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Tom Nichols: This Is What Presidential Panic Looks Like
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/12/what-presidential-panic-looks-like/685307/?gift=_IXYI0Wrwnxuvm7JZ0fMfIdxTcdX8Hqq2HMT6feQGfo&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=shareThe president of the United States just barged into America’s living rooms like an angry, confused grandfather to tell us all that we are ungrateful whelps.
When a president asks for network time, it’s usually to announce something important. But tonight, Donald Trump did not give anything like a normal speech or address. He was clearly working from a prepared text, but it sounded like one he had written—or dictated angrily—himself, because it was full of bizarre howlers that even Trump’s second-rate speech-writing shop would probably have avoided, such as his assertion that inflation when he took office was the worst it had been in 48 years. (Why did he pick 1977 as a benchmark? Who knows. But he’s wrong.) He read the speech quickly, his voice rising in frustration as he glowered and hurled one lie after another into the camera.
We could take apart Trump’s fake facts, as checkers and pundits will do in the next few days. But perhaps more important than false statements—which for Trump are par for the course—was his demeanor. Americans saw a president drenched in pure panic as he tried to bully an entire nation into admitting that he’s doing a great job. For 20 minutes, he vented his hurt feelings without a molecule of empathy or awareness. Economic concerns? Shut up, you fools, the economy is doing fine. (And if it isn’t, it’s not his fault—it’s Joe Biden’s.) Foreign-policy jitters? Zip it, you simps—America is strong and respected.
-snip-
I consider myself a connoisseur of Trump’s speeches. I’ve watched them and live-tweeted them for years because I think Americans need to see what kind of man sits in the Oval Office. But even by Trump’s standards, this was an unnerving display of fear. I could only imagine America’s enemies in Moscow and Beijing and Tehran smiling with pleasure as they watched a president who has lost his bearings berating his own people and demanding that they absolve him of any blame when things get worse.
-snip-
When a president asks for network time, it’s usually to announce something important. But tonight, Donald Trump did not give anything like a normal speech or address. He was clearly working from a prepared text, but it sounded like one he had written—or dictated angrily—himself, because it was full of bizarre howlers that even Trump’s second-rate speech-writing shop would probably have avoided, such as his assertion that inflation when he took office was the worst it had been in 48 years. (Why did he pick 1977 as a benchmark? Who knows. But he’s wrong.) He read the speech quickly, his voice rising in frustration as he glowered and hurled one lie after another into the camera.
We could take apart Trump’s fake facts, as checkers and pundits will do in the next few days. But perhaps more important than false statements—which for Trump are par for the course—was his demeanor. Americans saw a president drenched in pure panic as he tried to bully an entire nation into admitting that he’s doing a great job. For 20 minutes, he vented his hurt feelings without a molecule of empathy or awareness. Economic concerns? Shut up, you fools, the economy is doing fine. (And if it isn’t, it’s not his fault—it’s Joe Biden’s.) Foreign-policy jitters? Zip it, you simps—America is strong and respected.
-snip-
I consider myself a connoisseur of Trump’s speeches. I’ve watched them and live-tweeted them for years because I think Americans need to see what kind of man sits in the Oval Office. But even by Trump’s standards, this was an unnerving display of fear. I could only imagine America’s enemies in Moscow and Beijing and Tehran smiling with pleasure as they watched a president who has lost his bearings berating his own people and demanding that they absolve him of any blame when things get worse.
-snip-
More at the link. Tom posted a gift link on Bluesky, the link you see above:
[Nixon voice] My God.
— Tom Nichols (@radiofreetom.bsky.social) 2025-12-18T03:38:56.101Z
My reaction:
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
24 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Come out and yell at us because nobody else around him wants to hear it.
And we all know whats coming in the next couple days.
New moon on Friday.
analysis on Morning Joe early tomorrow. 
DU thread. His description of Trump’s desperation makes me more eager to hear a larger discussion.
I link on to "Enoy your free gift.. " It just goes to ways to get subscriptions. I don't see any of the rest of the article. 
Tom Nichols certainly has a way to describe the Traitor that Resonates.
TY hpd 
.
I ALMOST GOT THROUGH THE DAY WITHOUT SEEING HIS FISHLIPS, LITERALLY ONLY EIGHT MINUTES TO GO 
