emerged in an austere government hearing room in Miami, where Mr. Trump’s company was challenging the resort’s property tax bill.

Mr. Trump’s lawyer handed the magistrate an income and expense statement showing that the gross revenue had indeed been $50 million. But after paying operating costs, the resort had actually lost $2.4 million.

Well, really, what’s the difference between +50 million and -2.4 million? According to Trump, nothing much. But it goes a long way toward explaining why he filed for bankruptcy so many times, doesn’t it?

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We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

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If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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