I loved Twitter, back in the day. It’s where I discovered Tom Nichols, a really smart guy who is not too full of himself. (Wikipedia says, “… an American writer, academic specialist on international affairs, and retired professor at the U.S. Naval War College. His work deals with issues involving Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs.” I would add he writes for the Atlantic.)
I got a lot of news, facts, and knowledge to explore on Twitter. Back in the day.
It’s where I saw this January 2021 tweet from Lydialyle Gibson, writer at Harvard Magazine:
One thing that keeps rattling around in my head right now is spending time with @RadioFreeTom in late 2017 for a story and hearing people ask him again and again, “How does this end?” His answer was chilling back then, too.
And then she posted this photo, a clip from her 2017 article.
In her tweet, she was, of course, commenting on the events of January 6th, just a week behind us at that point.
Read it all, but I noticed this: the staggering ignorance is incredibly dangerous.
They’re not stupid, these Trump supporters—they’re ignorant. But they don’t accept that diagnosis. And it’s that ignorance that we are going to have to cure. Somehow.
Again, that was three years ago—but think about it: Nichols was concerned about losing our country way back in 2017. He wasn’t wrong to be.
This is why I still follow Tom Nichols, and not just on Twitter. It’s why I have a subscription to the Atlantic. Why I buy his books and read them.
Wanderlustful 