There is nothing simple about it.
My name is Matt Pierce, and I make a living pointing a flashlight into the dark corners of American politics and asking very stupid, very obvious questions that somehow never get asked on cable news. I am an independent journalist, researcher, and professional troublemaker with roots deep in the American South, and most of what I do lives at the intersection of politics, media, power, and the people who get crushed in between. Over the years I have built a body of work that runs from long-form investigative journalism and policy research to on-the-fly political commentary, podcasts, and video breakdowns of the daily circus we call “the news.”
If You Know, You Know.
I came into this work the hard way, through real jobs and real bills, not a trust fund and a fellowship. My early career was spent doing the unglamorous parts of journalism and research: digging through public records, filing FOIAs that came back blacked out, tracking campaign finance reports, reading regulatory filings until my eyes went numb, and sitting in the back of too many city council meetings while the air conditioner rattled and somebody quietly tried to sell the town to the highest bidder. That grind turned into a research career focused on elections, public policy, and the way media narratives are manufactured and sold. I use data the way an old country mechanic uses a wrench. Not as decoration, but to actually loosen something.
Why I Do So Many Things?
Over time, that research and reporting turned into a platform. On my site, my podcast, and my channels, I break down campaigns, party machines, donor networks, and the little psychological games both sides use to scare people into voting against their own interests. I come out of a mostly libertarian mindset with a streak of old-school Democratic populism and a real respect for conservatives who argue in good faith. That means I hit Republicans and Democrats with the same level of heat. I am not interested in being a mascot for any party. I am interested in telling the truth, even when it wrecks the storyline my own “side” is selling.
Just Tell It Like It Is
My work is driven by a simple research question that keeps getting louder: who benefits, and who pays, every time some grand moral crusade gets launched on the news? To answer that, I mix traditional reporting with deep-dive research, on-the-record interviews, off-the-record conversations, and a healthy distrust of sanitized talking points. I write and speak in plain English, not think-tank dialect, and I do my best to lay out how power actually moves: follow the money, follow the incentives, follow the fear. Along the way I pull in history, psychology, election data, and media analysis, not because it looks smart, but because you cannot understand modern politics without seeing the whole board.
Play Where You Work.
Outside the work itself, my interests are the same things that show up between the lines of my writing: how people form beliefs, why movements rise and fall, what happens to a country when everyone lives inside a personalized propaganda feed, and whether we can rebuild any sense of shared reality before the wheels come off completely. I keep one foot in the world of policy and research and the other in the messy reality of everyday life in the South, where politics is not a debate club, it is whether your kid’s school has a bus and your town has drinking water that does not light on fire.
I’m Here To Make Myself Think.
My intention with this project is straightforward. I want this site and everything attached to it to be a home for honest, hard-hitting, sometimes uncomfortable political journalism that still has a sense of humor and a human voice. I want to give readers and listeners tools, not just takes. If I do my job right, you walk away from my work a little more informed, a little more suspicious of easy narratives, and a lot more confident that you are not crazy for noticing the disconnect between what you are told and what you actually see in front of your face. That is the whole game for me: research that is rigorous, commentary that is fearless, and a voice that stays rooted in the real world, not the airless, focus-grouped fantasy that passes for political discourse.