This is not a literal transcript of
this conversation
between Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson and Atlantic writer and MSNBC
contributor Tom Nichols.
It does, however, reflect the spirit of the exchange:
Wilson: Welcome Tom Nichols. You have a new book out repeating
what Liberal bloggers have been saying for +20 years. It is a work of
genius and people should buy it.
Nichols: Thanks. And speaking of Liberal bloggers, you know what
the entire Republican party reminds me of?
Wilson: I think I know, Tom, but you tell us what you think.
Nichols: They remind me of the radical Left during the 1960s.
Wilson: That is so true. They are in every way exactly as awful
the Weathermen.
Nichols: Remember the 1960s? Remember how stupid the Left was?
Wilson: So stupid. And so wrong.
[COMMERCIAL FOR HANGOVER REMEDY]
Nichols: And the 1970s? Remember how stupid the Left was during
the 1970s?
Wilson: I'm glad you mention that because the are so much like the
crazy Republican party that just sorta happened and that we had nothing to
do with manifesting.
Nichols: True. None of this is our doing, so let us dwell
further on how clownish and wrong the Left was in the 1960s.
driftglass: Rick, you were born near the end of 1963, right?
Wilson: Birthday's coming up soon!
driftglass: And Tom, you're just a couple of months younger than
me. December 1960, right?
Nichols: So?
driftglass: So I'm fascinated by how both of you front as if you had
diamond-sharp memories of events that happened before you had finished 4th
grade. And furthermore, you had both been so deeply, politically scarred
by those events that you flung yourselves into the arms of Ronald Reagan.
Wilson: Speaking of Reagan, wasn't he awesome!
Nichols: Y'know, a few years ago my daughter's grades at college in her
political science class went from "meh" to pretty good, so I asked her what
happened? Was she studying harder or something?
Wilson: Studying harder is awesome!
Nichols: She told me no She just figure out that if she said bad
things about Reagan every now and then, her professor would give her better
grades!
Wilson: She broke the elite Liberal college code!
Nichols: Yeah, elite Liberal colleges are the worst. As bad as
the Extreme Right! Like the Weather Men! But don't worry, she
didn't become an America hating communist or anything. Just did
it for the grade.
Wilson: Whew. That was a close one!
driftglass: You know what else is fascinating? How both of you
talk as if the 1960s happened last week and you can remember it all in
horrifying, Technicolor detail. How every discussion of what is
happening now in your recently-former political party, always
veers into your seething hatred of shit that happened back when Walter
Cronkite was on teevee and America was still sending men to the Moon.
But your memories of what was going on in Republican party --
your own political party -- in all the decades since the 1960s
are somehow always very hazy. Nichols has even said repeatedly that,
since he grew up in Massachusetts, he had no real awareness of what was
happening to his own political party until five minutes ago. To to him,
the past is hippies... Reagan... yadda yadda yadda... OMG, Trump!
You wanna know the difference between the SDS and the GOP, other than the 2.5
human generations that separate them?
[ANOTHER COMMERCIAL FOR HANGOVER REMEDY]
Wilson: Where were we?
Nichols: Reagan. And how awesome he was.
Wilson: He sure was, wasn't he?
Nichols: He sure was. And how wretched and spoiled these kids today
are.
Wilson: Elite Liberal colleges are ruining them.
Nichols: And another thing. Liberals are alla time dinging us for
saying "Gummint is the Problem."
Wilson: I know, right!
Nichols: But we never said that! Never! All we ever said was
we wanted gummint small-ER, and more efficient.
Wilson: Where do these Liberal get these crazy ideas?
Nichols: I dunno, brother. The Utne Reader or someplace.
"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." -- Grover Norquist, whose insane anti-tax pledge was at one time virtually mandatory for every Republican running for national office.
Nichols: And you know what else? Mike Johnson sure seems like a creepy
weirdo.
Wilson: He does seem like a creepy weirdo. You knows what he
reminds me of?
Nichols: The Left in the 1960s?
Wilson: Exactly!
Nichols: Also, what the hell happened to the Republican party of our
youth?
Wilson: It's a giant mystery, brother. Well, thanks for coming in,
and everyone within the sound of my voice should buy his book. What's
the title?
Nichols: Thank Rick. The working title is called "Everyone But Us
Are Morons."
...is a lot like alternating cups of Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee with shots of
Jeppson's Malört.
First, we find Stuart Steven breaking the first commandment of the Beltway
media: Thou shalt not remember the inconvenient past:
Stevens: When Clinton increased taxes in 1993 we predicted that
it would be the end of the economy. This was going to throw us into
recession. Instead it ushered... it helped usher in the greatest
period of post-war expansion to-date, and one of the big, substantive
[issues[ in the 2000 presidential debate between Gore and Bush was what to
do with the surplus. So, we were wrong! And let's admit we were
wrong.
