Salisbury Forum: A Republican says ‘vote for Democrats’

SALISBURY — Tom Nichols is a lifelong conservative, a Republican who was a leading voice in the 2016 Never Trump movement. Now he calls for voters to back Democrats in the upcoming midterm election. As he recently wrote in USA Today, “I am still a Republican, but my party needs to be fumigated.”

Nichols, who will speak at this season’s first Salisbury Forum on Friday, Oct. 19, sees the refusal to accept knowledge and expert opinion by the Trump administration and the significant swath of Americans who support it as dangerous for American democracy. 

First calling the 2016 Trump campaign “an increasingly hideous movement,” Nichols now says the administration has “a cast of characters in Washington who make the ‘swamps’ of previous administrations look like experiments in good government.”

No rabble rouser, Nichols brings years of experience to the Forum. He graduated from Boston University, then obtained an M.A. from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from Georgetown University. He is on the faculty of the U.S. Naval War College and the Harvard Extension School. He has written numerous articles and seven books. The latest, “The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters,” was a bestseller; it is also the title of his Forum presentation. 

Nichols’ experience in government came from working for Pennsylvania’s late Sen. John Heinz as his personal assistant for defense and security matters. He took this experience to fellowships at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Along the way he also managed to be a five-time “Jeopardy” champion.

Nichols knows that skepticism toward intellectual authority is lodged deep in the American character. But now he sees a growing acceptance of ignorance about public policy as a virtue. Many Americans believe rejecting “the advice of experts is to assert autonomy” and to therefore always be correct in their own minds. He cites Trump’s words at an early 2016 campaign rally in Wisconsin — “the experts are terrible” — and his eventual victory as “the most recent — and one of  loudest — trumpets against expertise.” The Trump administration, with officials focusing on ideology more than facts is the result. That is why Nichols urges 2016 voters to reject this approach to government and vote for Democrats.

Tom Nichols will speak at Housatonic Valley Regional High School on Friday, Oct. 19, 7:30 p.m. As usual there will be time for questions and answers, and the program is free and open to all.