March 3, 2018

President Trump is Sullen, Isolated, Abandoned, and Alone

Bruce R. Bennett/The Palm Beach Post via ZUMA

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How is our president doing these days? Here’s a quick summary from media reports:

Washington Post: Angry and increasingly isolated … fumes … voices frustration … revives old grudges … seethed with anger … raging … venting … furious … .irate … “Morale is the worst it’s ever been” … feels abandoned and alone.

Politico: Chaos here, backlash there, shock everywhere … growing sense of despair … deep demoralization and discord … erratic … sullen and isolated … deeply suspicious of the people around him.

Guardian: Abandoned in a raging storm … fulminated … isolated, angry and ready to lash out … unchecked volatility … “angry and gunning for a fight” … erratic … morale is understood to be at an all-time low … increasingly isolated and mercurial … staggering from one crisis to another.

These stories must be rough on reporters. I mean, how many synonyms for “raging four-year-old” are there?

Actually, though, the true connecting thread running through all these stories is: sullen, isolated, abandoned, and alone. In the past, Trump tossed around vague orders and within a year or two a new golf course would open. He believes that was all due to his leadership, and the only thing different about the White House is that he’s got a different staff. So if things are failing now, it can only be the fault of the people working for him. His personality doesn’t allow him to believe anything else.

The result is predictable: when things start going south he lashes out at his staff as either incompetent or disloyal. Then he gets new staff. And when things keep going south the only possible explanation is that everyone is against him. And so he ends up sullen, isolated, abandoned, and alone.

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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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