Trump wants to 'exhaust' people — don't fall for his 'baiting and trolling': Conservative

Donald Trump hasn't even retaken the presidency yet, and he is already employing the core tactic he has relied on since 2015 to demoralize and confuse his opposition, wrote former Naval War College professor and conservative national security expert Tom Nichols for The Atlantic.

And it's more important than ever that nobody fall for it, he said.

Nichols, a longtime critic of Trump, explained that the president-elect likes to lurch from crisis to crisis, scandal to scandal, never letting the news cycle linger on one thing too long, so no one can settle on what they're supposed to be mad at, and ultimately "exhaust themselves" instead of forming an effective resistance.

It's already happening, Nichols argued.

"The president-elect and his team have spent much of November baiting and trolling their opponents while throwing red meat to the MAGA faithful," starting with letting tech billionaire Elon Musk head up a task force to slash government payrolls, named after a meme. "And though some of Trump’s nominees have been relatively reasonable choices, in recent days Trump has put forward a handful of manifestly unqualified and even dangerous picks, reiterated his grandiose plans for his first days in office, and promised to punish his enemies." Nichols wrote.

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To counter this, Nichols said people need to keep their eye on the ball and focus on Trump's — and America's — vulnerabilities.

"People should not panic and exhaust themselves in advance," he wrote. "In practice, this means setting priorities — mine are the preservation of democracy and national security — and conserving mental energy and political effort to concentrate on those issues and Trump’s plans for them ... If citizens and their representatives react to every moment of trollery over the coming weeks, they will be exhausted by Inauguration Day."

That's nothing compared to the "marathon" the country will have to plow through over the next four years — starting with recognizing Trump only won by the narrowest plurality, and cannot will himself into having dictatorial powers if the public and their elected leaders will not allow it, he wrote.

Lastly, he wrote, put all of this aside for the next few days and just enjoy the holidays.

"For Thanksgiving, give yourself a break. Remember the great privilege and blessing it is to be an American, and have faith in the American Constitution and the freedoms safeguarded within it," he wrote. "If your Uncle Ned shows up and still wants to argue about how the election was stolen from Trump four years ago, my advice is the same as it’s been for every holiday: Tell him he’s wrong, that you love him anyway, that you’re not having this conversation today, and to pass the potatoes."