MoveOn is the progressive activist group that was founded back in 1998 to convince people Bill Clinton hadn’t done anything terribly serious with Monica Lewinsky, at least nothing impeachment worthy. They ultimately lost that battle but the group still exists to pull PR stunts like this one from a couple days ago.

well, here is the 15-foot George Santos balloon that @MoveOn staged near the Capitol pic.twitter.com/a12ACdw355

— Michael Gold (@migold) November 28, 2023

But it seems the group is having some money problems as they just announced they’d be laying off 18 workers.

The liberal activist organization MoveOn laid off at least 18 employees this week, in the latest sign of a slowdown in donations from small donors to left-leaning causes and candidates.

“We are retooling our team to meet the urgent needs of this moment and to have the resources necessary to do so,” Rahna Epting, MoveOn’s executive director, said. “I extend my sincere gratitude to our departing colleagues and for the incredible contributions they’ve made to the MoveOn community.”

Those workers will now get a chance to apply for 18 new jobs at a lower salary. I’m sure that’s going to be great for office morale. The Times mentions in passing that all of this is being driven by a broader downturn in donations to progressive groups.

Democratic candidates and liberal organizations have been struggling to keep up the fund-raising pace they enjoyed during the presidency of Donald J. Trump and even in the early years of President Biden’s administration.

NY Times columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote a column about this trend back in September.

As we stumble toward another existential election, panic is setting in among some progressive groups because the donors who buoyed them throughout the Trump years are disengaging. “Donations to progressive organizations are way down in 2023 across the board,” said a recent memo from Billy Wimsatt, executive director of the Movement Voter Project, an organization founded in 2016 that channels funds to community organizers, mostly in swing states, who engage and galvanize voters. He added, “Groups need money to make sure we have a good outcome next November. But. People. Are. Not. Donating.”…

As both big and small donors pull back, there have been layoffs across the progressive ecosystem, from behemoths like the Sierra Club to insurgent outfits like Justice Democrats, the group that first recruited Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to challenge the Democratic incumbent Joe Crowley in 2018. According to a July analysis by Middle Seat, a Democratic strategy and consulting firm, in the first half of this year, grass-roots donations to Democratic House and Senate campaigns were down almost 50 percent compared to the same point in 2021. Wimsatt, who had to lay off 15 people from a 55-person staff in June, told me, “I haven’t experienced a situation like this before when there’s been such a sense of scarcity.”

This isn’t just about political operatives losing their jobs: It means that organizations that should be building up their turnout operations for next year are instead having to downsize. And it speaks to a mood of liberal apathy and disenchantment that Democrats can’t afford ahead of another grueling election. “To the degree that there isn’t enough organic enthusiasm, we have to generate it,” Wimsatt said. That’s hard to do when you’re broke.

At the time, the expectation was that Trump would rescue these groups from extinction. Once it was clear he was the frontrunner, money would start pouring in again. But Trump is the frontrunner and the money spigot hasn’t turned on yet. Maybe it’s because, despite doing well in the polls, we haven’t seen much of Trump lately. He skipped the debates and he never returned to Twitter/X. What the progressive groups need is to have him on TV everyday as their chief villain to goose fundraising.

Until then, progressive employees will be asked to compete in a Hunger Games-style competition for the last remaining job flying giant satirical balloons over Washington, DC. Okay, not really but it’s nice to imagine.