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The Lincoln Project


bolverk

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We need more of this from actual, real conservatives. I hope this gets traction.

We Are Republicans, and We Want Trump Defeated

The president and his enablers have replaced conservatism with an empty faith led by a bogus prophet.

By George T. Conway III, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver and Rick Wilson

Dec. 17, 2019

Patriotism and the survival of our nation in the face of the crimes, corruption and corrosive nature of Donald Trump are a higher calling than mere politics. As Americans, we must stem the damage he and his followers are doing to the rule of law, the Constitution and the American character.

That’s why we are announcing the Lincoln Project, an effort to highlight our country’s story and values, and its people’s sacrifices and obligations. This effort transcends partisanship and is dedicated to nothing less than preservation of the principles that so many have fought for, on battlefields far from home and within their own communities.

This effort asks all Americans of all places, creeds and ways of life to join in the seminal task of our generation: restoring to this nation leadership and governance that respects the rule of law, recognizes the dignity of all people and defends the Constitution and American values at home and abroad.

Over these next 11 months, our efforts will be dedicated to defeating President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box and to elect those patriots who will hold the line. We do not undertake this task lightly, nor from ideological preference. We have been, and remain, broadly conservative (or classically liberal) in our politics and outlooks. Our many policy differences with national Democrats remain, but our shared fidelity to the Constitution dictates a common effort.

The 2020 general election, by every indication, will be about persuasion, with turnout expected to be at record highs. Our efforts are aimed at persuading enough disaffected conservatives, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in swing states and districts to help ensure a victory in the Electoral College, and congressional majorities that don’t enable or abet Mr. Trump’s violations of the Constitution, even if that means Democratic control of the Senate and an expanded Democratic majority in the House.

The American presidency transcends the individuals who occupy the Oval Office. Their personality becomes part of our national character. Their actions become our actions, for which we all share responsibility. Their willingness to act in accordance with the law and our tradition dictate how current and future leaders will act. Their commitment to order, civility and decency are reflected in American society.

Spoiler

 

Mr. Trump fails to meet the bar for this commitment. He has neither the moral compass nor the temperament to serve. His vision is limited to what immediately faces him — the problems and risks he chronically brings upon himself and for which others, from countless contractors and companies to the American people, ultimately bear the heaviest burden.

But this president’s actions are possible only with the craven acquiescence of congressional Republicans. They have done no less than abdicate their Article I responsibilities.

Indeed, national Republicans have done far worse than simply march along to Mr. Trump’s beat. Their defense of him is imbued with an ugliness, a meanness and a willingness to attack and slander those who have shed blood for our country, who have dedicated their lives and careers to its defense and its security, and whose job is to preserve the nation’s status as a beacon of hope.

Congressional Republicans have embraced and copied Mr. Trump’s cruelty and defended and even adopted his corruption. Mr. Trump and his enablers have abandoned conservatism and longstanding Republican principles and replaced it with Trumpism, an empty faith led by a bogus prophet. In a recent survey, a majority of Republican voters reported that they consider Mr. Trump a better president than Lincoln.

Mr. Trump and his fellow travelers daily undermine the proposition we as a people have a responsibility and an obligation to continually bend the arc of history toward justice. They mock our belief in America as something more meaningful than lines on a map.

Our peril far outstrips any past differences: It has arrived at our collective doorstep, and we believe there is no other choice. We sincerely hope, but are not optimistic, that some of those Republicans charged with sitting as jurors in a likely Senate impeachment trial will do likewise.

American men and women stand ready around the globe to defend us and our way of life. We must do right by them and ensure that the country for which they daily don their uniform deserves their protection and their sacrifice.

We are reminded of Dan Sickles, an incompetent 19th-century New York politician. On July 2, 1863, his blundering nearly ended the United States.

(Sickles’s greatest previous achievement had been fatally shooting his wife’s lover across the street from the White House and getting himself elected to Congress. Even his most fervent admirers could not have imagined that one day, far in the future, another incompetent New York politician, a president, would lay claim to that legacy by saying he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.)

On that day in Pennsylvania, Sickles was a major general commanding the Union Army’s III Corps at the Battle of Gettysburg, and his incompetence wrought chaos and danger. The Confederate Army took advantage, and turned the Union line. Had the rebel soldiers broken through, the continent might have been divided: free and slave, democratic and authoritarian.