Holy shit. The last person I know of who dared to mention the fate of
the Clinton budget surplus was [checks notes] me. Dozens of times. Maybe hundreds. Like this post from more
than a decade ago cleverly entitled,
"What To Do With Our Budget Surplus".
I had video and everything.
So hearing that from Stuart Stevens while Wilson squirmed uncomfortably in the background went over with me like a hot cuppa Jamaican Blue and a shot of pure
oxygen after floating in the icy vacuum of official media memory holing for so
very long.
A little later came a long disquisition on George W. Bush and No Child Left Behind, and how a picture of Bush with Ted Kennedy would be presented as evidence of a war crimes tribunal today in the Republican party.
Rick Wilson: George Bush couldn't get arrested at a Republican primary today. He would be in the single digits.
I'm sure, like me, you have many thoughts on why this is so, which neither Wilson nor Stevens are anywhere near ready to discuss.
Then came this shot of Malört.which, if you are unaware, has been described as "infamous" and "the worst booze ever". Something that Chicagoans dare out-of-towners to try.
Stevens: And... what... uh... I think just baffles you and I is, "Why didn't they fight?" When Donald Trump entered the primary... Look, I'm talking to the guy [Wilson] who saw this more clearly than anybody else. Whose book, Everything Trump Touches Dies, is going to be the governing statement of the truth of this era... Your book and [Adam Serwer's] book will define this era.
And the thing is, he's probably right.
Once leading voices on the Left decided that making nice with the Rick Wilsons of the world -- granting them ouchless absolution for all that they had said and done prior to 2016 -- was worth the price for their temporary and grudging allyship, it was probably game over. Our new "allies" stepped right on over us, colonizing cable teevee and the op-ed pages, collecting book contracts and creating brand new media companies where they could more efficiently separate credulous Liberal from their money.
And that's how, through sheer force of numbers, their version of history -- the "It all began in 2016, and only we had the savvy the see it." version of history -- is now becoming, more or less, the version of history.
And the rue history of the long, despicable Republican path that brought us to this moment? A path which was surveyed, graded and paved by the Never Trumpers?
Today Rick Wilson strokes his beard ponderously and ponders what in the world
happened to his Republican party?
Spoiler: Cynical, "Toss the bigots and imbeciles red meat until the
burst and then stampede 'em to the polls" Republican operatives like Rick
Wilson are what happened to the Republican party.
As you contemplate the following screen-shots, bear in mind that Nixon's
Southern Strategy, Reagan's "Welfare Queen" ideology, Limbaugh's "Feminazis,
Libtards and Barack the Magic Negro" vocabulary and Gingrich's
slash-burn-and-relentlessly-demonize politics are the filthy, racist waters
that spawned Mr. Rick Wilson.
And that, until five minutes ago, profiting handsomely by further toxifying those filthy, racist waters has been his life's work.
But now...
Since almost no one be me cares about any of this, I have learned to content myself by being grimly entertained by listening to Wilson continuing to use his real superpower -- reptilian amoral flexibility -- to seamlessly transition from being a paid, Right-wing political hitman who gleefully took the filthy lucre of crackpot Conservative billionaires and used the unlimited crackpot-billionaire funded resources available on the Right to help build a Republican doomsday...
...to landing squarely on my "No Fair Remembering Stuff" podcast corner (but isn't everybody?) dressed up as Mr. "Holy shit! You mean the Republican Party has been full of Republicans all along!!" guy.
And the funniest part of all of this? Wilson (and pretty much every other Never Trumper) blocked me years ago specifically for promiscuously and publicly remembering the very same monstrous past of the Republican party that he is now "uncovering".
Today I listened to yet another lively and revealing exchange between recently-former Republicans in
which all inconvenient history was whisked away and replaced with:
Rick Wilson once again taking credit for things he and the Lincoln Lads never did.
Rick Wilson boasting about seeing the No Labels threat before anyone.
Months ago!
Such conversations are always so...educational.
But most entertaining of all was listening to Wilson continuing to use
his real superpower -- reptilian amoral flexibility -- to seamlessly
transition from being a paid, Right-wing political hitman who gleefully
took the filthy lucre of crackpot Conservative billionaires and used the
unlimited crackpot-billionaire funded resources available on the Right to help
build a Republican doomsday...
...to attacking stupid Dems and stupid Planned Parenthood for not being better able to counteract the Republican doomsday machine that Rick Wilson helped construct using the vast resources and unlimited crackpot-billionaire funding available
on the Right.
