November 12, 2016

Let’s Figure Out What Happened Before We Start the Purges

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Shorter Kelly Kleiman: Before Democrats devolve into internecine warfare, let’s actually figure out what happened on Tuesday. Was it a whitelash? Sulky Bernie supporters? Lack of enthusiasm from blacks and Latinos? Voter suppression? Right now, we’re flying blind, with only some crude data from exit polls and a few first attempts to make sense of the county-level data.

I’ll add one thing: whatever the answer turns out to be, it’s going to involve a shift of only a few percentage points. Everyone should be careful not to draw overly sweeping conclusions from this, even if it does make for good clickbait.

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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