May 1, 2012

Hitler, Obama Both Fond of Slogans

"Forward!"<a href="http://www.bild.bundesarchiv.de/archives/barchpic/search/_1335899215/?search[form][SIGNATUR]=Bild+146-1990-048-29A">German Federal Archive</a>

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Hitler does not have a patent on adverbs.

It all started right after Team Obama debuted their new campaign’s slogan: “Forward“—the long-awaited sequel to 2008’s “Hope and Change.” And in those seven letters, members of the conservative commentariat detected a whiff of totalitarianism.

On Tuesday, ThinkProgress editor Alex Seitz-Wald threw together a primer on the bizarre, petty, and not entirely unexpected freak-out. For example, Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard criticized the president for having signed off on a word so closely linked to Chairman Mao’s mass-murder-tastic Great Leap Forward. (“[P]erhaps President Obama might rethink this slightly creepy slogan,” Kristol pondered earnestly.) Breitbart.com‘s Joel Pollak (this guy) wrote about how the seven-letter slogan is further proof that Obama’s political heritage belongs to a long line of Communist tyrants. Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit took Forwardgate as his cue to yet again draw the Obama-Hitler connection.

There you have it: The 44th President of the United States and his campaign staff like to use words. Communists and fascists throughout history were also known to have used words.

It’s the same kind of bulletproof logic you’d get from Dave Chappelle’s “Conspiracy Brother” in Undercover Brother.

Here are some other conclusions that follow the same line of reasoning that begot the Forward backlash. You can apply the formula to anyone, really.

Obama:

The White House/FlickrThe White House/FlickrYou know who else liked dogs, don’t you?

German Federal ArchiveGerman Federal ArchiveSupermodels:

You know who else really loved horsies?

Biggie:

WikimediaWikimediaYou know who else knew where Brooklyn at?

I think we’re done here.

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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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