Part of Wilson's latest tiny-man-on-a-large-soapbox jeremiad against Democrats was his
assertion that everyone has known for 50 years that the Right
was pouring billions of dollars into creating the think tank/law
school/wingnut-welfare pipeline they needed to stack the courts and overturn
Roe.
Everyone knew it! And, according to Wilson, for 50 years Dems generally
and Planned Parenthood specifically have just been twiddling their thumbs,
doing nothing to protect women and now it's too later.
Wilson is used to bathing in a limitless supply of Conservative blood money, so apparently he cannot understand why we Dems don't deploy our army of crackpot Left-wing
billionaires who would focus single-mindedly on a single issue for decades and
spend an unlimited amount of money to move it along.
Wilson is used to working for Republicans who were intent on shutting things down and blowing things up, so he does not seem able to comprehend why Planned Parenthood didn't just fire its health care professionals, shutter
its clinics and sent aside its expensive mission to --
Help people live full, healthy lives — no matter your income, insurance,
gender identity, sexual orientation, race, or immigration status;
Provide the high-quality inclusive and comprehensive sexual and reproductive
health care services all people need and deserve — with respect and
compassion;
Advocate for public policies that protect and expand reproductive rights and
access to a full range of sexual and reproductive health care services,
including abortion;
Provide medically accurate education that advances the understanding of
human sexuality, healthy relationships, and body autonomy;
Promote research and technology that enhances reproductive health care and
access.
-- and instead spend billions and billions of dollars over the past half
century building a Liberal counterpart to the Federalist Society?
Huh? Huh?
Riddle me that!
I'm pretty sure almost no one cares but me, but it is remarkable how someone whose firm, principled position on abortion five minutes ago used to consist of...
...mocking Dems for suggesting that his party would ever overturn Roe:
What campaign have the Democrats NOT insisted we want to send women in
back alleys for underground abortions?
...now has the huevos to ask Liberals to fund his Lincoln Project because Liberals are chumps who don't know how to fight for what they believe in and only he and his fellow recently-former Republicans have the wherewithal to stand up for a woman's right to choose.
But if the past couple of decades have proven anything, it's that when the media is in your corner, you can get away with whitewashing your past as many times as you wish and no one will say "Boo!" about it.
There are so many things I learned from listening to just a leeetle bit of
Rick Wilson's podcast.
First, despite the fact that Democrats retaking the House in 2018 happened
before the Lincoln Project existed, and despite the fact that there is no
evidence that Lincoln Lads moved a single vote in 2020, and despite the fact
that they have been mired in scandal and controversy ever since, and despite
the fact that their 2020 "Tiki Torch"
stunt backfired horribly
and may have tipped the Virginia gubernatorial election to Glenn Younkin --
Lincoln Project co-founder: Stunt at Youngkin event ‘recklessly
stupid’
Steve Schmidt, the co-founder of the anti-Trump group The Lincoln
Project, slammed the recent tiki torch stunt pulled by the organization
ahead of the Virginia gubernatorial election, calling it “recklessly
stupid.”
“I thought the action was recklessly stupid. It was dishonest and cheap.
It is exactly the wrong way to approach the fight against a real fascist
movement, against extremist elements. It showed appalling judgment by the
day-to-day management and leadership of The Lincoln Project,” Schmidt said
on Wednesday during an interview on “America at a Crossroads.”...
-- despite all of that, the Lincoln Project's extremely revised version of history gets more
grandiose by the hour. From the trailer for Rick Wilson's The Enemies List
"One thing we proved at the Lincoln Project was a small group of very
determined people could change the tide of history."
So, by the driftglass calendar -- hey look! -- they're right on
schedule:
And for those credulous Liberals out there who swore they were bedding down
with Kevin Costner only to wake up to find it'd been Slippin' Jimmy McGill all
along --
-- I did try to warn you.
Over and over and over and over again.
But as the Lincoln Lad's began to fade into the swarm-o-gnats background noise
of American politics, I began to lose interest. I was starting to wear
holes in the soles of my "I Told You So" shoes from all the "I Fucking Well
Warned Them" dancing I've been doing these past several years, so I sent them
off to the cobbler and forgot about them.
Until this caught my eye:
Not Left Or Right But Forward
Rick Wilson's The Enemies List
Oh my.
So slipped on a pair of "I Told You So" socks (they'll do in a
pinch), warmed up the Philco and gave ol' Rick a listen.
And oh my.
