Simmer down

We’re all still trying to get over the shock and loss of the 2024 election. It’s a difficult time for anyone who treasures democracy, or cares about others, or has a soul. It’s forcing us to all try to regroup on the fly, shifting back into Resistance mode while disoriented by the whiplash of what’s happened. I won’t claim that my situation is any more difficult or challenging than anyone else’s, but I do want to take a moment to share what my professional life has been like over the past six weeks.

As you all know by now, I only bother focusing on politics insofar as I can find angles for weakening the bad guys, rallying the good guys, and fighting and winning battles. Short if that I have no interest in politics for politics’ sake. I don’t find politics inherently entertaining or interesting or palatable. For me, politics is an ugly boring cesspool that just happens to be the most effective way to enact meaningful social change on a good day, and mitigate harmful social change on a bad day. Politics is not something that I would ever pay one lick of attention to if I didn’t consider it so important.

This election result has changed everything about politics, and everything about expectations. But it’s changed nothing about my reasons for bothering to cover politics. We lost the biggest battle of them all. But there are still other battles to be fought and won. In fact, because we lost the election, some of these upcoming battles are going to be even more crucial to the future of our democracy than ever. I don’t look forward to any of these upcoming battles. But it’s what there is. There are rights to be protected. There are lives to be saved. And even though it’s a much darker battle than it was when the year began, there is still a future to fight for. Again, it’s all there is.

Everyone who follows Palmer Report knows that this is how I view politics, that it’s my only reason for covering politics, and that I have zero interest in using politics as a mere excuse to feel defeatist outrage. Over the past nine-plus years, I think that everyone who’s just in it for the defeatist outrage has figured out that they won’t ever get it from me, and has moved on. Everyone who’s still here is here because they want to fight and win, or fight and survive.

But in the wake of this election, I’m not sure everyone who’s here still sees it that way. For instance there’s a fairly small but very vocal group of people in the Palmer Report comment section who have clearly decided to give up fighting and instead settle for feeling defeatist outrage. And since I won’t give it to them, they’ve decided to get their defeatist outrage by going at me, telling me that I’m wrong about everything, insisting I’ve gone senile, and so on. I’m generally content to ignore this kind of nonsense. But some of these commenters have taken it further by harassing my other writers, and harassing any readers who dare to defend me. I’ve had to remove some of these people from the comment section, which of course has prompted them to begin harassing me via email. Other commenters have begun emailing to complain about the removals. Still other commenters have begun emailing me to complain that I haven’t done enough to protect them from the harassers.

It’s not just the comment section. At this point I can count on getting angry emails about pretty much every single move I make or don’t make. When I publish an article that includes a picture of Trump, I get angry emails from people who “don’t want to have to look at him.” When I publish an article that has Trump’s face covered up, I get emails lecturing me about how “no serious news outlet would ever cover up the face of the subject of the article.” I also get emails from people who are mad at me for supposedly “spreading false hope” about what we’re facing – even as I get angry emails from other people who are mad at me for not getting on board with their latest magic wand idea. I get emails complaining that I’m not publishing enough articles. Then when I do publish more articles, I get emails complaining about the content of those articles. It just goes on and on and on.

Much as I appreciate the Palmer Report community, it cannot be my job to absorb the frustrations of everyone who’s upset about the way this election went. Nor is it my job to be the personal punching bag of everyone who’s lost interest in fighting and is now only interested in getting to feel outrage. I’m a political analyst and strategist whose job at this point is to try to weaken Trump as much as possible so that his power will be lessened when he does take office. If you’re not on board with that, I don’t know why you’re here.

Suffice it to say that something has to change around here. So I’m going to make three requests of all of you:

First, do not email me. Please, please, please do not email me. I’m trying to focus on doing my job, and trust me when I say that it does not have anything to do with whatever you’re emailing me about. Whatever it is that you think you need to email me about, you don’t.

Second, behave like humans in the comment section. This election result, and the ugly nature of what’s to come in politics, are not an excuse to behave like you’ve lost your minds. Most Palmer Report readers are only here to read the articles, and not to participate in the comment section. I know the comment section is important to a minority of you. But if I have to get rid of the comment section entirely so that I stop getting constant complaints about the comment section, I will.

Third, if you’re not interested in trying to fight and win (or fight and survive), please just quietly leave. If you’re still following politics so you can feel defeatist outrage, don’t try going to war with me. Don’t harass me or others in the comment section. Don’t send me a ten paragraph email lecturing me about how I’ve supposedly lost my way. Just go find yourself a doomsday pundit to follow instead. If Palmer Report is no longer for you, and you leave quietly, you can always come back later if you change your mind. But if you try going to war with me on your way out, you will not be welcomed back.

I think these are all very reasonable requests. More to the point, these are the parameters under which I can continue to function in politics, and do this job, and provide a benefit to those who find value in my analysis. Anyone who can’t abide by the above needs to leave. I’d rather most of you stick around, but truth be told, I don’t care whether the number is 95% or 5%. I’ll write for whoever is still here and whoever is willing to behave like a human and respect my boundaries. So if you’re still here after all that, let’s move forward together.