Please read this email (don't delete)

Friend, eighteen years ago this week, Daily Kos started as a one-man blog with this simple post: At the time of this post, George W. Bush was occupying the White House after a bitterly disputed election, the nation had recently experienced the trauma of 9/11, and the drumbeat for war in Iraq was underway. In the midst of these disasters, with the percentage of Americans self-identifying as liberals reaching its lowest ebb in decades, there was virtually nothing in the way of progressive media to stand up and shout "no!" Cable news, newspaper columnists, and talk radio were even more dominated by right-wingers than they are today. However, with no smart phones or tablets, and with only about half of the country having access to the internet at home, there was also virtually nothing in the way of digital media. This presented an opportunity for new voices to emerge free from the confines of existing media gatekeepers. Daily Kos came from a time when few in the media would stand up to an illegitimate president and his illegitimate war. It quickly became a place where people who no one else would publish could gather, commiserate, write their own articles, and share their stories. It grew into something which not only did not exist in 2002, but still doesn't exist anywhere else in 2020: a community-produced, grassroots-funded, progressive news media outlet that gives its readers immediate, impactful ways to take action on the news they are reading. [Daily Kos has become a cornerstone of the progressive movement, providing the news and giving you the tools to take immediate action. Support our ongoing efforts by giving a monthly contribution of $5.]( [Can't give monthly? A one-time contribution will help us for progressive values.]( Our unique structure defines who we are: - We don't rely on big donors, like many other progressive outlets. This allows us to be accountable to the small, grassroots donors who make up our readership, rather than the whims of a small number ultra-wealthy elites. - We take sides in fights through our grassroots activism, rather than trying to promote a false balance or to protect our tax exempt status (as a small business, we pay our taxes). Daily Kos is here to fight back, even if no one else in the media will. - Instead of just becoming new gatekeepers, we give our community a real voice. This means not only letting them post comments, but giving them the ability to publish their own stories--and even to promote community stories high up on the front page of our website for an extended period of time. It also means not just putting together whatever actions our staff deem to be important, but listening to what our readers are most interested in and tailoring many of our actions to those interests. There is nothing else like Daily Kos anywhere else in the media landscape. What's more, now that the internet is owned by a small number of enormous tech companies, don't expect a new Daily Kos to emerge, either. Even before the pandemic, Big Tech's dominance of the digital space was crowding out independent publishers, with [nearly 8,000 jobs lost in 2019 alone](. Now, with the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are seeing layoffs, furloughs and salary cuts at an unprecedented rate. Daily Kos is not immune to these pressures, as we have seen our revenue drop in the past months too, making grassroots donations from our community the largest source of income. Daily Kos has faced hard times before and we turned to our community of readers and activists to ask for help in the form of small donations. The response was overwhelming. Not only didn't we have to let anyone go, we were able to expand. We hired more writers, campaign organizers and support staff to expand our news coverage and activism, and developed more tools so you can take more impactful action and do it faster. [Daily Kos exists because of you, and for you, to give you news that you can do something about. Help us keep fighting for you every single day by becoming a $5 monthly donor to Daily Kos.]( [Can't give monthly? A one-time donation will still help us keep fighting. Please click here to give $5.]( Keep fighting, Chris Bowers Executive Campaign Director, Daily Kos Daily Kos, PO Box 70036, Oakland, CA, 94612. Sent via [ActionNetwork.org](. To update your email address, change your name or address, or to stop receiving emails from Daily Kos, please [click here](.