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Nicholas Grossman Profile picture
Nicholas Grossman
@NGrossman81
International Relations prof at U. Illinois. Senior Editor @ArcDigi. Author “Drones and Terrorism.” Politics, national security, and occasional nerdery.
6 subscribers
Aug 13 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Mighty Putin won't stop, Russia can do this forever, the West will fold, Russian mass casualties not worth mentioning, Kursk incursion only shows Western weakness not any Russian vulnerability, Ukraine'll eventually quit, NATO's done, blah, blah, blah.

There, saved you a click. Image No one knows exactly what's going on in Putin's head, of cause, but one thing we can be confident of is he's very worried about the US election.

Chances looked good for a Putin sympathizer becoming US president, one who advocates pushing Ukraine to surrender. Now it doesn't. Image
Aug 11 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Not Ukraine, not Sudan, not Myanmar, not Yemen, nor any other current or previous war with all the brutality and suffering they entail, just one, with graphic war images viewed every day, thinking that makes them superior.

That’s what explains this particular online behavior. Image War is horrific, absolutely horrific. It’s hell on earth, and it’s happened—is happening—in multiple places at multiple times. If you don’t have training, experience, and a good reason to constantly view war imagery, you’re mostly traumatizing yourself without helping anyone.
May 20 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
For Project 2025—for all Team Trump’s plans to backslide the US into authoritarianism—the only counter is beat them in the election so they don’t get the power to do it.
If they have the institutional power, there’s no brilliant idea, not glorious resistance, that can prevent it. The strategy of democratic backsliding—get power legally, abuse it to break checks & balances, rule of law, and free elections—has worked in Turkey, Hungary, India, more.
It wouldn’t be Trump term 1, where they start not understanding the system. They’ve planned for years now.
Feb 12 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
"Ceasefire now," demand critics of Biden's Gaza policy. But what, exactly, does that mean? Brokered Israel-Hamas agreement? Unilateral Israeli cessation? Something else?
And what do the American people want? It depends.
I unpack the data in @thedailybeast
thedailybeast.com/do-americans-w… Some prominent critics of Biden's Gaza policy, who want the US to push hard for a ceasefire—eg @RepRashida @mehdirhasan @Tyler_A_Harper @BenBurgis @QuincyInst @thrasherxy—claim a majority of Americans, esp Dems, agree with them.
Appears based on this one weighted poll question
2/ Image
Jan 28 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Iran wouldn't mess with tough Trump, says MAGA? Opposite of reality.
First, Iran and militias it backs got more aggressive after Trump broke JCPOA. Attacked tankers, Saudi oil fields, US bases.
Then US killing Iranian Gen. Soleimani ended it, right?
No. Wrong again.
@mehdirhasan Image Does this mean Iran was cowed into complacency by the toughness of Bush, Obama, or Biden?
No, of course not. That's not how the world works.
But there were fewer Iran-backed attacks on US and allied forces when diplomacy was alive than with Trump's shallow display of "toughness."
Sep 16, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Rep. Ken Buck tells the truth about Biden-Ukraine (screenshots 1 & 2) only to blatantly lie about Trump-Ukraine (3).
Trump-Zelensky transcript (4) show Trump blocked military aid to push the very lie about corruption in Ukraine Buck calls out as false. What a weird time we're in.


