MoJo Reader,
It’s fitting that by the time you read this, I’ll be a few days into visiting my mom back in the Midwest, because this email ended up being about her.
I didn’t realize it until just a few years ago, but my sense of justice and wanting to stick it to the man, as a career, took root watching her raise me and my brother as a single mom. (Dad was around, for sure—I’ll have something to write about him soon…)
She was the one woman in an office full of boomer men—at their 1980s and early ’90s peak—and every once in a while, she would vent about the BS she endured. She commiserated with the laborers and warehouse workers. She got to know them and brought their stories home. Neither of us realized it then, but I was learning about smashing the patriarchy.
My mom reads these emails. Monika’s mom does too (“Is the $350,000 goal really that dire?” “Yes Mom, it is.”) Moms are the best. We share messages people receive from their proud mamas in our impact tracking channel. They’re adorable. We’re named after a historic mother, after all.
I didn’t tell mine that I was sending this email about her. But before I left to take some time off and visit, I knew I needed to have an email go out asking for the donations we need—and I guess I also learned something about fundraising from all those years asking Mom for money.
It's rough right now—we’re running behind our fundraising targets. Last December, I was talking with my mom, telling her how stressful work was. How our year-end campaign was struggling, and how fewer people are paying attention to the news over the last few years. She said, “Oh, right, I haven’t really been reading those emails,” and I can’t blame her.
Back in February, we were chatting and she just casually tossed out “Trump is going to win” like it was a foregone conclusion. What?!?!? It stuck with me, the bluntness and matter-of-factness. She was onto something I wasn’t yet grasping out in the Bay Area.
One person’s mother is a terrible data set, but I’ll bet you 15 bucks that a whole lot of you also felt like it’s become quite laborious to follow the news right now. Some might even feel resigned. It is so hard raising money against this backdrop.
I just called my mom to see what she’s thinking now, without being direct about why—just “a work thing I’d like to get your read on.” She said she felt relieved when Joe Biden stepped down, and thankful he did what she and many thought was the right thing.
“Then I started seeing what they’re saying about” Kamala Harris, “and you know people hate California [OUCH, MOM!], and reality started to sink in.”
I didn’t press for who the “they” is in “what they’re saying about her,” but my mom is no nutjob glued to propaganda sites or grifter news—it’s more the standard fare of the Today show, local TV networks, the national evening news (she adores Lester Holt—loved Tom Brokaw), some corporate newspapers that are shells of themselves.
That stinks. The mainstream media, with its historic errors of false equivalency and timidity, and its horserace he-said-she-said coverage, can make people like my mom lose a fleeting sense of hope. Because somehow the first Black woman on a major party presidential ticket might appear unelectable, yet the first convicted felon is a shoo-in? Great.
My point is this: Mother Jones and Reveal need to be there for people like my mom. People who care and want better news than all that horserace coverage. Online, on social media, on the radio and podcasts, in print, and on streaming platforms, we need to be there with quality information that doesn’t just follow the pack. And as long as we can hit our budget this month, next month, and so on (it’s really that tight every month, please donate if you can), we will be there.
With your support, we can and will keep creating more of those moments—between now and November, and whatever happens postelection, because you know it isn’t just another ho-hum politics-as-usual race we’re living through.
How about you? How are you feeling these days? When we asked in February, the overwhelming feeling was dread and despair. Has that changed?
We’d truly like to hear from A LOT of you because when I’m back from my time off next week, I need to figure out how the hell we can raise upward of $1 million in online donations we need by the time the year ends. I have some ideas, and am hoping for the best.
I am also hoping to be able to tell my mom that this atypical email struck a chord and she’s helping me connect with you and raise some of the money we need.
Thanks for reading,
