Since Donald Trump left office on January 20, donations to The Intercept have gone down sharply.
After years of steady growth, last month brought fewer new members than we’ve seen in more than two years.
Similar trends are being reported across media and progressive politics. While Trump railed against journalists as “the enemy of the people,” grassroots outrage over Trump’s corruption, racism, and incompetence fueled a spike in ratings, subscriptions, and fundraising that became known in the industry as the “Trump Bump.”
As reader support for The Intercept grew over the Trump years — tens of thousands of people chipping in $5 or $10 a month — we’ve been able to take on more and more ambitious and hard-hitting investigative reporting.
But with Trump gone, we now face the question: Will those Trump-era donations dry up?
While the daily outrages and dumpster fire spectacle of Trump’s White House have ended, systemic corruption and abuses of power continue. Racist policing, inhumane immigration enforcement, and invasive government surveillance haven’t gone anywhere. The military-industrial complex and corporate lobbyists still dominate Washington, D.C.
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In just the last week, we’ve seen President Joe Biden launch rocket attacks in Syria, let Saudi Arabia’s crown prince off the hook for the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and effectively surrender on raising the minimum wage. Meanwhile, the January 6 insurrection has led to calls for sweeping new domestic surveillance authorities.
Biden’s “return to normal” cannot simply be a return to a pre-Trump status quo marked by grotesque wealth inequality and forever wars. At The Intercept, we always saw Trump’s rise to power as a symptom of much deeper problems, and now we’ve seen why it’s so important for journalists to hold the new administration accountable.
That’s why The Intercept is doubling down on the same core mission that drove our journalism before Trump ever announced his run for president: holding the powerful accountable through fearless, adversarial journalism.