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Image Trump's infamous call came after Giuliani spent months trying to drum up dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine, and after Trump removed the corruption-fighting US Ambassador to Ukraine.
And still the transcript shows Trump concerned about Mueller, not about actual corruption in Ukraine. Image
Sep 10, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
On Elon Musk stopping Ukraine attack on Russian ships:
1st reported by Oliver Carroll, 2nd mention in Ronan Farrow's investigation and 3rd in Walter Isaacson's biography say Musk intervened. Only Isaacson's "clarification" says it already wasn't on and he merely didn't turn it on Most focus is on Musk thwarting Ukraine's attack on Crimea because he (wrongly) thought it'd cause WWIII.
But Isaacson also printed an exchange with Ukraine Deputy PM Fedorov showing Musk denying access in Russian-occupied south and east Ukraine, thus validating Russia's conquest Image
Jul 6, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
In every democracy, people say the economy is doing better when their party is in power, regardless of actual economic numbers.
But that doesn't mean everyone in each country does so to the same degree.
In the US, rejection of politically inconvenient data isn't symmetrical. You can see it clearly here.
The US economy in 2017-19 was basically on trend from 2014-16. The biggest thing that changed is Republican leaders and conservative media went from saying the economy was worse than it was to saying it was better than it was.
May 2, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
A big part of Trump's political appeal is showily "fighting" culture war battles but not actually trying to win (or being so haphazard in the effort it's effectively the same).
A lot of his base doesn't really want, say, protracted legal battles with Disney. They want reality TV. Doesn't mean Trump isn't dangerous. As Arendt argued, it might make the threat to democracy greater, as the absurd aspects lead more to dismiss it as buffoonery.
And some really want "semi-fascism."
But to understand his political success, you need to think reality TV or kayfabe.
Apr 22, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I'd debunk "SecState Blinken orchestrated letter saying Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinfo!"—the testimony said he didn't, he wasn't SecState then, and the letter doesn't say that—except it's so pathetic it's not resonating with anyone who isn't already into the rabbit hole. Imagine spending time in 2023 aggrieved that some *former* US intel pros said in 2020 a story about a candidate's non-politician son containing possibly hacked material that was so shady various media orgs wouldn't touch it was shady, or thinking that this decided the election.
Apr 14, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
They're attacking whistleblowing itself.
That's not an incidental aspect of the BS that sharing info with a private group to impress them is whistleblowing.
See also: opposing actual whistleblower on Trump-Ukraine, who exposed a govt official's malfeasance using proper procedure. I don't know how conscious the effort—varies per participant—but there's a sizable movement working to strip everything of meaning. To take the concepts of whistleblowing, free speech, patriotism, even truth itself, and turn them into mere tribalism.
No principles, just "sides."
Apr 13, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The US intel leaks—apparently done by a guy trying to impress internet friends—could easily get people killed. Ukrainians by Russia, US intel sources anywhere.
But sorry that his slur-yelling on camera and anti-govt conspiracy theory rants weren't done in a non-nutty way I guess. Making copies of classified docs and sharing them online is unambiguously illegal.
No hint of whistleblowing, no belief (rightly or wrongly) that the US was doing something bad that deserves exposure.
But it hurts the US and helps Russia. So of course the horseshoe left likes it.
Apr 12, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Twitter does not drive substantial traffic for any *established, funded, professional* news publication.
I can't help but notice that it's people with big platforms, who know that their voice will get out regardless, who are quickest to declare Twitter doesn't matter for anyone. Looking only at content creation and traffic: There are many voices on Twitter I find valuable that aren't available in any legacy media. People experiencing, say, the war in Ukraine, or protests in Israel. Plus a variety of Americans with perspectives NYT etc. don't offer.
Apr 12, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The mutants in X-Men are the persecuted minority.
Created by Stanley Lieber & Jacob Kurtzberg using non-Jewish pen names.
Prof X as MLK and Magneto as Malcolm X done many times.
Scenes of mutants coming out to their parents.
More blatant than some after school specials. Come on. Jacob Kurtzberg and Hymie Simon created Captain America, a scrawny New Yorker who hates bullies and wants to stand up for the persecuted so much that he takes an experimental drug, becomes super buff, and punches Hitler.
(They put it out under the names Jack Kirby and Joe Simon)
Apr 11, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Ukraine's parliament voted 278-38 for "protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language." Like France does with French. No one punished for what they speak.
The reason people don't say that justifies Russia attacking 3 years later is because it doesn't. Image Ukraine had an election in 2019. Zelesnky got over 73% and won every oblast but one. Can't get to those numbers without votes from some Russian speakers.
That map of main language spoken at home is from 2003, and language spoken doesn't overrule voting, nor justify mass murder. Image
Apr 1, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
To convict Douglass "Ricky Vaughn" Mackey, prosecutors needed to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Mackey maliciously intended to trick people out of voting.
They did.
Mackey tried defenses like "just sharing memes" or "just a joke" in court.
The jury didn't buy it. I suspect a reason for the freak outs and lies about this case, and not just from people who think white supremacists should be allowed to try to trick minorities out of voting, is the court treated the internet as real life.
"Just kidding" or "it's a meme" defenses didn't work.
Mar 23, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
What do you actually think about Ukraine, governor?
Stakes are too high, the issue too stark. Pander to Putin sympathizers, get called out, try to sound more responsible, but still ape some Kremlin propaganda.
Trying to play both sides on this is untenable
nytimes.com/2023/03/22/us/… DeSantis downplayed the importance of the war, and America's interests in it, by falsely casting it as a "territorial dispute."
He did that for Tucker.
Then DeSantis walked it back, acknowledging that Russia invaded and it was wrong.
Tucker didn't like that.
Which will it be?
Mar 18, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
When MAGA-minded people say Trump has to be put above the law, allowed to commit any crimes without consequence, because if America enforces its laws that'll make him president, I think:
1) What an indictment of GOP voters
2) If it'll really help him, why do you keep fighting it? The main reason Trump and his co-conspirators should be indicted for crimes relating to his auto-coup attempt is simple:
-Their actions broke criminal laws
-The actions were bad, the US reasonably wants to deter a repeat or worse
-No one is above the law
grossman.arcdigital.media/p/indict-them-…
Mar 7, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Let’s break down the multilayered absurdity of one bit of Tucker-driven Jan. 6 BS, his claim “they lied” about Josh Hawley running.
The Jan. 6 Committee showed video. Hawley ran, only hours after encouraging the crowd marching on the Capitol.
So what’s supposed to be the lie?
1/x Hawley wasn’t the only one who fled from the violent mob!
(Did the Jan. 6 Committee say he was? Nope.)
If you just hear “lied about Hawley running,” you might think the claim is he didn’t run, or had nothing to run from. They’d be fine if you do, but it’s not their complaint.
2/x
Feb 25, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Realism could’ve had a moment. Realists could say their theories explain why NATO expanded (gain relative power), why Russia sought relative power by invading Ukraine, and how only hard power stopped them.
Or like JM here, discard their own theories in favor of Putin apologetics. Economic interdependence didn’t prevent the Ukraine war. Nor did international institutions or law.
A credible deterrent kept Russia from attacking a NATO member and kept the US limiting aid to Ukraine.
IR Realism doesn’t explain the whole thing, but it did well.
And yet…
Feb 24, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
What are today's horseshoe positions, those advocated by both far right and far left?
-Helping Ukraine is wrong, Russia should get something for its aggression.
-East Palestine derailment is a historic disaster, it's Buttigieg's fault, Trump's response to it is good.
What else? Yes, antivax has left-wing and right-wing versions.
Although, it used to be more left-wing "all-natural" "wellness" types (often upper middle class or higher), but a portion have wrapped around the horseshoe as more GOP politicians took antivax positions.