Yes, You’re Tired. But You Can Keep Fighting.

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It feels to me like we’re finally witnessing the last gasp of Reagan-era movement conservatism. By all odds it should have died a couple of years ago, and it would have if not for a couple of freak accidents that handed the election to Donald Trump and allowed the Republican Party to go on one final, epic bender of bigotry and bitterness. But it finally came to an end in November when they suffered a historic loss in the midterm elections—and they know it. You can almost feel the panic in the air. Trump wants to shut down the government over his border wall. Red states are enacting fuck-you laws stripping power from incoming Democratic governors. A right-wing judge in Texas has declared Obamacare unconstitutional. And every Republican in Congress is hiding in their office with their fingers in their ears pretending not to hear the hammer blows of a special prosecutor who has their president in his crosshairs.

These are the final temper tantrums of a political movement that lasted 38 years—which isn’t bad, really. The New Deal consensus only lasted a little longer than that. But it finally imploded because, in the immortal words of Sen. Lindsey Graham six years ago, “We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.” He was right, and the long term has finally come.

But even with Democrats in control of the House, Republicans are hardly giving up without a fight. Trump is a cornered rat and will cause any chaos he can if he thinks it will save his skin. Mitch McConnell is going to keep confirming conservative judges until the day he’s hauled out of his office with a backhoe. Fox News will grow successively more panicked until the pixels start to melt on TV screens around he country. Wilbur Ross will work feverishly to skew the 2020 census, providing Republicans with one last gift from the grave.

This means that the next two years are going to be even more vicious than the last two. “Power concedes nothing without a demand,” Frederick Douglass told us once, and that’s just as true now as it was before the Civil War. Conservatives are going to concede nothing that progressives don’t force from their cold, grasping hands. That means we keep fighting: harder, smarter—and, yes—more ruthlessly than ever.

As a writer for Mother Jones for the past decade, I’m part of that fight. We’re all part of that fight. I won’t pretend I’m not tired as hell these days, and if you’re tired too I don’t blame you. But if I can keep fighting past the damn cancer drugs, so can you. This is why, every few months, I ask you for a contribution to keep our doors open and to keep this blog on the air.

But here’s the good news: right now the next $50,000 we raise will be matched dollar for dollar by an anonymous donor. That’s why I’m asking for a donation tonight, not next week. If you contribute $10, it’s worth $20 to us. If you contribute $100, it’s worth $200 to us. You get the picture.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

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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.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

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.

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Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

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.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

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.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

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