Palmer Report has a message for rage addicts and conspiracy theorists: you’re not welcome here
During the previous four years, Donald Trump broke nearly every law and norm our nation held dear, all while selling us out to foreign enemies, and getting hundreds of thousands of us killed in a pandemic. There was every reason for us all to feel outrage. And because Trump was behind some of the ugliest criminal conspiracies in our nation’s history, there was every reason to want to get to the bottom of them.
We’re now in a different era. We now generally have decent, honest people in charge of the federal government. Nothing is ever perfect, but the depraved fog that enveloped the Trump era is beginning to lift. It means we now get to find out who within the Resistance has been fighting in good faith all this time, along with who might have joined the Resistance merely as an excuse to feel rage, or who might have merely been hoping to embrace conspiracy theories along the way.
The good news is that, to the extent I’ve been able to interact with the Palmer Report audience and community over the past few weeks, nearly all of you appear to be here for good faith reasons. That said, I have a message for anyone who might simply be looking for any arbitrary excuse to be outraged: stop it, or go away. I mean it. You’re not helping in any way.
This also applies to anyone who’s just been hanging around looking for conspiracy theories. Good solid political analysis and activism require looking at all of the relevant evidence, figuring out what premises are overwhelmingly supported by the evidence, and investigating further. In contrast, if you start with a pet theory that you want to be true, and then you only embrace any evidence that supports your theory, while conveniently ignoring any evidence that disproves your theory, then you’re just a conspiracy theorist – and you’re not helping anyone.
The worst of all is the rage-addicted conspiracy theorist, who latches onto baseless excuses to foam at the mouth in any arbitrary direction. This kind of behavior has never been endemic to the left. But to the extent that it does exist, I don’t want to see it around these parts at all. As the numerous far right rage-fueled conspiracy theorists keep demonstrating, this kind of mindset is dangerous, no matter what the specific belief is.
So I don’t want to see rage addicts or conspiracy theorists in the Palmer Report comment section. I don’t want to hear from these types in my email inbox. I don’t want to interact with these types on social media. Palmer Report simply isn’t the place for that. I urge rage addicts or conspiracy theorists to go elsewhere – or better yet, stop such behavior altogether.
To be clear, what I’m spelling out here surely doesn’t apply to 99% of you who are reading this. But I don’t think we have any room for rage addicts and conspiracy theorists on our side of the fence. Back when Trump was trying to destroy everything we all held dear, it could be difficult to tell who was who. But in this new era, it’s crucial that we weed out any bad faith actors from our own side. It’s the right thing to do, and those types were certainly never helping us anyway. I trust that the overwhelming majority of you reading this will agree with me on this premise, and that we can all move forward constructively together in this new era.
