Here Is My Full-Scale Crisis Communications Plan for Donald Trump

Kevin Dietsch/CNP via ZUMA

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LOL:

The White House is struggling to contain the national discussion about President Trump’s mental acuity and fitness for the job, which has overshadowed the administration’s agenda for the past week….Trump privately resents the now-regular chatter on cable television news shows about his mental health and views the issue as “an invented fact” and “a joke.”

….Some Trump allies voiced frustration that the White House does not appear to have implemented a full-scale crisis communications plan. “When you raise an issue like the mental acuity of the president, there is no organized effort to push back,” said one ally, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly. “How do you disprove a fallacy?”

Actually, fallacies are disproven all the time. That’s why they’re called fallacies in the first place. In this case, it would be easy to disprove that Trump is a moron, and in a spirit of bipartisan magnanimity I’m going to reveal how to do it free of charge. Are you ready? Here it is:

Have Trump give a live TV interview in which he addresses policy issues in depth and shows that he has actual, demonstrable knowledge of a variety of topics. Points will be deducted for every meandering mention of (a) Hillary Clinton, (b) fake news, (c) his record-breaking election victory, (d) the FBI, (e) the unfairness of the Russia investigation, (f) his IQ, (g) collusion between Democrats and Russia, (h) how he personally turned around the economy, or anything else that’s so off-topic it’s not even in left field.

A bright high school senior could do this, so the bar is set pretty low. You don’t need a full-scale crisis communications plan. This is all it would take.

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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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