Miles Taylor, co-founder of Forward: Really what we want to
do is go run genuinely independent candidates, especially in places that
are not competitive. So think deep red districts where MAGA
has a chokehold over an area of the country, and where Democrats have no
hope of beating an extremist.
driftglass: Hold up for a moment. The
co-founder of Forward is telling me, explicitly, that Forward
is going after Republican seats in places Democrats can't win.
Taylor: We wanna go run a common sense, principled leader to try to
shake those districts up around the country. So really, were excited
about that...
Taylor: The last data point I'll provide you is, people are
pretty blown away to find out that about 70% of the races in this country
are uncontested... That's pretty stupid. That's just pretty
fucking stupid.
driftglass: 70%! Holy Hannah, that's a lot! So
before we slide past that Forward Party talking point, let's look at the
invisible bridge Mr. Taylor has to scamper across unnoticed to get from
"deep red districts where MAGA has a chokehold over an area of the
country, and where Democrats have no hope of beating an extremist"
to "70% of the races in this country are uncontested".
The deep, red chokehold district thingie seems to be clearly
implying congressional districts, which if 70% of those are unopposed, well , as the kids say, Big if True!
So there are 435 voting members in the House of Representatives. An
70% of that that would be ... let's see ... round up to the nearest whole
number ... and we get ... 305. Wow! Do 305 House seats
really go uncontested in every election?
[In 2022] There are 16 incumbents - 13 Republicans and three Democrats -
that have the ballot all to themselves. Their only opposition would be via
write-in, where allowed.
In 2020, this number was 11, split more evenly with six Republicans and
five Democrats.
driftglass: So not 305. Barely a fraction of a
fraction of 305. Because when the Forward party mouthpieces trot out
this number, they always fail to emphasize that it refers to about
all elections for all offices in the United States. That includes races for things like
school boards, alderpersons and city councilors, water reclamation
commissioners, county judges and mosquito abatement district
directors.
Well, if the Forward Party's big plan to shake loose the MAGA chokehold on
American politics is to run candidates for mine inspector or Clerk of the
Peace, more power to them, I suppose. But that sure doesn't sound like
the plan.
Mr. Taylor continues.
Taylor: But at the same time, that means teaming up with the Good
Guys against the Bad Guys.
In virtually every piece of Forward propaganda I've ever read, whether from
the party's social media accounts or from individual hype-men like Andrew
Yang, the "good guys" are always the Forward Party, and the Bad Guys
are always the Republican and Democratic parties.
Always Both Sides. Always the K'rupt
Duopoly.
So...who are the other good guys with whom Mr. Taylor proposed that the
Forwardists team up with?
Taylor: So...and, right now, the... the Democratic Party is the one
that's the bulwark protecting democracy.
driftglass: Wow. I feel a great disturbance in the
Force, as if millions of Forward Party "Overthrow the K'rupt Duopoly!"
Tweets are about to vanish like farts in a firestorm.
But maybe I misunderstood. Because I'm stupid like that. Please
continue gentlemen.
Rick Wilson: Well that's... that is, y'know, one of the
big... the big challenges of a third party is making sure you're targeting
it in a way that doesn't advantage the side that wants to break
democracy. That doesn't give, y'know... that doesn't split off uh...
and... and give moderate Republicans a place to run to if they should be
voting for uh, y'know, uh a Democratic in a competitive seat like
that. ... How do you make sure that... that if one side of the
political equation right now in the Republican party wants to basically
break democracy, how do you not do more damage in that
thing. Sounds like you guys are trying to calibrate that in a way
that meets that challenge.
driftglass: Not according to virtually every piece of Forward
Party Both Siderist "Overthrow the K'rupt Duopoly!" agitprop I've seen
to-date.
Taylor: Well, yeah, it's, y'know, it's the traditional spoiler
argument. But you go back to that [misleading, bullshit] stat that I
just said. 70% of races are uncontested. The "system" is
pretty fucking spoiled as it is. So, y'know, when it comes to the
MAGA movement, ideally we would attract a lot of middle-of-the-road
Conservatives over to our cause and deprive the GOP of the votes they need
to have a MAGA supermajority.
Did you see the bait? "70% of races are uncontested."
Did you see the switch? "So... when it comes to the MAGA movement."
Come on man, if you're a Conservative party, why not just say you're
a Conservative party? Why not articulate the Conservative policies
that you think would attract imaginary middle-of-the-road Conservatives?
Taylor: And we've been seeing that. We've been seeing
disaffected Republicans come our direction in droves.
driftglass: Define "droves".
driftglass: See also "The Bush-Belly Sneetches". Now observe closely as Mr. Taylor blows up his own talking point.
