Palmer Report editorial note: this isn’t what you want to hear

If you’re a political pundit of any stripe, getting criticized is just par for the course. So is being lied about. Plenty of people out there don’t want your political analysis to be true, so they try to cancel it out in their minds by making things up about the analyst. I learned to ignore it a long time ago. But last night I came across a fairly surreal “compliment” on social media, and it’s disconcerting enough that I want to address it – just so there are no misconceptions when it comes to what Palmer Report is all about.

I spend each day tracking the latest political developments, and then watching how the mainstream media goes about covering those developments, in often histrionic and always ratings-driven fashion. Then I try to cut through all of that nonsense, and tell you what’s really going on. The media loves to try to keep you tuned in by telling you that twenty things are on fire when only ten things are on fire, so I spend much of my day pointing to the facts and evidence that show only ten things are on fire. Sometimes I also point to things that are on fire that the media isn’t bothering to cover, because it doesn’t fit with the overall narrative that they’ve settled on for that day.

In fact I launched Palmer Report specifically to push back against the misleading media narratives that I’ve always felt are getting in the way of the public’s ability to push back against corrupt politicians and their scandals. So imagine my disappointment when I came across this bizarre comment: “I love the Palmer Report. He tells me all the things I want to hear, and he’s never right about anything.” I checked it out, and unfortunately this came from a real person, not some bot.

It’s disappointing to think that anyone out there might be reading Palmer Report simply because it’s what they want to hear. I don’t care what people think of me. But if you’re coming here just to be told what you want to hear, you’re wasting your time. Sure, I might come off as an “optimist” on some days, but that’s only because I’m tasked with explaining why some of the most hysterical doomsday panic you’re hearing on MSNBC or CNN is highly unlikely to end up happening. But when I lay out facts, logic, and evidence to make my case, that just makes me a realist.

It would be far easier for me to simply spend my day telling you precisely the same thing that you’re hearing from the mainstream media that day. I’d face far less pushback for it, and I’d get ten times more traffic on my website, because most people don’t want to hear it when I lay out the factual case for why everything they heard on their favorite cable news channel that day was wrong. Most people don’t like to be challenged. The only reason to read Palmer Report is if you’re in the minority of people who want someone to help you poke holes in the hyperbolic ratings-driven melodrama you hear on MSNBC and CNN all day.

I try not to do this too often, because tooting your own horn should be done rarely and at a polite volume. But as reference for those who might be new here, and as a reminder for those who have been here awhile, here’s a partial list of instances where I was proven right and just about every other pundit was proven wrong:

– Palmer Report was covering the Trump-Russia election scandal for months before the mainstream media started running with it.

– The mainstream media has spent three years trying to keep you tuned in by breathlessly insisting that Trump would pardon all of his co-conspirators at any minute. The entire time, Palmer Report has kept explaining that Trump was unlikely to start pardoning his co-conspirators en masse, because pardons don’t work that way. Sure enough, three years in, none of Trump’s pardons have gone to his own co-conspirators.

– Palmer Report predicted the Democrats would win the House in 2018 but not the Senate. It was just math.

– Palmer Report spelled out why Nancy Pelosi would end up being Speaker of the House, while the media was hyping up the idea that a series of other House Democrats would be Speaker instead.

– Immediately after the midterms, Palmer Report predicted that Trump would very likely end up being impeached, because Pelosi would end up having no choice. This came even as most of the mainstream media kept taking Pelosi’s words out of context and pretending she’d said that she would never impeach him.

– Palmer Report correctly predicted that war with Iran was very unlikely, because neither Iran nor Donald Trump wanted it. This was even as nearly every other pundit was insisting that war was a foregone conclusion.

– Palmer Report explained that Iowa and New Hampshire would tell us little about who was going to be the 2020 Democratic nominee, even as the media was hyping those two states in the name of drumming up ratings. Palmer Report said that the primary race wouldn’t get serious until we got to South Carolina, because the voting demographics of the state are the first real hint at how Super Tuesday might go. Sure enough, the media is now coming around to acknowledge that the race is going to pivot based on South Carolina.

If you’re a longtime reader, you know that I could list off ten times as many examples as I have. The point is not to brag. The point is simply this: because the mainstream media does most of its reporting through a filter of what’s most likely to drive ratings, and I spend all day poking holes in those narratives in the name of getting to the bottom of what’s really going on, you’ll often hear me saying the precise opposite of what you’re hearing on your TV. And if you give it enough time to see how these things end up playing out, you’ll find that Palmer Report’s track record of accuracy runs circles around that of the mainstream media.

It shouldn’t be this way, of course. If the media would simply base its analysis on logic and evidence, instead of slanting its coverage to chase after ratings, there would be no need for Palmer Report, and I could be at the beach right now. But as long as Palmer Report continues to be necessary, I’m going to keep at it. You may not like or agree with everything I have to say. But keep in mind that you’re here because you know my analysis generally ends up being proven correct in the end.