That feeling in the pit of your stomach is a manufactured one
I can tell from your comments and replies that many of you now feel worried and sick about the idea of Donald Trump returning to power, to the point that many of you feel panicked about it. Most of you weren’t dry heaving about this prospect when the month began. So what changed? Well, nothing. At least nothing in the real world.
I’ll tell you what did change. The entire media spent every day of the month of November hyping the out and out lie that Donald Trump is ahead in the polls. The media has used repetition and unanimity to hammer home this lie, to the point that it now “sounds true” when you hear it. And now that this baseline lie has been laid, the media is piling on with narratives about all the terrifying things Trump is going to do when he wins.
Every fraudster in the political media is now “sounding the alarm” in an earnest tone of voice, even as they try to sell you on the notion that Trump is just about a lock to win in 2024, and you’re all doomed, and there’s nothing left to do but stare at your screen in paralyzed horror.
But remember three weeks ago, when we all had a grip? Back then we were still able to put things in the proper context. Sure, Donald Trump is nominally running in 2024, and if he doesn’t get the Republican nomination, someone awful will. But Trump is a 100% lock to have at least one (and likely more) of his criminal trials fully play out before the election. He’ll be a convicted felon on his way to prison, so if they want to nominate him, so be it. Oh, and he’s also going senile. And he’s so unpopular, he just helped cause his Republican Party to lose the 2023 elections terribly.
Moreover, we’re all capable of looking up the polling averages and seeing that Biden and Trump are tied. And when you factor in how many of those polls are under-sampling Biden voters, it’s easy to figure out that Biden is actually ahead. And again, Trump is senile and on his way to prison.
In other words we’ve been in the same position we’ve been in for quite awhile now. Nothing has changed. The fight for democracy is an ongoing one, for about 250 years running, and it doesn’t end. But in terms of who’s winning, you’d much rather be our side right now than the other side. Just look at how badly the other side keeps losing and collapsing in on itself. Our prospects for 2024 are so much better than theirs. And they know it. So does the media.
So please, do yourself a favor and stop listening to all these opportunistic ratings mongers who are using a really earnest tone of voice while “sounding the alarm” about how doomed we are, but are really just saying whatever they think will scare and outrage you into hanging on their every word and boosting their ratings. Nothing has changed from a month ago, when you thought we held most of the cards over the other side. We still do. Don’t let these bloodsuckers in the media strategically wear you down and turn you into the kind of defeated blob who thinks that staring at their TV screen all day and retweeting doomsday hysteria makes them vigilant. Save yourself, your sanity, and your country by turning that shit off and focusing on wanting to win.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report