The Guardian doesn’t ‘sanewash’ Trump or take orders from a billionaire owner. That’s why I’m proud to write here | Rebecca Solnit

Thanks to reader support, the Guardian is free from the political and commercial pressures that influence other US outlets. Please help us raise the $2m we need to keep up our momentum.

The Guardian is unafraid. And it's independent. (No billionaire bosses.) In this media climate, those qualities are as rare as they are crucial to good journalism.

Good journalism is also crucial to the informed citizens we need for a functioning democracy. From too many legacy media outlets based in the US we're getting something else entirely: horse race coverage, scraped-up and reheated scandals of little significance, credulous repeating of claims, polite evasions about the threats and crimes of the right, and what's been dubbed sanewashing": the translation of the luridly loopy utterances of Donald Trump and his minions into coherent-sounding policy statements. And now we're seeing billionaire owners of major papers suppress their own editorial department's endorsements.

If you are able, please support the Guardian today. Thank you for helping protect the free press.