Taylor: But we're also seeing that with disaffected Democrats. I mean look, there are super, super blue districts that even the
Democratic party says,
"Oh man, we've gotta get rid of some of these people and put some
normal folks in."
driftglass: You know, I'm on the Sekrit Democratic Party
Burn Book Mailing List and so far I've not heard any of this,
but seeing as Miles Taylor's last job was [checks notes]
"Chief Of Staff of the Department of Homeland Security under Trump"
maybe the Democratic Party leadership trusts him enough to have passed along
to him some super secret bitching that they've not shared with the rest of
us.
The rest of the conversation takes the same, schizophrenic downhill tumble
that all conversations between recently-former Republicans seem to take,
because that's the way they're wired. They quickly forget that the
MAGA GOP are now the "bad guys" and regress back into 2015 Beltway media
talking points about the Extremes on Both Sides.
Wilson: When folks come to you and say
"We don't like what the Republicans here are doing" and
"We don't like what the Democrats here are doing" and they ask you
the hard question ... "What do you believe in?" ... You can get people to
describe their ideological takes in a few sentences for most Republicans
and for most Democrats.
driftglass: Taylor goes on the reassure Wilson that his Forward
Party definitely has an answer to that question. And the answer
is so easy and obvious! The Forward Party believes... what the "silent
majority" of Americans believe! All of that common sense centrist
stuff that "independents" believe!
For example, on climate change Taylor explains that the Extreme Left which
believes in stopping every engine on Earth right now or whatever, and the
Extreme Right who think its all a hoax. And the Forward Party is
straight up the Sensible Center!
Or take abortion, which the Extreme Left yadda yadda and the Extreme Right
yadda yadda. And the Forward Party is once again on the side of the silent
majority!
Except, or course, Taylor is full shit.
Those "Extreme Right" positions he describes are ones the
actual Republican Party actually supports and,
as with gutting Roe v. Wade, has used its political power to enact.
Whereas the "Extreme Left" positions he describes have zero support within
the Democratic Party, and the Sensible Centrist policies he lays out are
basically the Democratic Party platform.
It's exactly the same game of ideological Three Card Monte that every third
party scam tries to run, that Very Serious Conservative frauds like David
Brooks have been playing for decades, and which Jonathan Chait brutally
deconstructed
back in 2016:
David Brooks and the Intellectual Collapse of the Center:
...
But even if you accept this very strange notion of the political
alignment in Trump’s Washington, it raises a question Brooks is not
prepared to answer. If his objection on the left lies with the “Sanders
socialism,” then isn’t there an appealing centrist lying to the right of
that? A moderate who favors market-oriented solutions that bring
together business and labor, who welcomes empiricism, and is willing to
compromise? A politician who has led the Democratic party for the last
eight years and, in fact, is still the sitting president of the United
States right now?
One might think so. But Brooks spent the last eight years defining the
center as something Obama was not. It didn’t matter that Obama supported
a health-care plan first devised by Mitt Romney, or a cap-and-trade plan
endorsed by John McCain. Brooks nestled himself into the territory
between Obama and the angry, no-compromise Republicans who were shutting
down government and boycotting all negotiations with the president. If
Obama endorsed the policies Brooks preferred, he would simply pretend
that Obama had not proposed them. Indeed, one of the most common genres
of David Brooks column was a sad lament that neither party would endorse
policies that in fact Obama had explicitly and publicly called
for...
But the Sensible Centrist lie will never die so long as there are enough
pundits, enough Republicans on the run from their past and enough cowardly
fence-straddlers to prop it up.
Wilson: I think the type of voters you're talking about are
the types we've targeted at Lincoln for the past three years. ...
But there is a frustration growing -- and this is a frustration that
both parties, y'know, have a responsibility for -- that
both parties have become this sort of like code-worded only, Burger
King versus McDonald's fight. It's Cokes versus Pepsi... And
while there's an entertainment complex built up pushing both those
narratives, it's unsatisfactory with a lot of people.
Wilson [after talking about how ludicrous and destructive the
re-invented GOP is with hobgoblins like Boebert and Greene leading the
way]: The loudest voice in the room They're going to scream
louder. They're going to cause more trouble. They're going to
engage in the "owning of the Libs". The ritual bullshit and all
that.
And... and, look, The Squad on the other side is... is... plays a
similar...
driftglass: Then Wilson catches himself, as if suddenly
remembering that he's on a live mic, that Both Siderism has become
naughtybad, and that that asshole driftglass is probably listening and may
blog about it.
Wilson: And I'm not a Both Sidesism guy! I'm
really not! But I know as a former Republican
strategist, that every day that the Squad is talking it's a gift for the
Republican party to the normies still in the GOP.
driftglass: The problem that Wilson in describing -- and that he
is definitely Both Sidesing -- has nothing to do with anything
that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Ayanna Pressley or any other Democratic
back-bencher might say on any given day.