Another Union general, Winfield Scott Hancock, had only minutes to reinforce the line. America, the nation, the ideal, hung in the balance. Amid the fury of battle, he found the First Minnesota Volunteers.

They charged, and many of them fell, suffering a staggeringly high casualty rate. They held the line. They saved the Union. Four months later, Lincoln stood on that field of slaughter and said, “It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”

We look to Lincoln as our guide and inspiration. He understood the necessity of not just saving the Union, but also of knitting the nation back together spiritually as well as politically. But those wounds can be bound up only once the threat has been defeated. So, too, will our country have to knit itself back together after the scourge of Trumpism has been overcome.

 

 

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6 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Fuck them. They enabled Ronald Reagan. You reap what you sow.

I imagine we have more than one former Reagan supporter on this board who're anti-Trump. While I might disagree with them on a bunch of policies, the fight now is to defeat Trump. We can have normal, substantive discussions regarding the specifics of those policies later.

Priority #1 is to get this orange shit stain outta our collective shorts.

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Blah blah blah party of LIncoln blah blah blah Trump bad blah blah fucking blah.

Newflash fuck faces, the only way DOTARD loses is if the Dem nominee wins. So, will you commit to voting for whomever the Dem nominee is, even if its Warren or Sanders? If not, shut the fuck up and go back to fucking your hag of wife while you fantasize about sucking Reagan's dick.

 

 

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13 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

So, will you commit to voting for whomever the Dem nominee is, even if its Warren or Sanders? 

They, in fact, do. From their website:

Quote

OUR MISSION
Defeat President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box.
We do not undertake this task lightly nor from ideological preference. Our many policy differences with national Democrats remain. However, the priority for all patriotic Americans must be a shared fidelity to the Constitution and a commitment to defeat those candidates who have abandoned their constitutional oaths, regardless of party. Electing Democrats who support the Constitution over Republicans who do not is a worthy effort.

 

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8 minutes ago, bolverk said:

They, in fact, do. From their website:

 

 

What you posted sounds a little mealy mouthed. I'll retract my rant when they come right out and say "We will vote for the dem nominee over DOTARD, even if its Sanders or Warren". They left themselves an out.

Edited by High Plains Drifter
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7 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

What you posted sounds a little mealy mouthed. I'll retract my rant when they come right out and say "We will vote for the dem nominee over DOTARD, even if its Sanders or Warren". They left themselves an out.

I share you skepticism but after seeing Steve Schmidt's TV appearances over the past year, I do at least take him seriously in his opposition to Trump. He fucking hates the man.

Regardless, it'll be interesting to see if these "Never-Trumper" Conservatives can initiate a sustained movement or if this is just a flash in the pan moment.

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1 hour ago, High Plains Drifter said:

Blah blah blah party of LIncoln blah blah blah Trump bad blah blah fucking blah.

Newflash fuck faces, the only way DOTARD loses is if the Dem nominee wins. So, will you commit to voting for whomever the Dem nominee is, even if its Warren or Sanders? If not, shut the fuck up and go back to fucking your hag of wife while you fantasize about sucking Reagan's dick.

So much this.  

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John Weaver - aggy and the guy who popped off about McCain's alleged affair with a lobbyist and the same guy who was fired by McCain for poor results?  Nope.

Conway - the guy who worked with Matt Drudge and Ann Coulter to bring the muck against Clinton in the run up to the impeachment?  FFS.

 

That is a smorgasbord of people in the McCain orbit who made McCain a crap candidate. 

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2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Lincoln project?  Dude.  Among Republicans, that ship has sailed.  Lincoln was a pussy libtard.

donald-trump-vs-presidents-lincoln-01.pn

 

Ain't no saving that party.

Well Trump did fix our healthcare issues, created the greatest economy in the history of the world, stopped all illegal aliens from coming here with a big and beautiful wall, created Space Force to stop the aliens from other planets from coming here and drained the swamp by hiring swamp creatures and then having them indicted and sent to jail.  Lincoln just held this country together and freed some slaves.  Then again Lincoln did kill all those vampires so maybe its a toss up.

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5 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

The GOPs problems are bigger than Trump.  Merely getting rid of teh donald is insufficient.

Whole thing needs to be burnt to the ground and rebuilt.

Bingo.

A party is just a structure.  And we have all seen structures -- think of a house -- that needed rehab, repairs, etc.  And we've seen others that are so structurally unsound that the only viable option is to demo it, and start over.

