September 18, 2020

The Trump Files: Trump Finds a Silver Lining in an Ebola Outbreak

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This post was originally published as part of “The Trump Files“—a collection of telling episodes, strange but true stories, and curious scenes from the life of our current president—on October 21, 2016.

Donald is a famous germophobe who hates shaking hands so much that he called the practice “one of the curses of American society” in one of his books. “I happen to be a clean-hands freak,” he told The Hill earlier this year. So it’s no wonder that the Ebola outbreak of 2014 appealed to him on at least one level.

When Donald wasn’t heralding the imminent worldwide demise of hand-shaking, though, he was having an epic, monthslong Twitter freakout over the Ebola scare.

Needless to say, the United States would be well equipped to calmly handle any medical emergencies under a Trump administration.

 

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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.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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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