No one seems to like the Lincoln Project anymore
“It is incredibly important that we all head into the upcoming elections with a level of humility and fresh eyes about what the political landscape is going to look like,” Petkanas added. “It would be a mistake to know for certain who is easier to beat than somebody else. We’ve all seen this movie before and they occasionally have a twist ending.”
Officials working for the Lincoln Project contend they’re simply being practical — even shrewd — about the new political climate, in which Trump is likely to be the GOP nominee anyway and brass-knuckle tactics are now the norm.
But a year after delighting liberals with their insistence on bringing guns to a gunfight, operatives across the spectrum now say the group is, at best, ineffective and prodigal, at worst, counterproductive. In particular, fellow never-Trumpers and moderate Republicans have recoiled at Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson’s recent encouragement of a Trump presidential run in 2024.
“I think this is the mother of bad ideas,” said conservative commentator and Trump critic Charlie Sykes. “But also the father, brother, sister, and cousin of a truly bad idea. [It] ignores the fact that Trump could actually be elected again, and you would’ve thought we had all learned our lesson from playing games with that possibility the last time.”
Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist and Trump critic who started Defending Democracy Together, joined in a chorus of other anti-Trump Republicans baffled by Wilson’s strategy.
“It would be a high impact event on our democracy if Trump were reelected and you want to do everything you can to keep him from getting one step closer,” Longwell said. “The best way to ensure Trump doesn’t win the election 2024 is to make sure he doesn’t become the nominee.”
In an interview with POLITICO, Wilson defended his position by arguing that Trumpism was a greater problem now than just Trump himself. He pointed to his response on Twitter and added that the idea that he actually wants the 45th president to run again is “risible.”
“It’s not that I want [Trump] to be here, I’d love for him to be eaten by a shark tomorrow,” Wilson said. “I want Trump to run to destroy the people who are more sophisticated than Trump. I want to use Trump’s psychological problems to weaken him because I think the most dangerous thing we face is Trump with an Ivy League degree. All the abrasive authoritarianism and nationalism and none of the obvious deficits.”
The Lincoln Project was started in 2019 by a number of prominent Republican operatives who opposed Trump’s presidency and feared the direction their party was taking. They faced charges of self-dealing and ineffectualness — both of which they heartedly dismissed. And along the way, the group raised tens of millions of dollars, in large part because of the splashy web and TV ads it ran going after the sitting president and his family in visceral, personal ways.
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