The GOP ain't this, just needing new appliances and shiplap (man, always with the goddamned shiplap):

0f00f4dffee6a85dfd136e30247c66bd.jpg

 

It's this:

Screen-Shot-2017-02-07-at-9.23.04-AM.png

 

You don't need to send in carpenters.  You need to send in bulldozers.

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This is interesting to me. It seems that the former GOPs have little but contempt for the Lincoln project.

What would the better form be? What might attract you?

Or is this all just stinking fruit from the same rotten tree, so it's a non-starter?

I'm Pollyanna enough to give it a chance, but I've never been a Republican.

 

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8 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

Or is this all just stinking fruit from the same rotten tree, so it's a non-starter?

Bingo.

Again, you can present all the plans you want to repair and rehab this:

Detroit-10.jpg?width=1000&height=614&fit

 

But the state of this structure tells us there's only one sane plan for it: bulldoze it.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 4 months later...

lol at that interview

I’m one of the lone voices on this board that is skeptical of The Lincoln Project folks.

Until they own up to being part of the problem that got us here, they’re just grifters who happen to want what I want for a brief time.

Looking at you Steve Schmidt.

And they had to fire their video editor today.




They ain’t getting a penny from me.
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Background on Wilson, Conway, Schmidt, and Weaver -

Liberals are losing their minds over the Lincoln Project, a political action committee made up of a coalition of Republican strategists and admen who raised $16.8 million this past quarter to continue their mission of making commercials and posts aimed at upsetting Donald Trump.

The group has been regularly praised for its "fearlessness" and the "powerful" content of its ads, liberals say, deeming the anti-Trump commercials "MUST WATCH" because "they are driving him crazy." A recent example used the coronavirus pandemic to make the case that Trump is an existential threat to the country. "If we have another four years of this, will there even be (big dramatic pause) an America?" asks a passably Ronald Reagan-imitating voice actor as somber music plays in the background in the punny "Mourning in America"-titled ad that came out this week. It was celebrated by Politico’s Joanna Weiss as a "masterful nugget of compact filmmaking."

Yes, Trump is bad. Historically awful. But liberals, I’m begging you, do not turn to these snakes for salvation.

Unsurprisingly for a group of former aides to Republican campaigns and party attachés who have run in the same circles for decades, the Lincoln Project is made up of exactly the kind of people who liberals profess to loathe: a collection of right-wing ghouls dominated by angry white men with bigoted, racist views that they've seldom been shy about sharing.

The group is reportedly little more than a slush fund for its members. A study on the Lincoln Project from the Center for Responsive Politics in May found the group's finances suspect, at best, and that the organization was acting as a funnel for what The Atlantic called the coalition's "motley crew" of leadership by directing the PAC's cash to the interests and businesses of its directors and staff. "The Lincoln Project reported spending nearly $1.4 million through March," the Center explained. "Almost all of that money went to the group’s board members and firms run by them."

The Lincoln Project's Team is led by eight founders and ten senior advisors, but the group's core four is made up of George Conway, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver, and Rick Wilson. The quartet self-importantly announced the formation of their PAC in a tedious opinion piece for the New York Times last December, claiming that Trump represents some great departure from American conservatism (beyond saying the quiet part loud) and concluded the piece by likening their consultancy-trough-feeding and make-work organization to the Union forces in the Civil War.

Of the four, Weaver has the lowest profile. The longtime GOP aide devoted himself in the 21st century to the failing presidential campaigns of John McCain (twice), John Huntsman, and John Kasich. He has a long history of working with some of the worst that the GOP has had to offer, beginning his career with former Sen. Phil Gramm in 1978 when Gramm, then a hard-right Texas Democrat, first went to Washington. Weaver continued to work with the notoriously cruel and racist Gramm for years, before and after the Texan's conversion to the GOP, then took a leading role in the Texas state party. His time with Gramm and his decades in the Texas Republican Party and his closeness to Rick Perry belie Weaver's moderate self-presentation. Liberals are ignoring that record of work for the GOP though because Weaver tweets banalities like "There will be justice. Righteous justice." when Trump does something like commuting Roger Stone's sentence.

Fellow founder Schmidt also worked on the 2008 McCain campaign, and became a minor political celebrity as the senator's go-to man frustrated by the rise of Sarah Palin, the vice presidential nominee who sucked the oxygen out of the room and, for a time, defined the race. Nicolle Wallace, a fellow Bush administration alum, would also spin her time with Palin as campaign senior advisor into career gold. Both Schmidt and Wallace were the centerpieces of the book and HBO movie titled "Game Change." Today Wallace hosts a daily show on MSNBC, where Schmidt is a frequent guest.

