The one real difference between Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns

| 12:10 am EDT September 8, 2020
Dear Palmer Report readers,

We all understand what a dark era we're heading into. Journalists will be prosecuted. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. Advertising networks can't be counted on. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight, because someone has to.

In that regard we're looking to start funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens or how dark things get. We've launched a reader supported fund, and we've already raised $3360 and counting. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can contribute here. Thank you in advance.
Sincerely,
Bill Palmer
Palmer Report

Last night’s New York Times expose reveals, in great detail, the hilarious incompetence of Donald Trump’s former 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale. The guy blew through huge amounts of money just to raise relatively small amounts of money, among other inefficiencies. But wait, wasn’t Parscale supposed to have been the data analytics genius who guided Trump’s 2016 campaign to victory? How is it possible that this time around, he had no idea where to even target his efforts?

This is, of course, because Brad Parscale was an incompetent buffoon back in 2016 too. So was everyone involved in Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. It was a poorly run, incompetent, ineffective joke of a campaign. The only thing Trump had going for him was that Russia was secretly running point for his campaign in a variety of ways, and neither the media nor the public knew it, which ended up being enough to keep Trump in just close enough contention that the last minute Comey later was enough to put him over the top.

This time around everyone is watching Trump and Russia, making it a lot more difficult for them to use the simplistic collusion techniques they used last time. Left to its own devices, the Trump 2020 campaign is simply floundering in every way possible. There’s no strategy. Time and resources are being invested in all the wrong ways. No one in the campaign has a clue what they’re doing.

After Donald Trump was declared the “winner” in 2016, the media didn’t want to immediately start questioning the legitimacy of his win, because the ratings were going to be far better if Trump was allowed to actually take office. And so instead of pointing out that Trump ran the most incompetent campaign in history, and made it into office due to a combination of criminality and luck, the media wrote an alternate history in which clowns like Parscale were geniuses who ran a brilliant campaign.

As we now watch the media pretend to scratch their collective heads as to how someone like Parscale could go from being a genius in 2016 to an inept idiot in 2020, it’s somewhat infuriating. Everyone who paid close attention to the 2016 election cycle knew full well that there wasn’t a competent person, a solid plan, or a winning strategy to be found anywhere in the Trump campaign. But the media chose to report on some other imaginary version of the Trump 2016 campaign instead. At least the media is now admitting that Trump’s 2020 campaign is an inept joke, instead of trying to prop it up as well.

Dear Palmer Report readers,

We all understand what a dark era we're heading into. Journalists will be prosecuted. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. Advertising networks can't be counted on. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight, because someone has to.

In that regard we're looking to start funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens or how dark things get. We've launched a reader supported fund, and we've already raised $3360 and counting. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can contribute here. Thank you in advance.
Sincerely,
Bill Palmer
Palmer Report