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23 Oct, 5 tweets, 1 min read
I haven't written up why I think so, but I am a dissenter on this.
Main reason: Cults of personality don't transfer well.
Also: The antics driven by Trump's emotional illnesses were crucial to his appeal to a base that demographically gets smaller every year.
/1
The GOP will get smaller and harder-edged and will move further right. They might still cobble together Electoral College wins (even now!) But "Trumpism" didn't mean anything but "Trump's TV show." You can't always just replace Darren with a new Darren. /2
And one more thing: Trump being a "kingmaker" means Trump accepting that he is not a king. His personality is not the type to step aside and start supporting someone younger and more accomplished. It's not how he's built. In fact...
/3
...it is possible that Trump becomes a *liability* for the next GOP candidate, who might want to campaign to win back suburbs and niche demos like "women" and "not-crazy-people" without Trump having nutball rallies on OAN.
/4
In sum, Libya is a land of contrasts, and it's way too early to think about this. No sleep till Biden. 2024 will take care of itself. We'll get to that later. /5x

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More from @RadioFreeTom

Tom Nichols Profile picture
25 Oct
I think for anyone open to reason, @Timodc offers a fine list of reasons to come to their senses. But I am more pessimistic than he is: I don't believe the people who are now still leaning to Trump are accessible to reason.
There is only one appeal to make, imo. /1
It is the appeal to your own innate moral sense. To ask yourself if you really believe that everyone else - Biden?! - is so evil that you must support Donald Trump. To examine your own heart and to ask yourself if you really are the kind of person who believes such a thing. /2
Of course, if you are the kind of person capable of even this much introspection, you've probably already decided and you long ago realized that your own moral sense gave you the answer about why you cannot support Trump, even if you're reluctant to actively fight him. /3
Read 6 tweets
Tom Nichols Profile picture
24 Oct
Believe it or not, I don't disagree that strongly with @JayCaruso or @DavidAFrench about the right to vote for whomever you choose, or not vote at all. I just reject any notion that such an act can be divorced from its obvious consequences as some sort of higher principle. /1
If you are a person who says, and genuinely believes, that Joe Biden and Donald Trump are completely interchangeable or equivalently evil, well, okay. Don't pick either of them. I think these are morally obtuse positions, but okay, it's your right. /2
But to say "I do so because my vote must completely represent me and my values" is childish in a system *designed* to force you to aggregate your interests with others in a "close enough" solution. It's not just parties that do this; that's by constitutional design as well. /3
Read 8 tweets
Tom Nichols Profile picture
17 Oct
I get this question a lot, and will answer it as part of an additional comment about why I reproduce my craziest emails at all. The short answer is that - despite the current uproar - I do not want people harassing each other, I just want people to see the content. /1
The reason I want people to see the content is that I want Americans to see, up close, that this past four years has turned some of their fellow citizens nearly into lunatics, unable to grasp reality and filled with rage 24/7. This is the synergy of Fox, talk radio, and Trump. /2
I want people to see the kind of stuff that Trump's opponents get, and to ask themselves if this is really the America they love. This is McCarthyism - if McCarthy had been communicating at the level of a psychotic third grader or a rampaging talking ape. /3
Read 6 tweets
Tom Nichols Profile picture
2 Oct
The @NavalWarCollege has a tenure-track job open in security affairs. Thread from our chair, @DerekSReveron. /1
>
National Security Affairs Department is hiring a tenure-track assistant professor to teach international security beginning July 2021.
dnnlgwick.blob.core.windows.net/portals/0/Huma…
Teaching national security affairs is part of a 10-month professional MA program for US officers of all military services, federal employees, and officers from about 70 countries. /2
Your colleagues would include @RadioFreeTom , @naunihalpublic , @HayatAlvi , @newportwonk , @publius57 , @JohnsonFreese , @dburbach , @lindsaypcohn , @jblankshain and more

usnwc.edu/Faculty-and-De…

/3
Read 6 tweets
Tom Nichols Profile picture
23 Sep
This is the ugliest "I told you so" but...I did. For years I said MOOCs and online and all that were not going to work. I had serious head-butts with a former president of my school about it. Distance Ed can work if done right, but "let's virtualize" was always a stupid idea. /1
Right now, Zoom works, and it will get us through the coming year. Because it has to. But the virtual online education advocates were always wrong, b/c they were wrong about human beings learn things. This began 20 years ago and it was stupid then and it's stupid now. /2
I will say: @HarvardExt always had this right, and approached it carefully. There's a mixture of classes and they had faculty fully on board for experimentation. Very different from the "let's turn everything into the U of Phoenix" people like my old boss all those yrs ago. /3
Read 4 tweets
Tom Nichols Profile picture
18 Sep
Also interesting in that POLITICO piece is how Trump voters - I've seen this many times - do what they can to *avoid having to see Trump say things*.

Think of that. His own political base actively avoids him, so he won't mess up what they prefer to believe. /1
When Trump voters say to me: "But you look down on us," I am not sure how to respond to that when I know that they are *intentionally avoiding their own candidate* so that they can argue with me about stuff that isn't true. Yes, I'm disdainful of that. How can I not be? /2
And that's why, despite how much it enrages Trump's opponents, I want him on TV 24/7, wall-to-wall. I don't want a single Trump supporter to be able to say "oh, I didn't bother watching that, so I didn't hear it." Make it so they can't avoid knowing what they're supporting. /3
Read 4 tweets

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