The problem Wilson is describing is the ability of an integrated
Conservative Media Hate machine to take any goofy thing that
any Democrat might say on any given day of out of context and
amplify it a zillion times over social media, over 10,000 radio stations and
100 top-rated podcasts and three cable teevee networks and
who-knows-how-many Evangelical church pulpits. Scream that message day
and night until they bludgeon the mainstream press into covering it as
"news".
Wilson knows all of this perfectly well since for decades he made a handsome
living feeding that Hate Machine.
Wilson: You're told, if you wanna be in this party you've
gotta all this crazy shit. Right now, if you want to be a Republican
you have to say January 6th was a tourist visit and Donald Trump is the
legitimate president and Joe Biden cheated to win. You have to say
that essentially.
driftglass: But Wilson just can't help himself.
Wilson: And I think that those shit-tests that go on inside
both parties now...
driftglass: Now I'm bored. But I would also like to thank
everyone who helped us turn "Both Siderism" into such filthy expletive a
dirty that even committed Both Siderists now feel the need to stop in the
middle of some patently ridiculous false equivalence to explain that they
not really, really a Both Siderist.
OK. One more
Taylor: I would stake out a different position than you a
little bit on the Both Sidesism. I am a Both Sideser.
Not that both sides are equally as bad at the moment. Certainly my
[very recently] former party, the Republican Party, represents the
greatest threat to democracy... But very close friends at the
highest levels of the Biden White House have said they have a deep-seated
fear...
And I'm done.
Well, almost done. Because as long as I'm here at Rick Wilson's dump,
poshotting specific rodents on a specific pile of debris, seems a shame not to
widen the aperture and get a look at the lay of the land.
So, in addition to coddling recently-former Republican Both Siderists and
whitewashing the Lincoln Projects' brief, scandal-plagued history into a
heroic saga of the Lincoln Lads single-handedly "chang[ing] the tide of history" what
else does this Rick Wilson fella get up to on his podcast?
Rick pledes to his listeners that he will fearlessly interview [checks
notes] most of the same Never Trumpers who have gobbled up the media
spotlight for the past six years. Like Lincoln Project co-founder Reed
Galen! And Lincoln Project guy Stuart Stevens! And Lincoln Project
adjacent guy George Conway! Former Lincoln Project guy (who bailed
once the waves of scandal repeatedly capsized the Lincoln Project) who is
now also Lincoln Project adjacent guy -- and who also has his own
podcast! -- Michael Steele. And friend of the Lincoln Project, Molly
Jong Fast!
But when he's not interviewin', Rick promises listeners he will
speak his mind!
Or issue various "stern warnings"!
Or sometimes he just "goes off"!
Here are a sampling of blurbs for various episodes. See if you can
spot the pattern (emhasis added where I would read this in my scariest "In a
world..." voice.)
"Listen to find out who Rick is blasting this episode"!!!
And
"Rick puts someone on The Enemies List and calls it
a permanent entry. Listen to find out who"!!!
And:
"Listen to find out who Rick is targeting for the list"!!!
And:
"Rick adds another group to The Enemies List.
Listen to find out who."!!!
And:
"Rick has a double entry on this episode's Enemies List. Listen to find out who is the lucky pair."!!!
And:
"Listen to find out who Rick is targeting for the list."!!!
And:
"And, of course,
you won't want to miss who gets put on The Enemies List."!!!
And
"Rick adds another name to The Enemies List.
Listen to find out who makes the unfortunate cut this episode."
!!!
Rick Wilson: Internet tough guy.
There are also various typos which I consider to be hilarious in their own
right because I am low and perverse.
One of the irrefutable facts to emerge from the 2020 election is that the
Lincoln Project's actual electoral track record during that election cycle was
spectacularly bad, especially when contrasted against all of their swaggering,
public declarations of their own unique and unparalleled political
genius.
However, another irrefutable fact that emerged from the 2020 election is that
the Lincoln Lads do excel at relentless self-promotion, especially when aided
and abetted by their many friends and fellow travelers in the media.
By doing what Republicans do best -- hunkering down and blustering their
way past all the evidence that contradicts their imperviously high opinions of
themselves -- they have managed to weather both their complete failure to
deliver on any of the grandiose electoral promises they made in 2020
and back-to-back sex and money and coverup scandals that should have
buried them.
