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Tom Nichols Profile picture
@RadioFreeTom
Nov 10 • 9 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
Just as in 2016, Trump voters are the angriest winners I've ever seen.
🧵
/1
The thing that unites Trump voters with other extremists from right to left is that they are totalitarians. For them, winning an election isn't enough. Deep down, they doubt their own cause so they want you not only to accept their win, but to affirm them.
/2
An example on the left that appalled me was when SCOTUS ruled about gay marriage. There were a lot of people on the left who demanded not only that people accept the ruling, but embrace it and bake those gay wedding cakes. Sorry, but that's not how any of this works. /3
Trump voters are even more insecure. They win, yet go bonkers about anyone who disagrees. Because, as Le Carre once wrote, "every fanatic harbors a secret doubt."
Look, they know. The metaphorical dog caught the car- again. They didn't expect it.
/4
Among the many things we've lost in America is the difference between tolerance and acceptance. I accept Trump's win. He is legitimately the president. If you're attacking those who don't like this outcome as is their right - that says more about you./5
IMO, elections that involve Trump are not normal elections. I said eight years ago that they are tests of character. If you voted for Trump, don't complain if people around you now think of you differently. But look - you made your choice. Be comfortable with it. You won! /6
If you insist that a friend or a family member think of no differently than they did last month, you're just whining. If it had gone the other way, many Trumpers would have frozen out the Harris voters in their circle, because for them, acceptance is always a one-way street. /7
(Why Trump voters insist on understanding and respect that they will never give to others is a much more complicated issue for another day.) /8
So let's all be adults. Some issues go beyond politics. If you voted for Trump, you can't ask for bygones from people in your circle or even your family who Trump has identified as scum, vermin, etc.
Man up and accept that others have reached a conclusion about you. /9x

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More from @RadioFreeTom

Tom Nichols Profile picture
Nov 9
Uncharacteristically, I'll say that Dems should stop beating up on themselves and firing volleys back and forth. (They can get back to that later.) American voters - as I've been warning for years - are changing, and becoming more like Trump. That's hard to counteract. /1
Maybe the mistake we all made was thinking America would elect a Black woman. I had a gut feeling they would not. But in any case, when elections are about feelings, fantasies, boredom, and resentment, the candidate who services those delusions has a natural advantage. /2
Democrats are understandably focused on voters who flipped because they're suffering economically. But a far larger number of voters werfe un-flippable and not poor! They're the comfortable Trumpers who think, like, Canada conspired with Michelle O to hijack voting machines. /3
Read 7 tweets
Tom Nichols Profile picture
Nov 3
I used to encounter this among some senior officers I worked with who didn't think war college faculty should have tenure. But those who disliked the word "tenure" didn't dislike it enough that they stopped their kids from applying to top schools with faculties built on it. /1
And I know this because I asked. Many years ago, I asked an admiral where his colleagues sent their kids to college. He reeled off some impressive names. "Did they call and ask for the untenured faculty, or demand to see an ROI for one year at those schools?"
Response: 😡
/2
What it was really about is that some in the military leadership back then didn't want empowered and superior civilian faculty - for many reasons, which I'll write about another day. /3
Read 4 tweets
Tom Nichols Profile picture
Sep 28
I've been thinking about this article, and have now read the full CSIS report. Eliot and Phillips make some important points about expertise. But the idea that the experts botched this at the beginning seems to me to be some unduly harsh revisionism. /1

Longish🧵
The basic issue seems to be: Why did so many analysts overestimate RU and underestimate UKR? And the answer seems to be something like: Because they're intellectually ossified and they did stuff like count tanks instead of thinking more about social and political factors. /2
I'm not sure that's fair, but in any case, it was only the reasonable bet to assume that Russia would be more competent. It was also, for UKR, the worst-case scenario - which most analysts are paid to think through and focus on.
Experts do not, and should not, wishcast. /3
Read 16 tweets
Tom Nichols Profile picture
Aug 27
Okay, think about this "fact-checking" mania so many of you have for the debates: That's not how the public scores debates.
Look, when Reagan said "there you go again," he wasn't fact-checking Carter. He was emphasizing to the public: Aren't we tired of this guy?

/1
When Bentsen skewered Quayle with "You're no JFK," was it a fact-check, or was it: Get a load of this guy, thinking he's JFK.
When Clinton stood up between Perot and Bush in 1992, he wasn't fact checking. He was saying: I am the only guy here who gets you.

/2
All Harris and Walz have to do is go out there and talk to Americans like normal people. That's the debate. NO ONE CARES ABOUT FACT-CHECKS.

/3
Read 4 tweets
Tom Nichols Profile picture
Aug 25
I like to think @stephenfhayes and @JonahDispatch and @SarahLongwell25 and I all come from the same church but different pews. But I admit that I am over on Sarah's side of the aisle about what it means to be Never Trump: It means not only criticizing him, but stopping him. /1
I get Steve and Jonah's frustration that some conservatives seem born-again liberals. I don't think that's me (or Sarah), but until Trump is gone, many Never Trumpers (including me!) think policy differences just don't matter. That drives other conservatives nuts. I get that. /2
And in joining a coalition, many of us have also found new common ground with Democrats. (Example: The GOP has horrifically abandoned American national security. The Dems have not. If that's "fluffing" for Harris or the Dems, fine, but it's true.) We can be happy about that. /3
Read 6 tweets
Tom Nichols Profile picture
Aug 10
Here's a little Cold War nostalgia for you that relates to today. Back in 1983, Sam Huntington published an article in which he argued that one way to deter the Soviets from invading Western Europe was to threaten counter-invasions of Eastern Europe.


/1jstor.org/stable/2538699
The idea was they invade West Germany, we do airdrops into the GDR and CZ. A lot of folks thought he was nuts, and it was a pretty off-the-wall idea, especially NATO didn't have a lot of ability to pull that off. Here's an article about it:


/2nytimes.com/1984/02/05/wor…
I was studying with Huntington at the time, and I think he was aiming at NATO guys whose only answer to a Soviet invasion was Armageddon. I also think he was trying to rattle the Soviets and piss them off. (It worked: They noticed.) /3
Read 5 tweets

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