Palmer Report Profile picture
Sep 13, 2020 12 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Biden has a large steady lead. Trump is self destructing. Only way we can lose this is if we waste these final 50 days fretting and panicking and letting pundits scare us into staying glued to our screens, instead of going out and putting in the real-world work required to win.
The pundits will use every trick in the book to try to scare you into believing that you're going to lose, and that the only way you can avoid losing is if you keep staring at the screen and panicking. It's how they get their ratings. Don't let them play you.
Even though Biden's lead in the polling averages has been remarkably steady all year and will likely remain so, you're going to hear the pundits start constantly using the word "tightening." They'll always point to one new poll out of context, while ignoring the polling averages.
In fact a number of pundits have spent the past month obsessively using the word "tightening" to try to get you to stay tuned in – and yet over the past month the polling averages have remained EXACTLY the same.
You'll hear pundits (on the left and right) insist that Biden is going to lose unless he makes some specific change to what he's doing. That's hilarious, considering he's already winning. But when cable news gets your adrenaline flowing, the silliness makes sense in the moment.
Pundits will insist that unless you join them in the panicked fatalism that they're using to keep you tuned in, you're not being "vigilant" enough. But that's ridiculous. No one is being "vigilant" by staring at a TV all day, or a Twitter pundit's feed.
If you want to waste these final 50 days fretting, I can't stop you. But please keep it to yourself. When you run around yelling "We're gonna lose no matter what," you're telling people on your own side not to bother making the effort to vote, because there's no point.
Mike Bloomberg said all along he'd spend big for the Democratic nominee. Now he's spending $100 million for Joe Biden, as promised, at a time when it'll have the most impact. Some pundits are spinning this as Biden suddenly being in trouble. Yeah right. What a joke.
Remember when the pundits insisted Trump would magically win because of Kanye, or Tara Reade, or Portland? Every few weeks they have a new doomsday narrative to scare you into staying tuned in – and it nearly always turns out to have zero impact on the election.
The pundits have turned us into codependents where we need to be told we're going to lose, we crave being told we're going to lose, we're comforted by the thought that we're going to lose. It's perverse. It does real harm. And they do it to us just to get TV ratings and such.
We didn't lose in 2016 because of overconfidence or complacency. We lost because of the Comey letter. Idly fretting and "vigilantly" staring at the TV couldn't have stopped that. You know what could have overcome the Comey letter? Voter registration, phone banking, volunteering.
If you want to win: go volunteer for Biden!

If you don't care whether you win: waste your time staring at the TV and nervously fretting over ratings-driven doomsday narratives.

If you're trying to lose: go tell everyone who will listen that we're going to lose no matter what.

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More from @PalmerReport

Jun 26
This is not easy for me to say, but…

If my time covering politics has taught me one thing, it’s that the truth matters – or at least it should matter. So I’m going to take a risk here and open up to all of you about what’s really been going on with me since the election:
It’s been a difficult time for everyone. There are a lot of people who have been struggling mightily – and I’m one of them.
After a decade of doing this for a living, I’ve become prone to what are known as anxiety attacks or panic attacks...
These are often the subject of ridicule, but they’re very much a real diagnosis. You know that jolted feeling you get for a second or two after a loud noise catches you off guard? Imagine that same physical feeling lasting for minutes or hours, instead of fading within seconds...
Read 12 tweets
Mar 15
The real problem with our side is our base. We think it’s our leaders’ job to coddle us into wanting to fight. We sit back and complain about our leaders, while doing nothing ourselves. We think the goal is to make ourselves feel superior to our leaders – not to fight and win.
What most of us really want is to feel outrage. We demand that our Democratic leaders set themselves on fire daily in a way that allows us to feel the most outrage, regardless of whether it’s good strategy. On the days they don’t do it, we attack *them* so we can feel outrage.
We’re stuck on this perverse idea that feeling and expressing outrage is activism (it is not), and that it makes a difference (it does not). Idle outrage is a vanity tool at best. At worst it’s a deranged excuse to destroy our own side’s leaders for our own entertainment.
Read 6 tweets
Feb 16
Not long ago I said that when it comes to the Trump regime we should try to strategically focus on one thing: the incompetence. We’re naturally drawn to the corruption, the extremism, and the cruelty, because that’s what outrages us the most...
But those aren’t things we can work with. We can’t bring a single person in the middle over to our side just by accusing Trump of being evil; that’s the rhetoric that the people in the middle expect to hear from both sides.
First the Trump regime laid off hundreds of government employees who were in charge of preventing nuclear terrorism. That’s obviously not a corner you want to cut. This was a glaringly stupid mistake.
Read 12 tweets
Feb 14
I use words for a living, but sometimes even I don’t know what to say. This week we’ve seen the Republican Senate cave and approve nearly all of Trump’s remaining cabinet nominees, all of whom are insane. We’ve seen Elon Musk hold an unhinged press conference while standing...
...behind the Oval Office desk, as Trump sat there confused. We’ve seen Musk steal federal funds from the people who need it most. And we’ve seen Trump turn US foreign policy into something the Onion would have had a hard time coming up with.
This all makes me want to vomit. There’s no other way to say it. It’s just sickening. My heart goes out to the vulnerable people, at home and abroad, who are being hit the hardest by this lunacy.
Read 12 tweets
Jan 24
Donald Trump’s big weakness just came front and center

Trump’s 2024 inauguration saw far fewer viewers than President Biden’s inauguration. It’s fun to see the narcissistically ratings-obsessed Trump get clobbered in humiliating fashion. But it also points to something else...
Even most of the people who just voted for Trump didn’t bother to turn around and watch him get inaugurated. It means they don’t really care. Even most of Trump’s voters are not in any way enthused by the prospect of him returning.
Outside of Trump’s base, which only makes up about 25% of his vote total, no one really likes Trump – not even most of his own voters. So how on earth did this guy win? That’s pretty straightforward.
Read 13 tweets
Oct 31, 2024
The more I look at the numbers, the more I believe the 2024 House majority is going to be mainly decided in California. Yes, California. There are five "toss up" House districts in suburban pockets of California that can go either way. GET INVOLVED in these five races:
CA-45 (California), Democratic candidate Derek Tran

Follow: @derektranCA45
Volunteer: derektranforcongress.com/getinvolved
@derektranCA45 CA-41 (California), Democratic candidate Will Rollins

Follow: @WillRollinsCA
Volunteer: willrollinsforcongress.com/get-involved/
Read 12 tweets

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