Tom Nichols

We can be miraculous at one moment and we can be complete and total disasters at another.

And so the capacity of human beings to move along that spectrum is something that we want to just grant.

And then there are the realities that we have to confront, right?

And the reality is that sometimes, at least in this moment,

We're facing some serious headwinds, right?

And that is we're running deficits in courage.

And we're seeing that because it's tied to self-interest.

You have universities in my sphere, you have universities and colleges capitulating when they didn't even have to.

And then the legal decision will come later saying that money has to be put back.

And instead of drawing lines in the sand and being courageous, they are using Donald Trump and what MAGA is doing as cover to roll back things that they wanted to roll back in the first place.

I think that's happening.

A lot of people might disagree with Trump's bombast and his blatant racism, but they might actually use it as an opportunity to reboot in some ways.

And then, of course, there's just, as we said earlier, just unbridled greed.

And I think when you combine that with this, Nicole, and I say this all the time, if we view this game as a zero-sum game,

And where whiteness has put its thumb on the scale in relation to who gets what, some people are going to just simply double down, even though they may feel like this is ugly and they may have supported Obama.

But if this can get me at least one step ahead in light of the billionaires who are building with gold bricks and building moats and the like, then I'll double down on that.

Because this is all we got, you know, because we've all been sold the lie that there's only so much pie to go around, when in my thinking, you just bake a bigger damn pie.

But we can't get to that, it seems to me, if that answers your question.

You know, Nicole, I'm prone to draw on a history that I know best.

And what you find here is something that has haunted the nation.