Note to Trump Foes: Not Too Much Coordination, Please

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From the Wall Street Journal:

Pro-Democratic groups are launching an orchestrated bid to weaken GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump ahead of a potential November showdown with Hillary Clinton, while her campaign readies a strategy of engaging the billionaire businessman on issues without trading insults.

A coalition of 22 liberal groups—including some that have endorsed Mrs. Clinton and others that back her Democratic rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders—have united behind a campaign to stop Mr. Trump.

Among their plans: anti-Trump demonstrations, possibly including protests at the Republican National Convention this summer in Cleveland, and marches in major cities.

If I can play amateur strategist for a minute, I hope these groups aren’t coordinating too much. It’s nice to see everyone taking the Trump threat seriously, but my sense is that big, coordinated campaigns don’t work very well. They end up adopting strategies that everyone in the group can agree to, and those tend to be a little bland in a lowest-common-denominator sense. For the most part it’s best for everyone to do their own thing. Some of those things will work, some won’t. But at least you don’t have all your eggs in one basket.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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