Tom Nichols at The Atlantic is not only ripe for parody, but some wag on Twitter does so regularly. The meme maker has a wonderful template that looks exactly like The Atlantic’s masthead and slaps an absurd headline below it, and names Nichols as the author.

Inevitably it flies around the Internet, everybody wondering if it could possibly be true. Perhaps, we think, because Nichols is such a whinging ass it could be. I am certain that The Atlantic’s traffic spikes as people try to verify whether the headline is real. I have been taken in, as have others. It is perfect parody.

As a reluctant subscriber to The Atlantic I get Nichols’ newsletter and usually take a peak. It provides an insight into the hive mind of the Democrat Establishment, and that helps get my blood flowing and my fingers flying on the keyboard.

Yesterday’s cri de cœur from Tom was particularly rich. Nichols, along with all right thinking liberals, is panicking over the fact that the Democrats are going to get killed in the midterms. Those of us who have been watching election season dispassionately are hardly surprised by this, and despite the nervousness that the polls of the summer doldrums inevitably caused, I never doubted that the Democrats would drown in a tsunami. I wasn’t sure of the scale of the disaster, but that one was coming for the Democrats was never in doubt.

But Democrats are a slightly different breed. They somehow believe that reality bends to their will–that is why they throw tantrums when it doesn’t.

For some reason intellectuals who write for publications such as The Atlantic believe that if they only warn loudly enough of the dire consequences not following their advice will surely bring, somehow the actual people voting will follow their lead. Shouting nonsense will get the right results. Perhaps they forget that the only people listening to them are ones who agree with them anyway.

Deplorables are not reading The Atlantic, Tom.

In any case, here is Nichols’ pitch:

More Than the Price of Gas

Last summer, it seemed like the Republicans were going to face a reversal of political gravity, and the Democrats would keep their majority during a first midterm election under a Democratic president. Historically, this is hard to do: Voters, for many reasons, usually trim congressional seats from a first-term president’s party. But the Democrats have benefited from the Republican plunge into extremism. The GOP still refuses to abandon Donald Trump and his violent insurrectionist movement; it is running ghastly candidates; and like a dog chasing a car, it smashed its snout into the bumper of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning Roe v. Wade, angering millions.

But autumn is here, and Democratic candidates are now struggling against this parade of election deniers, religious bigots, and conspiracy theorists who once would have been beyond the pale of modern American politics. The revelations of January 6, as I wrote earlier this month, seem irrelevant to many voters, some of whom still refuse to believe that anything bad happened on that horrible day.

This is hilarious. Nichols actually believes that name calling is somehow equivalent to an actual argument. Intellectuals used to at least try to appear rational and thoughtful as they were arguing that Karl Marx was a great economist and political theorist, and that “real communism has never been tried.” Now they just throw out ugly adjectives and assume we will be moved. Or, perhaps, Tom is aware that he is speaking to his peeps so might as well let his freak flag fly.

Some of this is the result of Democratic miscalculations. Abortion rights and Donald Trump were never going to win this election on their own, and though foreign policy is a Democratic bright spot, it does not usually play much as an issue in midterm elections. (That didn’t stop 30 House Democrats from issuing and then retracting a clumsy and pointless letter to Joe Biden this week about seeking negotiations with Russia.) Yes, inflation is high, and Americans always blame the party in power for such indicators. But there is another reason the Democrats could lose to this bizarre parade of otherwise unelectable candidates: The coalition to protect American democracy has failed to present a narrative of what life would look like—politically and economically—if this Republican Party returns to power.

Foreign policy is a Democratic bright spot? You see how deluded the Establishment™ is? Afghanistan, yet another invasion of Ukraine under a Democrat (this makes 2 invasions of Ukraine by Russia with Joe Biden at the White House!), the prospect of nuclear war, and our superb relations with Saudi Arabia having been so helpful in addressing our energy crisis…. A few more foreign policy successes like this and we can all bow down to the new cockroach overlords who rule over the nuclear irradiated Earth.

As for the “saving democracy” argument–I have dealt with that numerous times before. I like the turn of phrase “the coalition to save Democracy.” It has a nice ring to it.

