John Nichols Profile picture
@TheNation. @CapTimes. @freepress. @theprogressive. Tom Paine. Quaker. Latest book (w/Sen. Bernie Sanders): NYT bestseller It’s OK to be Angry About Capitalism.
Nov 12 4 tweets 2 min read
Liz Cheney campaigned with Kamala Harris in hopes of getting battleground-state Republicans to back the Democrat.

The effort failed miserably.

Support from Republicans for the Democratic ticket collapsed, especially in towns where Cheney campaigned.

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thenation.com/article/politi… The NBC Exit Poll showed conservative support for the Democratic ticket fell from 14% in 2020 to 9% in 2024. Support from self-identified Republicans for the Democratic ticket also went down in the national survey.

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thenation.com/article/politi…
Nov 5 7 tweets 1 min read
Election Day, November, 1884
By Walt Whitman

If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara—nor you, ye limitless prairies—nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,

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Nor you, Yosemite—nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,

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Sep 20 6 tweets 3 min read
Teamsters union joint councils and locals in battleground states and across the US—representing 1 million workers—have endorsed Kamala Harris in an unprecedented show of labor solidarity. These are the Teamsters that do the heavy lifting on Election Day.
thenation.com/article/politi… While the international union chose not to endorse, Teamsters caucuses, joint councils and union locals in battleground states have endorsed Harris. These are the most activist Teamsters units, which have deep experience mobilizing get-out-vote drives.

thenation.com/article/politi…
Aug 24 6 tweets 3 min read
The 107-year-old Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin, becomes the first newspaper in the United States to respond to the deliberations of the Democratic National Convention by formally endorsing Kamala Harris for president.

captimes.com/opinion/editor… Founded in 1917 as a newspaper that backed Republicans, The Capital Times editorial described its respect for Republicans who tried to do right by Wisconsin. But, it said, “We have no such respect for Donald Trump, or for his running mate JD Vance.”

captimes.com/opinion/editor…
Aug 6 7 tweets 3 min read
How did Tim Walz come from the back of the field to win the confidence of Kamala Harris and his party's VP nod?

Walz presented himself as an unapologetic FDR-style progressive who's ready to join Harris in mounting a transfornational 2024 campaign.

thenation.com/article/politi… Dems wanted a VP nominee who would stand up for economic justcie and human rights, proudly embrace progressivism and call out the weirdness of Trump's Republican Party.

While others triangulated, Walz jumped at the chance to be the progressive populist.

thenation.com/article/politi…
Jun 29 5 tweets 2 min read
Supreme Court rejects oversight by agencies staffed by experts in the areas they regulate and instead determines that courts have the expertise to deal with the issues… in a decision where Justice Gorsuch confuses laughing gas with a dangerous air pollutant.

#ChevronDecision Image For decades, federal agencies have interpreted complex scientific, technicaL & technological issues in order to assure that regulations approved by Congress can effectively protect our food, our water, our air, our transportation systems.

SCOTUS has now rejected that precedent.
Jun 9 4 tweets 2 min read
“When we fight, we win!”

Waffle House agrees to the “largest additional investment” in raised wages in the chain’s history. Workers organized, petitioned management and won a big hike—$3 or more an hour—for thousand across the South.

@RaiseUptheSouth

This is a huge win for southern workers, and a signal that the determined efforts of groups such as the Union of Southern Service Workers will go from strength to strength in a region that has gone for too long without a raise.

The South is going union! Image
May 8 4 tweets 2 min read
Nikki Haley did not campaign in Indiana. She did not spend any money on TV, radio or digital advertising. And, yet, she’s won more than 120,000 votes — for almost 22% of the total in Tuesday’s GOP primary. In some key counties, she has won a third of the vote.

1/4 Image In Hamilton County — suburban Indianapolis — Haley is at almost 34%.

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Aug 4, 2022 6 tweets 2 min read
"In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump."
— Dick Cheney

As someone who once thought Dick Cheney was the greatest threat, I have to agree with him on this one.

Here’s my take for @thenation on Liz Cheney’s reelection run in Wyoming:

thenation.com/article/politi…
Jun 8, 2022 6 tweets 2 min read
Liz Cheney is a right winger who—despite her feud with Trump—has a record of defending conservative assaults on democracy.

On the #January6th Committee, she’ll determine how to respond to conservative assaults on democracy.

What could possibly go wrong?

thenation.com/article/politi… Already, Cheney has signaled that she wants to narrow the response to evidence that the January 6th committee has gathered. She does not favor the reforms that would prevent the next assault on democracy. If she gets her way, the committee’s months of work will produce a report.
May 24, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
If you’re measuring the GOP’s degeneration, forget about the #Georgia governor’s race, where master voter-suppressionist Brian Kemp is likely to beat Trump-endorsed voter-suppressionist David Perdue. Perdue was always likely to do what he does best: lose.

