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Tom Nichols

@RadioFreeTom

8 Dec

Liberal friends, over the past few years many of you said "I plan to be consistent on basic principle when it's our guy in office!" Well, here's your chance. If you think a general running the DoD is a bad idea, it can't be a *good* idea now just because Biden did it. /1

This has zero to do with Lloyd Austin. Yes, he's qualified. Yes, the president should have his team. But this requires Congress - for the second time in four years - to pass a law saying "we didn't really mean it about that other law we passed prohibiting this thing." /2

If you voted for Biden to restore norms, saying "yeah, but Trump did worse, and this isn't so bad, and Trump something something," then you're not restoring norms. You're making a special pleading that your norm-breaking is better than the other guy's norm-breaking. /3

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Tom Nichols

@RadioFreeTom

6 Dec

@RuleandRuin

You need to read this great piece by @RuleandRuin about how the GOP got where it is.
You should read it because it answers the important questions.
1. What happened?
2. How could you have been in the GOP?
3. Does the left have this problem?

/1

washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/1…

@RuleandRuin

@RuleandRuin First, Kabaservice explains how the Tea Party was really a movement of people who hated everything about government (except for stuff they wanted), and how badly they sucked at the job of governing. The Tea Party died because "I hate this job" is not how you build a party. /2

@RuleandRuin

@RuleandRuin Second, Geoff notes that every cycle of GOP populism was subsumed by people who knew they had to actually govern, which is how Goldwater, Reagan, and even Boehner became more moderate over time. That's how parties work. /3

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Tom Nichols

@RadioFreeTom

2 Dec

A short thread about cultural resentment. I am old enough to remember when rural and small-town people were considered virtuous upright upright, and city dwellers were considered diseased bags of walking sin. /1

There was a reason for this: the cities were a collapsing mess, and “real America“ judged the people who lived in them. Especially if they were black or some other shade of non-white, but also plenty of hate for the white pinko elites. /2

Ted Cruz talking about “New York values“ was an attempt to do that kind of nostalgic throwback. But everyone was in on it. Even Billy Joel sang songs about the dead future of sinking Manhattan out at sea. /3

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Tom Nichols

@RadioFreeTom

27 Nov

@dcherring

@dcherring @CaseyNikoloric What I'm telling you is that we *know*. It's not that complicated. And that minority of people better get their asses in gear and start learning about what makes *the rest of us* tick.

@dcherring

@dcherring @CaseyNikoloric Dennis, when you say "it behooves to be deeper in our understanding," you say this as if the Trump cult is some unique tribe that requires our compassion and understanding, and not exactly what they are telling us they are. /1

@dcherring

@dcherring @CaseyNikoloric But more to the point, why is it always a plea for *us* to understand *them*? Why is it always one way? Why is there never a plea - or demand - to people in rural Indiana to say: "Listen, you better start understanding the 100 million Americans who aren't like you."

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Tom Nichols

@RadioFreeTom

27 Nov

@dcherring

@dcherring @CaseyNikoloric Way, way too many of them. Right-populism and the nationalist streak that goes with it is cruel and other-directed, not just in the United States, but the UK, Italy, Poland, Hungary, many other places. /1

@dcherring

@dcherring @CaseyNikoloric In Poland, for example, anti-Muslim feeling is running super-high. But the punch line? There are almost no Muslims in Poland. It's a scapegoating of other people for things Poles worry about. As @AdamSerwer once said of Trumpism: The cruelty is the point. /2

@dcherring

@dcherring @CaseyNikoloric @AdamSerwer Read the new book by @anneapplebaum about democracy being on the ropes. It's not about honest, hard-working people fearing for their way of life. It's a nasty virus that is spreading in places where life isn't really all that bad. /3

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Tom Nichols

@RadioFreeTom

22 Nov

@bobcesca_go

Now, why am I taking all these images about JFK and recasting them in 2020 terms? It's not because I have any love for JFK, as @bobcesca_go can tell you. Rather, it is to make the point that the terms we use about "forgotten towns" in 2020 are ridiculous. /1

We have taken the great populist yawps of the past ten years and recast them as legitimate gripes from The Oppressed and Forgotten, when in fact this kind of malignant, backwards thinking has always been around; books were written on back in the day that we now ignore. /2

Now, as then, we conveniently forget that the *truly* The Oppressed and Forgotten are not part of those movements at all. Most Trumpers (and Lega, and Brexit voters) are middle class. Yes, Appalachia loves Trump. But that's not how populism has grown. That's not who they are. /3

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