Before the McCain campaign Schmidt, with future ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd, helped to craft a re-election campaign for George W. Bush in 2004 that relied on racism, xenophobia, and homophobic panic to turn out the incumbent's rabid, bigoted base. Schmidt, who had previously served in Dick Cheney's office, returned to the White House after Bush's re-election and became a Karl Rove devotee, working under the president's political mastermind to push the nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court through the Senate.

Conway was relatively unknown outside of Washington. He's ridden his wife KellyAnn's coattails to liberal superstardom as the husband of a White House advisor who tells the president off on Twitter. Recently the couple's daughter has gotten in on the game, playing at being a leftist, but to quote journalist Gaby Del Valle, "the Conway daughter is so obviously in on the scam and if you believe her you’re a mark."

There's honestly not much more to say about George other than he is a longtime GOP lawyer whose turn against Trump appears more due to being passed over for a position in the Department of Justice than any actual ideological rift (George was reportedly lobbying for a job with the administration as recently as mid-2017). If you believe anything about his attacks on Trump is genuine, I have an open letter for you to sign without telling you who else is on it.

Which brings us to Wilson, whose rise to Resistance hero has been, frankly, incomprehensible even by degraded liberal standards in the era of Trump. A GOP stalwart whose career has taken him from one Republican campaign to another, Wilson has been a frequent cable news guest in the age of Trump as a caustic foul-mouthed conservative who really lets the president have it. That edgy attitude has won Wilson friends and supporters from across the liberal sphere.

But before his career reinvention as a "principled Republican," Wilson was known for his unfiltered bigotry on Twitter, unapologetically throwing transphobic slurs at his enemies in attempts to emasculate them, slinging racist insults at Trayvon Martin, xenophobic just-this-side-of-genocide prescriptions for the U.S. military in its dealings with Muslims, and other equally repulsive illiberal racist and bigoted views including now deleted Instagram posts showing prominently displayed Confederate paraphernalia on his boat.

Yet Wilson is given a pass, because he now trains his fire on Trump. Tweetin’ historian Kevin Kruse is a fan, despite his own minor online celebrity beginning with pushing back on racist right-wingers like Dinesh D’Souza whose views are indistinguishable from those of Wilson. Even Mehdi Hasan, whose smug self-presentation is that of a bemused outsider appalled by the racism and hate of American discourse, has featured Wilson on his show "Head to Head" in a segment that presented the right-wing operative as an opponent of Trump. Hasan did not, despite his repeated self-promotion as a journalist unafraid to ask tough questions, interrogate Wilson's past statements.

Many of the PAC's other members share an obsession with finding ways to discredit Black Lives Matter and an antipathy to nonwhite people. Ad producer whiz kid Ben Howe before 2016 tweeted multiple times that he wished he, not Darren Wilson, had murdered Mike Brown, while prominent Never-Trump professor Tom Nichols has spent years using “well actually” just-asking-questions obfuscation tactics to discredit protests over police brutality against people of color and other marginalized communities.

It's more than these extreme examples of right-wing hate and bigotry found throughout the group's members' pasts. The fact is that the coalition is made up of people who until very recently were happily ensconced in the GOP—meaning that it's not the policies pursued and beliefs espoused by Trump that are the issue. It’s just his delivery.

This is not an abstract issue. The president is part and parcel of the entire Republican project and its logical conclusion after five decades of cultivating an increasingly enraged white base filled with economic and cultural grievances for which the GOP has blamed on the uneven but inexorable march to greater equality in American society. As Trump promoted birtherism and racist hate against Barack Obama in the early 2010s, there was no particular condemnation from the party; instead, 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney made a big show of bending the knee at Trump Tower for an endorsement.

The more that liberals refuse to hold right-wing operatives like the Lincoln Project brain trust accountable for their past behavior and contribution to the current state of conservatism in America the more we will see the rehabilitation of such ghouls as an ongoing scheme by conservatives to push the Overton window even further right and assume the position of moderation. For someone like Rick Wilson to enjoy the social capital afforded by his acceptance by liberals like Hasan and Kruse would be unthinkable were there a chance the Democratic Party and its attendant opinion makers had an attention span for a period longer than the time since the last presidential election.

