Share this page!

Tom Nichols Profile picture
Twitter logo
Nov 30 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Some of the people on the right who've read my Never Trump piece

theatlantic.com/newsletters/ar…

seem unsettled that I was once a Never Trump Republican but am now slagging the GOP. /1
Here's what I wrote before the election, when I still had hope that Trump was going to be a temporary illness in the party.

nytimes.com/2016/07/18/mag…

/2
Here's what I wrote in 2018, hoping for a crushing GOP loss that would snap the party out of it.

washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/0…

/3
Here's what I wrote a month later, when I quit the GOP in the fall of 2018.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

/4
And here I am today, looking back at the complete capture of the GOP by Trumpism, from top to bottom.

/5 Image
As I said, the GOP goal for 2024 is this:

/6 Image
Thank you for coming to my TED talk on #NeverTrump

Watch for #NeverHaley and #NeverDeSantis coming soon!

/7x

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Tom Nichols

Tom Nichols Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @RadioFreeTom

Tom Nichols Profile picture
Nov 6
A short thread here about why so some scholars including in intl relations are saying useless things about the Ukraine war.
Nearly thirty years ago, political science as a field became obsessed with being "scientific." That is, one of the human sciences got tired of humans. /1
This was the great wave of quantification, when meaningless and equations and graphs and "broadly comparable studies" became the fashion. Now, before I dump on quantitative analysis, I will say: I came from the sciences, I understand math, and it had its place in poli sci. /2
Whenever you had large numbers of repeatable actions - like voting! - you could do important quantitative analysis. Peace and love to my American politics colleagues. But the pretense to being "scientific" - or as we sometimes called it, "physics envy" - got out of hand.
Read 20 tweets
Tom Nichols Profile picture
Oct 23
Some of this is a fair criticism. But Afghanistan and nuclear war are different. Citizens ignore their annual duty to engage in accountability of an ongoing war, but in the midst of a nuclear crisis everyone decides they want to be hands-on and kibitz from the cheap seats. /1
The reason for this is that voting and paying attention and asking questions is dull. Because democracy, generally, is dull, and should be. But in moments of high drama, suddenly we have 300 million nuclear experts - because everyone loves drama. /2
The same people (as I wrote here) who couldn't pay attention to a 20 year war then say WAIT, I HAVE IMPORTANT THOUGHTS ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS

The citizen's duty is to elect people who know how to drive in bad weather, not to grab the steering wheel in the middle of a blizzard. /3
Read 5 tweets
Tom Nichols Profile picture
Oct 22
On almost anything else, I agree, but I think that when it comes to war and peace, people with great reach on social media have an obligation not to be simplistic and uninformed.
Just imagine if Twitter existed in October 1962.

/1
Everyone has the right - I'd even say the obligation! - to participate in the public square. But there is a difference between expressing concern (and demanding accountability) and just snarky kibitzing. (Which is fun, in a lot of other circumstances, but not this one.) /2
I understand someone who says: "I do not have a lot of background on this, and I would like experts and national officials to explain this situation to me, because I'm pretty damn concerned."

That's a call for info and policy explanations. Great by me.

/3
Read 6 tweets
Tom Nichols Profile picture
Oct 21
@dcherring @Ondine_MD @gpgomez @sdrose @stuartpstevens @DavidSacks That is not how crises work in an international context. There are 60+ years of studies about this and you’re ignoring them for some reason and I’m not quite sure why are you doing this.
@dcherring @Ondine_MD @gpgomez @sdrose @stuartpstevens @DavidSacks And if it’s any help, one of the things that happens during a crisis as that decision makers get tunnel vision and “information effect“ and “groupthink“ - all things that defeat this rationalist approach that you think we should all take. /1
@dcherring @Ondine_MD @gpgomez @sdrose @stuartpstevens @DavidSacks And one of the ways to engage in affective crisis management is not to engage in simplistic scriptwriting from people who think that you can boil things down to a tweet. I am genuinely mystified by your position here. /2
Read 5 tweets
Tom Nichols Profile picture
Oct 16
"Rational" means, among other things, an actor has a transitively ordered set of preferences and consistently acts on them, and that he is capable of processing information somewhat accurately. /1
Japan's high command preferring death to defeat might not seem "rational" to you, but it is. Hitler and Saddam, OTOH, screwing up their own war aims for emotional reasons and refusing to believe the evidence in front of their own eyes? Not so much. /2
Also:

Read 4 tweets
Tom Nichols Profile picture
Oct 7
@JayCaruso @SarahLongwell25 The party that staked its fortune on decency and morality and family values deserves to get dragged for Walker, just as the party that claimed to be the leader for women’s rights deserved to be dragged for having predators in it. But I think you’re still missing the point. /1
@JayCaruso @SarahLongwell25 Dems had some sexist douches, but still passed legislation that progressive women wanted. The GOP is using the lack of character as *feature*, not a *bug*, to get candidates who give a shit about nothing and advocate for draconian abortion laws while paying for abortions. /2
@JayCaruso @SarahLongwell25 Because this has gone beyond policy. Lack of character is the foundation for the will to power, the exercise of raw coercion against other citizens. This isn't about whatabouting Walker or Kennedy, it's that Walker is just a tool of a authoritarian movement now. /3
Read 5 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Send Email!

:(