Look instead to:

1/4 Texas: Where George P. Bush is likely to lose the GOP runoff to scandal-plagued Attorney General Ken Paxton. A decade ago, a well-funded, well-connected Bush would have been a sure bet against a crooked AG. But Paxton, a top-tier Big Liar appears to have the upper hand.

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Mar 21, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
"Using the powers of his high office, President Trump solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 United States Presidential election."
-- Article of Impeachment Against Donald John Trump, 2019

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thenation.com/article/politi… "President Trump also sought to pressure the Government of Ukraine to take these steps by conditioning official United States Government acts of significant value to Ukraine on its public announcement of the investigations."

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thenation.com/article/politi…
Oct 2, 2020 4 tweets 1 min read
I will join @democracynow this morning to discuss the news that President Trump has tested positive for COVID-19, and what this means for an election campaign in which Americans are already voting. One thing to note is that Donald Trump is not the first president to face a serious health issue as he seeks re-election. FDR was clearly ailing in 1944. Dwight Eisenhower suffered a heart attack on the eve of 1956 campaign and considered quitting. Both were popular. Both won.
Sep 27, 2020 5 tweets 2 min read
Senator @BernieSanders has a 5-point plan to defeat Trump’s assault on American democracy:

“First, it is absolutely imperative that we have, by far, the largest voter turnout in American history and that people vote as early as possible...”

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thenation.com/article/politi… “Second, with the pandemic and a massive increase in mail-in voting, state legislatures must take immediate action now to allow mail-in votes to be counted before Election Day—as they come in...”

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Sep 19, 2020 4 tweets 1 min read
Do not allow cynicism or despair to divert you from the duty at hand.

The mission in the next 45 days is to prevent Senate confirmation of a successor to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The mission from 11/3/2020 to 1/3/2021 is to maintain the bulwark.

thenation.com/article/politi… The November 3 election provides the best opportunity to leverage the moment. If Democrats win the presidency and the Senate, the ability to influence a handful of Rs to reject a lame-duck confirmation increases.
Sep 11, 2020 4 tweets 1 min read
Of course Bob Woodward had a duty to immediately publish the details of the president’s admission that he was deliberately distorting the facts about a pandemic that would in short order cost more American lives than World War One.
thenation.com/article/politi… Ultimately, however, the original sin was Trump’s approach to the pandemic. Whether he acknowledged that he was deliberately downplaying the pandemic or not, his actions revealed this was his strategy. That he admitted it to a journalist simply confirms his sense of impunity.
Aug 26, 2020 5 tweets 2 min read
Facts: A Black man was shot by a Kenosha police officer and is now paralyzed from the waist down. And people demanding #JusticeForJacobBlake have been gunned down—two are dead—after white militias were allowed by the Kenosha Police to roam city streets.

apnews.com/97a0700564fb52… Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that armed people had been patrolling the city’s streets in recent nights, but he did not know if the shooter was among them. “They’re a militia,” Beth said. “They’re like a vigilante group.”
Aug 11, 2020 4 tweets 2 min read
“Omar is steadfast in her pro-peace efforts, despite drawing the ire of President Trump and receiving numerous death threats during her time in office.”
@PeaceAction on the courage of @IlhanMN—who faces a big-money ($4M) challenge in today’s MN primary

thenation.com/article/politi… “She knows that progressive changes to U.S. foreign policy are desperately needed and is willing to put in the effort needed to realize a new approach to our international relations,” declared Peace Action’s Lilly Dragnev.
Jun 20, 2020 5 tweets 2 min read
On May 9, 1862, Maj. Gen. David Hunter issued Gen’l Order #11. It declared martial law and concluded: “Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible; the persons in these 3 States—GA, FL, SC—heretofore held as slaves are therefore declared forever free.” ImageImage Ten days later, President Lincoln said the General had not been authorized to issue an emancipation proclamation and declared the order “altogether void.”
Jun 8, 2020 4 tweets 1 min read
The pioneering Henry A. Wallace Police Crime Database, at Bowling Green State University, seeks to “improve policing and inform the public about crimes committed by nonfederal sworn law enforcement officers across the United States.” It is named from FDR’s Vice President, Henry Agard Wallace, who championed social and racial justice and who, as Vice President, spoke out on behalf of African Americans who were killed and injured in race riots during World War II.
Apr 12, 2020 4 tweets 1 min read
Freedom from Want
Freedom from Fear
Freedom to Worship
Freedom of Speech
— Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who died 75 years ago today

(Sculptor Selma Burke met with FDR at the White House in 1944, sketched his image and created the iconic bas relief portrait of the 32nd president.) Image It is now widely accepted that John Sinnock's design on the Roosevelt dime was adapted from Burke's plaque, though she did not get the credit she deserved at the time.