A Conversation with Tom Nichols About How Anti-intellectualism and the Death of Expertise Helped Lead to the Rise of Donald Trump

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Tom Nichols is the guest on this week’s episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. He is a professor of national security affairs at United States Naval War College and also teaches at the Harvard Extension School. His new book is “The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters.”

During this episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Tom and Chauncey discuss the ways that anti-intellectualism, greed, and societal affluence led to the victory of Donald Trump, the American public’s increasing disdain towards experts and the very idea of expert knowledge, the role of the internet and social media in the country’s broken public discourse and politics, and how the importance of reading and literacy has become increasingly suspect in the United States.

Historian John Broich also stops by the podcast to discuss his great essay over at Slate about the new movie Dunkirk and what it gets right (and wrong) about that epic World War 2 battle.

In this week’s episode, Chauncey DeVega is both horrified and very entertained by Donald Trump’s very special week that involved the child-king emperor telling boy scouts about his very rich friend’s orgy on a yacht, encouraging America’s out of control police to brutalize black and brown people (i.e. “suspects”), and sharing torture porn stories about how drug gangs are ravaging good and innocent (white) American women.

Chauncey also gives thanks and honors the kind folks who donated to the June fundraiser to support the podcast and his other work.

This episode with Tom Nichols and John Broich can be downloaded from Libysn and also listened to here.

The Chauncey DeVega Show is available on Itunes, Spotify and at Stitcher.