December 17, 2020

Things Are Grim and Life Sucks. Here Are Some Small Things to Distract and Delight You.

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Roughly six weeks after Joe Biden won the election, the mood here remains exhausted and annoyed. Donald Trump is reportedly telling advisers that he’ll refuse to leave the White House on Inauguration Day. The pandemic continues to explode. And I’m smack in the middle of a 10-day self-isolation period without anything else to watch across six streaming platforms. 

But! Hoping against hope each day, I do try to couch my grumpy outlook with the small caveat that incremental change is underway. Here are several nuggets of optimism I discovered today:

• Ian McKellen is officially vaccinated and feeling flippin’ “euphoric”: “I would have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone,” he says.
• This photo of New Yorkers dining in the snow. 
• The FDA is on the verge of likely recommending the Moderna vaccine.
• Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s incoming deputy chief of staff, gives a refreshingly honest, unapologetic interview on motherhood and politics.

But perhaps the best reason to hold out this Thursday comes from our very own Russ Choma, who shoots down the prospect of Trump’s reported flirtation with a 2024 run—a move that one campaign finance attorney warned would be “profoundly stupid”:

Should Trump make his presidential intentions official—as opposed to merely hinting at them—that would be “profoundly stupid,” in the words of one campaign finance attorney who spoke to Mother Jones. That’s because declaring a presidential bid will trigger a slew of election laws prescribing how Trump can raise and spend money. It would also force Trump to continue filing annual financial disclosures containing information about his business deals, loans, and personal wealth that Trump may not be eager to reveal.

That’s enough reason to be sort of, kind of cheery today, right? Onward!

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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