These people are so bizarre to me. Nichols ostensibly agrees that Trump is a threat to science and democracy, but then he dedicates an entire column to discrediting an institution standing up for these values. Is everyone supposed to just think that Trump is bad but not say anything?
Kamala Harris has plans to improve health, boost the economy and mitigate climate change. Donald Trump has threats and a dangerous record
Sadly the answer they want is âyesâ
I think that is the core beltway/New York media brain response - Trump is bad but doing anything about that is worse.
Iâm sure he also wrote a column criticizing the NYT editorial board when they called on Biden to drop out of the race, right? âŚright? www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...
I didnât think it would come to this.
the truly committed ideological "Never-Trump Republicans" are actually more committed to turning the democratic party into the pre-trump republican party than they are to helping it win.
âThe bad actors are grasping at straws. Maybe if I confiscate all the straws then theyâll stop graspingâŚâ đ¤
He's made the all-too-common mistake of confusing the body of science for the human enterprise of science. Facts are value-free, but scientific enterprise has ethical positions, cultural frameworks in which it operates. His thinking here is shallow and one-dimensional, uninformed and wrong-headed.
Heâs just trying to tamp down the possible landslide numbers. Beat Trump sure, but leave some room for his later dissent columns. He wishes to deal in absolutes, such as believing science & politics have a bright dividing line.
Never Trump, except when you support his opponent.
For Nichols the problem here is that Scientific American did something that had not previously occurred to Tom Nichols. They took a political step he had not anticipated and so, quel dommage, they became unreasonable and radical in their actions.