And now they're back, raising money by preaching exactly the same sermon they
were preaching from the day they conjured themselves into existence in
2019: That Democrats are feckless idiots who are incapable of winning
elections against Republicans and therefore they, the Lincoln Lads, are
American democracy's last hope of salvation.
Of course, to keep riding that hobbyhorse and keep the money from credulous
Liberals coming in the door, the Lincoln Lads have had to say a lot stuff that
isn't strictly true, but having spent their adult lives as Republican campaign
button-men, this obviously isn't a problem. Which is where we
join the Lincoln Lad's Reed Galen and Rick Wilson: mid-conversation,
explaining why Democrats are hapless children who cannot hope to succeed
without the Lincoln Lad's special brand of magic.
This imaginary book will soon be in your actual future.
Official Motto of the Lincoln Project -- "You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
Unofficial Mission Statement of the Lincoln Project -- "You can absolutely escape the responsibility of today by pretending yesterday never happened.”
For the second time in fifteen years I've watched Republican depravity, treachery and disastrous bumblefuckery hand the Left unopposed command of the nation's moral and political high ground on a silver platter.
After the implosion of the Bush administration the nation took stock of what it had been through and tallied up the steep and bloody price it had just paid for the corruption, high crimes and criminal incompetence of a Republican president who was loyally supported by Republicans in congress, Republican voters and America's sprawling Republican propaganda empire.
And now, as the Trump administration collapses before our eyes, the nation must once again come to terms with the terrible price it is paying for the corruption, high crimes and criminal incompetence of a Republican president who is loyally supported by Republicans in congress, Republican voters and America's sprawling Republican propaganda empire.
And for the second time in fifteen years, I am watching leaders on the Left pissing that enormous advantage away.
So prepare yourself for a future in which you and I no longer even exist.
A future where a dozen variations of the imaginary book pictured above will be authored by the same professional Republican goons and ratfuckers whose last book was some variation of this.
A future where virtually all of the inconvenient Republican history prior to 2016 will be swiftly and efficiently bulldozed down the memory-hole. Just as all the hugely inconvenient fuckery that Republicans were up to during the Clinton Administration was bulldozed down the memory-hole the moment five Republican Supreme Court justices helped Dubya steal the 2000 election.
And all of those inconvenient Republican catastrophes that took place during the Dubya Administration were bulldozed down the memory-hole the minute the Kenyan Usurper was sworn into office.
And all of that embarrassing Republican slander and sedition that took place during the Obama Administration was bulldozed down the memory-hole the day President Stupid was sworn into office.
See the pattern? Because it's perfectly plain to anyone with eyes.
What the past +30 years has proven beyond any doubt it that neither the mainstream media nor the Great Wad of the general public are ever going to accept the fact that the reason this country is so deeply broken is because one of our two major political parties -- the Republican Party -- is a mob of bigots and imbeciles led by ghouls, grifters and demagogues. The very idea offends the general public way down deep. At the spiritual level; the place where they still hold the Myth of America so dear that the very idea that +60M of their fellow Americans really are a rabble of brain-dead racists who actively hate this country is literally inconceivable to them.
And so they will flee to anyone, anywhere who will spin them a comforting fairy tale that holds the terrible truth at bay, which is why the Great Wad will always cling to the Both Sides Do It lie like grim death.
Because brothers and sisters, it is an awesome lie! The very best kind of lie! A lie that lets lazy people feel smart and well-informed and righteous while at the same time absolving them of thinking any scary thoughts or taking any meaningful action of any kind.
This is why the mainstream media will never stop feeding the public the comforting lies they wish to believe instead of shocking them with uncomfortable realities they do not want to face. Because money is the engine that drives the media. Dollars. Specifically, advertising dollars. And advertising is based on one thing.
A decade ago, many of us on the left used whatever meager public voices we had to beg Barack Obama to for God's sake, stop trying to court the good opinion of George Will and David Brooks and Charles Krauthammer, and take a good look at the real Republican Party. A party of bigots and imbeciles that was already terminally fucked in the head long before you took the oath of office and gets exponentially worse every year.
A party red in tooth and claw, who leaned into hating Obama with a kind of unhinged ecstasy. From Mary Matalin writing in The National Review in 2012:
Mendacity and Malice Won
What happened? A political narcissistic sociopath leveraged fear and ignorance with a campaign marked by mendacity and malice rather than a mandate for resurgence and reform. Instead of using his high office to articulate a vision for our future, Obama used it as a vehicle for character assassination, replete with unrelenting and destructive distortion, derision, and division...
A party which would spend Obama's entire term in office relentlessly slandering him and sabotaging every single thing he tried to accomplish just for the pleasure of making us Libtards cry. For example, here is former Representative Jean Schmidt having a spontaneous sidewalk hategasm when she thought the Supreme Court had gutted the Kenyan Usurper's Affordable Care Act and ripped health care away from tens of million of Americans.
