February 13, 2017

Foreign Leaders Have a Big Decision to Make

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What’s the best way for a foreign leader to handle Donald Trump? The last few days have shown us the two approaches that are likely to become most common. The question every leader has to ask is: Should you be a man1 or should you be a mouse?

The Mouse Approach: Japanese prime minister Shinz? Abe gave a master class in this technique over the weekend. Trump tried to humiliate him with a monster handshake, and Abe let him. He fawned over Trump’s superior golf game. As near as we can tell, he was willing to abase himself endlessly in service of his larger goal: getting Trump to become Japan’s BFF. You could practically see the gears turning in Abe’s head as he went through with this.2

The Man Approach: This morning, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau took the opposite tack. As Trump closed in for the alpha-dog hand-on-the-shoulder handshake, Trudeau beat him to it. And when Trump suggested another handshake for the cameras, Reuters captured this soon-to-be-classic photo:

Which will work better? Suckering Trump into thinking he’s got your number? Or trying to earn Trump’s respect by showing you won’t be intimidated? Decisions, decisions.

1Or a woman.

2Oh to be a fly on the wall when the Japanese team was alone. I can only imagine what they really think of Trump.

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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.

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