Don’t lose the plot

| 9:09 am EDT October 23, 2022
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

Trump’s fate does not hinge on the midterms at all. DOJ does not change hands in the midterms. Congress can’t magically defund the DOJ, or drop Merrick Garland through a trap door, or any of the other simplistic magic wand ideas that keep going viral on Twitter. There is literally nothing the Republicans can do to save Trump, he’s going to prison no matter what. But everything else you care about will be impacted by the midterms.

This is part of why the DOJ is not in some panicked rush to indict Trump before the midterms; the two things have no impact on each other at all. But Trump’s downfall is just about the only thing that’ll go right if we lose the midterms. Everything else will get ugly fast.

We keep hearing these nonstop fictional narratives about how if the Republicans win the midterms, they’ll be able to magically install Trump (or someone else) in 2024. But this is complete fiction, and it’s also ineffective messaging.

The average person out there is never going to be moved by the narrative that “you must vote Democrat in the midterms or Trump will magically take over,” because that’s laughable on its face. Unlike many of you, the average person out there is NOT being brainwashed daily by the cable news clowns and doomsday pundits who keep spinning laughably simplistic tales of how if we lose the midterms, Trump magically becomes emperor in 2024. Many of you don’t realize how batshit crazy you sound to the average voter, when you push that ridiculous hysteria.

What the average voter out there needs to hear is that if the Republicans win the midterms, Roe will be dead for at least two more years, the middle class economy will go straight to hell, and monsters like Marjorie Taylor Greene will have key roles on House committees. That messaging is both true and effective. That is what we need to be out there, every day, warning persuadable midterm voters about. Not histrionic nonsense about how Trump will magically take over if the Republicans win the midterms, which no one in the real world is going to be persuaded by.

I’ve been explaining for years that if you want to convince people out in the real world to vote your way, you have to focus on what they consider important, not what YOU think is important. Democratic candidates and the DNC get this. I sincerely hope that most of you get it, even as you head into these crucial final days of helping to drive the vote.