Pizzagate, the fake news conspiracy theory that led a gunman to DC’s Comet Ping Pong, explained (Vox) Reagan Aides Bullish on 'The Bear' Ads (Washington Post)ġ0 Shocking Revelations From the Facebook Papers (Rolling Stone)Ī Wider Ideological Gap Between More and Less Educated Adults (Pew Research Center) Watch John McCain defend Barack Obama against a racist voter in 2008 (Vox) House Republicans Who Backed Infrastructure Bill Face Vicious Backlash (New York Times) John Heinz’s tragic death, 30 years ago, changed Pa.’s politics then and now | Opinion (Philadelphia Inquirer) Tom Nichols, 'Death of Expertise' Author, Is Profiled (Harvard Magazine) Tom Nichols: Twitter, Faculty Page, The Atlanticīuy his latest book: Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from within on Modern Democracy
Tom Nichols, Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College and author of the new Oxford University Press book, Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from within on Modern Democracy. Join us on The Purple Principle for an impassioned discussion on the imperiled values of civic engagement and democratic governance with Dr. As a result, he’s issued an urgent plea in this latest book, Our Own Worst Enemy, for Americans across the political spectrum to re-embrace civic values, abstain from biased media, and resist the siren call of autocratic solutions. Not one to shy away from bold statements when based on solid evidence, Nichols has seen what lack of freedom means in today’s Russia and other autocratic nations.
“We were the first to defect from the Republicans,” says Nichols of he and numerous other security experts, “because we were primarily concerned about national security and about putting the nuclear codes in the hands of an unstable sociopath.” However, by 2018, Nichols believed that same party was no longer taking international security threats seriously enough. The bleakness of 1970s’ industrial decline initially turned Nichols into a young, Reaganite Republican, setting him on the path of Russian language and history study to understand the necessity of a strategic air command post in his hometown of Chicopee, MA. “He had too much respect for the Office of the President and the Constitution.” He recalls that his often bigoted, working class father never said a biased word toward President Barack Obama. Without the seriousness of the Soviet threat, Americans became increasingly self-absorbed and-in Nichols’ telling-no longer fulfilled by the hard, often dull work of democracy itself: engaging in civic groups and local governance, staying informed, and voting with real purpose for serious candidates.īy contrast, Nichols argues, earlier generations of Americans had a fundamental respect for American principles. “And anybody who's followed the history of lottery winners can tell you,” Nichols observes, “winning the lottery never goes well” In this Purple Principle episode entitled “ The United States of Narcissism,“ co-hosts Rob Pease and Jillian Youngblood ask Nichols why many Americans seem to be enthusiastically failing that test recently.Ī longtime Soviet Union-then Russia-expert, Nichols points back to the US’ triumph at the end of the Cold War as a tipping point from civic seriousness toward national narcissism– an event he likens to winning the lottery. “If we believe democracy has failed us,” writes author and scholar Tom Nichols in his latest book, Our Own Worst Enemy, “we should first ask ourselves whether we have failed the test of democracy.”
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