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I’m a little curious why I’m not seeing more people admit the obvious: Joe Biden is now virtually 100 percent assured of winning the Democratic nomination. He’s going to come out of Super Tuesday ahead of Bernie Sanders and there’s little reason to think he won’t maintain that lead. And if he’s anywhere close to a majority when primary season is over, the superdelegates will put him over the top easily. Right? I mean, does anyone think that Sanders will win more than 10 percent of the superdelegates if he rolls into Milwaukee with Biden anywhere close to him?

In 2016, I initially gave Sanders a pass when he continued campaigning even after it was obvious he had no chance of beating Hillary Clinton. After all, one of his goals was to amass enough delegates that he could influence the party platform and push it to the left. To do that, he had to keep competing.

But he’s done that. I don’t mean that everyone in the party is sold on his agenda—he was never going to accomplish that—but his agenda is now very much a mainstream option. Things like Medicare for All, free college, wealth taxes, a $15 minimum wage, and so forth have a considerable following. Thanks to Sanders, they are not fringe ideas at all anymore.

So it’s not clear why he should continue running much beyond the end of March. At that point, if he hasn’t produced a stunning turnaround, his chances are over. He’s just running out of spite.

Mike Bloomberg, to his credit, has demonstrated that he really does think Donald Trump is our biggest problem. His wealth and his endorsement are now dedicated to Biden. I hope Sanders does the same sometime soon. His followers and his endorsement are valuable commodities, and a united front against Trump is what’s needed now.

Sometimes revolutions don’t happen on schedule. Bernie isn’t going to get his this year, but he’s had a helluva strong influence on the progressive movement. Thanks to him, a revolution—or something like it—is a lot likelier in 2024 or 2028 than it used to be. That’s something to be proud of.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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