Just a day or two ago I wrote about the Democrats’ final pitch, here parroted by Nichols, that Republicans will not only destroy democracy but also crash the economy. It is their final scare tactic, fatally flawed because Joe Biden has already crashed the economy. That is why the Democrats are doomed, doofus. He could perhaps have survived his other failures, but killing the economy killed Democrat chances.

Of course anybody who thinks that Biden, who has yet to be right about anything related to foreign policy, is doing a great job there probably hasn’t figured out that Biden tubed the economy by spending too much, undermining energy production, and failing to address the supply chain issues. He is a walking wrecking ball when it comes to economic policy.

But the economy and democratic freedom are related—and the voters are capable of understanding this, if anyone would bother to make the case. Instead of preemptively apologizing for inflation or trying to undermine Biden’s foreign policy, perhaps the Democrats and others supporting a prodemocracy coalition should ask Americans if they’d like their votes nullified and to see the U.S. eventually transformed into a democratically challenged country like Turkey, where an autocratic president cracks down on his opponents and presides over an 83 percent inflation rate. Perhaps they’d like to be Hungary—a country now loved by many on the American right—where democracy is floundering, inflation is 20 percent, and teachers are marching in the streets.

There’s more, but you get the idea. Either Nichols is so disconnected from reality that he actually believes the drivel he is writing or is so intellectually dishonest that he is perfectly comfortable spouting such nonsense in an attempt to fool people into believing that Kevin McCarthy is desperate to replicate Turkish policies in the United States. Joe Biden is busy “saving democracy” that he is turning America into a police state, arresting pro-lifers, raiding the homes of political opponents, and attacking parents at school board meetings.

The Left has nothing to run on, because Americans know that the Establishment has failed, that we have been sold out to the Davos crowd, and that the powers-that-be care not one whit about the average person’s lives. The proof is in the results, and the utter failure to change course. The only thing the Democrats dislike about the results they are getting is the electoral consequences.

All the Democrats can do is try to scare the populace with the boogeyman of evil Republicans, and the public isn’t going to buy it. Because over the past two years it is clear that the Left is the real boogeyman, destroying the economy, our culture, and our way of life. Screaming “democracy” has only convinced Americans that not only could they have made a mistake electing Democrats, they now suspect that the election in 2020 was rigged. More people doubt that Biden was elected legitimately than believe that Donald Trump was illegitimately installed in 2016. According to a Harvard Harris poll–not Trafalgar.

The Democrats’ pitch has failed, and they are doomed in two weeks. Only a massive cheating campaign could carry them over the finish line, and I am not sure that they could engineer one massive enough.

That is why they are already preemptively claiming that elections will soon be stolen. No kidding, they are, as my colleague Karen just wrote. They foresee a 2024 disaster in the works and want to undermine the democratic results, and are laying the groundwork.

*taps microphone* And now an important message from Secretary @HillaryClinton!

We're all focused on winning the midterms and defending our congressional majorities. That’s critical. But we also must take the fight to MAGA Republicans at the state level: https://t.co/3JDygMc5T2 pic.twitter.com/HPNSvnqZsK

— Indivisible Guide (@IndivisibleTeam) October 21, 2022

Democrats are now, have been, and forever will be the real enemies of Democracy. They demand that we accept every victory they can get, but they haven’t accepted a Republican victory in a presidential election for over 20 years. They always cry foul. As they have in statewide elections as well. Ask Stacey Abrams.

We simply must crush the Democrats this November and in 2024–winning, as my friend Hugh Hewitt says–beyond the margin of cheating. Then we must tgnore their “voter suppression” insults and ensure election integrity with voter ID laws, ballot security, and an auditable paper trail. We won’t always win elections, but we can ensure that whoever does win it is done fairly and by the book.

Expect howls of rage come November 9th from the Establishment™ fools such as Tom Nichols. Predictions of doom reminiscent of the climate change cultists. But whatever you do, don’t waste the victory. It’s time to take back the political, economic, and cultural territory that the Left has seized in recent years.