Trump's rise has led liberals to descend into a fearful, paranoid, goldfish-like existence where an all-consuming terror of the possibility of angering the right has overcome all other impulses, leaving the left-leaning body politic without the ability to remember what happened four years ago—let alone four months.

That kind of memory hole is a nightmare situation for historians, journalists, and anyone who hasn't given up yet. But it's perfect for the personal fortunes and future career opportunities of the Lincoln Project, and that’s the whole point.


I mean.......
0b4f27515ea8902495e112d8ba218a65.jpg
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Fuck em.

Democrats didn’t ask for their help, no payment owed.

That’s why I hate how everyone sucks their dicks. These guys haven’t changed their beliefs and make no mistake, if you put a gun to their heads they’d admit they still support most of the outcomes that Trump and McConnell and Graham and Cruz want; they just don’t like the packaging.

They’re pissed Trump is saying the quiet parts out loud. It makes them look bad to their cocktail party friends.

“That’s what the dog whistles are for” they must have muttered when Trump railed about Mexican rapists.

They don’t agree with anything Joe Biden or the Democrats want to do and the minute Biden is sworn in they’ll be trying to use the political capital built of the short term memory of politicians and voters who were desperate to rid their country of the malignancy in The White House.

And if they don’t get it, they’ll be on the air at CNN and MSNBC convincing their newly found fans that voters need to pull back! We went too far! It’s safe to come back to the Republicans! Trump is gone!

And they’ll be out recruiting palatable candidates to put a pretty face who won’t say the quiet parts out loud.

Fuck them. They don’t get to demand shit. Donald Trump may be the one who lit the match but The Lincoln Project guys and the rest of the GOP spent years dousing the country in gasoline and leaving piles of greasy rags everywhere.

We don’t get here without years of their guiding hands.

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3 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

Theyre shitbags. I think we all know that. I’ll take what they’re doing now but they can fuck off and get zero money from me. But the democrats need to learn something from these slappies. 

Agreed. Dems need to stop the "Have you no decency, good sir?!!" messaging and learn how to land a fucking punch.

 

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I don’t understand why anyone is worried that the Lincoln Project douches are unrepentant Republicans. This is an alliance of convenience, and these fuckers can be really effective at both discouraging Trump voters and giving Republicans the courage to vote for Biden.

We don’t have to like these guys or delude ourselves into the fantasy that they’re reformed. We’re not handing them the keys to the Dem platform. Just enjoy the show while they cannibalize their own.

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If you guys don't like them, just steal their playbook.  Your party has access to the exact same clips they do.  Access to the exact same stats and quotes as they do.  What they're doing is incredibly powerful but it's rocket surgery.  I've done paid voiceover work, I'll record the copy for free.  

All the things to complain and fret about this election cycle, and we're worried about the sinister motivations of a group landing more body blows on Trump than the rest of the DNC combined?  Might be a good election cycle to find a few less things to whine about.  

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4 hours ago, Lobo said:

If you guys don't like them, just steal their playbook.  Your party has access to the exact same clips they do.  Access to the exact same stats and quotes as they do.  What they're doing is incredibly powerful but it's rocket surgery.  I've done paid voiceover work, I'll record the copy for free.  

All the things to complain and fret about this election cycle, and we're worried about the sinister motivations of a group landing more body blows on Trump than the rest of the DNC combined?  Might be a good election cycle to find a few less things to whine about.  

Agree.  I get the criticism of LP but one thing I know about pubs is they like money.  I have and will continue to give them money as long as they do the lords work.  As soon as they stop, they will no longer get my money.  Maybe they will realize they can make more money doing good then being asshats...but maybe not.  Regardless, they are landing punches and know how to fight dirty.  It is worth my small coin to see a cause I believe in being fought  for without kid gloves for probably the first time in my entire life.  The dems need to learn how to conduct political warfare from assholes like this.

Edited by Horn Dog
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This has always been the Democrats' problem.  Winning isn't good enough, they need to win in style and 'the right way'.  Listen, that all sounds great, but it's lead to a shitload of losses they shouldn't have eaten.  We can't afford Dem operatives to bungle this one. 

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1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

They should get used to disappointment.

I'd like to think so but in my 40-odd years of identifying as a Dem and 32 years of voting that way, I've come to realize I am in the Party of Lil' Bitches. Maybe this is the year they finally sack up and tell the GOP to fuck off. 

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