The Expert™ Tom Nichols is really, really mad at this photo of South Dakota Kristi Noem holding an American flag at the Sturgis motorcycle rally because of the Taliban takeover of Kabul. Or something:
How does something like Kabul happen? It happens when you are no longer a serious country – when you cannot even deal with a pandemic and you think this nitwit waving a flag is a great idea. This is not a public that will engage in reasoned debate about the future of Afghanistan. https://t.co/hsUmYbQrFf
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 15, 2021
He had deleted an earlier tweet but doubled down with this new one.
“A charlatan like Noem riding through a superspreader event with a flag while Kabul falls is America, 2021: Unserious, self-destructive, faux patriotic”:
I deleted this because it was too short. I wanted to make the point even more directly, as I did here. A charlatan like Noem riding through a superspreader event with a flag while Kabul falls is America, 2021: Unserious, self-destructive, faux patriotic.https://t.co/ifW81iXXc4 pic.twitter.com/qqici10npx
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 15, 2021
Maybe Noem listened to Biden’s experts and thought she had 90 days?
One official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the issue’s sensitivity, said Tuesday that the U.S. military now assesses a collapse of Kabul could occur within 90 days. Others said it could happen within a month.
https://t.co/CrO1Xv7hhE— Dan Lamothe (@DanLamothe) August 11, 2021
Anyway, Nichols then tripled down:
I know it brought out the trolls, but "Kristi Noem on a horse at Sturgis on the same day Kabul falls" just struck me as a perfect image of an unserious country.
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 15, 2021
And then he asked us to do a post on it so all of our readers can see what he has to say:
Somewhere, someone is mad about my Kristi Noem take, and probably writing a Twitchy story about it, because MAGA world is whining.
So I'll just repeat it.
This image captures why we are not a country that could take a problem like Afghanistan seriously.https://t.co/hsUmYbQrFf
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 15, 2021
Keep in mind, PRESIDENT Joe Biden is also on vacation today. Shouldn’t Nichols have just a little bit of the same anger toward him?
Joe Biden is literally on vacation right now you know…
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) August 15, 2021
Political consultant Liz Mair called Biden’s lack of action today “really f*cking bad”:
She thinks he needs to get in front of the cameras right now:
But it’s not just “Rube Goddess Noem” who is unserious. Former President Barack Obama was unserious, too:
People who think my belief that America is an unserious country is somehow purely tied to Trump (or Rube Goddess Noem) might not recall my 2015 attack – in The Federalist, no less! – on Obama for an utter lack of seriousness about our enemies.
I've been on this for a long time. pic.twitter.com/cnmKvkZQQi— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 15, 2021
However, he wants you to know that he’s not taking a position one way or the other, so ¯_(ツ)_/¯:
I have not argued for staying in Afghanistan, or for getting out.
All I have said is that this is what the American people wanted, and they are not willing to think about the risks or consequences of wanting such things. And yet people are yelling at me as if I took a position.— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 15, 2021
But he is sure that the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is better than a second term of President Donald Trump:
Yes, I will take the inevitable fall of Kabul (since it's what the American people have demanded for years) over a president who tried to set the Constitution on fire, overturn an election, and sell out America to its enemies.
That's my choice? Then yes, I'll take that trade-off. https://t.co/BoKEnLljpv— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 15, 2021
As for how we got here today — other than Noem’s attendance at Sturgis, that is — he writes:
To avoid today, we would have had to make different decisions at least a decade ago, or more. We didn't. We waved flags and sang along with Lee Greenwood and said "Make sure whatever that thing is over there doesn't annoy us too much." /1
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 15, 2021
So, our political leaders said "message received," and told the military to "go make sure we're winning or something," and the military saluted smartly and said "okay, by our metrics, we're doing fine." And that kept the peace… at home. /2
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 15, 2021
We could have made a lot of other choices: Stay and be serious about staying for a *long* time, or leave with a warning about not making us come back.
But instead we did the flag and singing stuff. /3— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 15, 2021
And when that wasn't fun anymore, we wanted to use "forever war!" as a partisan lance to stab our partisan enemies, even if we didn't know what it meant. And a majority coalesced around "just get out," but Obama and Trump wouldn't do it.
Biden did. Well, okay. Wish granted. /4— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 15, 2021
Did Biden botch the last few days, not getting our friends out? Sure looks like it. But in the end, he gave Americans what they wanted. Now we're all going to sit around and bitch about how we shouldn't get what we want unless it has no costs and no risks and Dad fixes it all. /5
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 15, 2021
In a country where we can't even agree to stop a pandemic by doing the simplest things.
/6x— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 15, 2021
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