As I said, we dirty hippie bloggers begged President Obama to take on the existential threat that was the real Republican Party instead of asking David Brooks' imaginary Republican Party to dance over and over again, but nobody listens to dirty hippie bloggers. And so, after the complete collapse of the Bush administration, Republicans -- with a massive assist from the mainstream media -- were allowed to simply disappear from the scene and re-brand themselves en masse as "independents" and "tea partiers" until the coast was clear.
Then they regrouped and elected Donald Trump.
And so here we are again, with a Republican party now fully revealed as the party of bigots and imbeciles we dirty hippies have always said they were. With the mainstream media now fully revealed as the craven, complicit husk we have always known it to be.
Here we are again, hobbling our way through yet another ongoing series of hellacious Republican presidential clusterfucks which has once again provided the entire world with indisputable proof that the Left really has been right about the Right all along.
And that was the exact moment that Liberals waaaay up the food chain from me decided it would be an excellent time to started throwing themselves at the Never Trumpers like drunk prom dates.
And before we continue, I need pause for a moment to make one thing abundantly clear: I actually believe in redemption and forgiveness and all the rest of that good stuff. Not only does my faith required it of me, but it's also a very practical way to make it through life with a minimum of agita.
However before getting to the forgive and the forget, first must come confession.
Then repentance.
Then contrition.
Then atonement.
Then and only then can come absolution.
But this is not the path most Never Trumpers are willing to walk. They are a smug and entitled little clique used to a life of deference and never being held accountable for anything. As one disreputable Liberal blogger put it almost exactly one year ago ("The Aristocrats") they are the dispossessed Russian aristocracy of American politics:
And once it all blew up in their faces -- once it became obvious (yet again) that they never had the slightest idea what was really going on in their own country and that the Left had been right about the Right all along and -- the Never Trumpers reacted exactly you would expect entitled royalty to react.
Exactly like exiled Russian aristocracy after the revolution.
Aristocrats who had been run out of their out of their country by the serfs they had exploited.
Aristocrats who suddenly found themselves financially dependent on the largess of people they detested.
Aristocrats who, with that special, asshole-arrogance that comes with an inbred sense of entitlement, become indignant when their hosts don't snap to and do as they're told.
Aristocrats who still believe in their God-given right to command a national spotlight and who go right on airily insisting they know what the serfs really want.
So no contrition for them. Instead what they demand is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called, in a different context and a darker time, "cheap grace":
From The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945):
...
Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing….
Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian ‘conception’ of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins…. In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of God, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God.
Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything they say, and so everything can remain as it was before. ‘All for sin could not atone.’ Well, then, let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world’s standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin….
Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance,1 baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession…. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate...
And this I do not consent to.
So, having seen the nightmare consequence of letting Republican off the hook once before -- of letting them lie about their own past and their own complicity while standing in the ruins they left in their wake -- it seemed inconceivable to me that for the sake of some transient, feel-good validation, the Liberal establishment would make exactly the same mistake again.
That having once again slogged our way to the undisputed moral and political high ground, the Liberal establishment would decided to give it away to Rick Wilson and Bill Kristol and Steve Schmidt and Joe Walsh.
But they did, because, as I have already mentioned, nobody listens to dirty Liberal bloggers, especially those who have the bad taste to keep remembering embarrassing things in public.
So, since no one is listening anyway, let me tell you what our collective future probably looks like.
As the Lincoln Project become the ascendant, anti-Trump voice in the American political media, prepare for more and more of your allies (who also happen to be members of that same professional media ecosystem) to get more and more irritated at anyone who keeps asking really basic questions about, say, Rick Wilson's very recent past. You know, the same sorts of basic questions -- What did you do before this? Why did you leave? Have you ever done bad stuff? Can we talk to your former employer? -- that my stepdaughter had to answer to work at McDonald's.
Prepare to see the George W. Bush Administration mostly redeemed. Come on, he did some good stuff! And he's such an affable, god-fearin' man. And that whole Iraq thing, well there is plenty of blame to go around and a lot of it was Cheney. Really, ol' Dubya gets a bad rap.
Prepare to see the Sensible Center relocated to somewhere well to the right of Joe Scarborough, with the spectrum of Serious and Legitimate political opinions which will be permitted on cable teevee to range from David Brooks and Bill Kristol on one side, to Joe Walsh and Tom Cotton on the other. And once again, you and I and all of our inconvenient questions and encyclopedic memory of the past will vanish completely, because just like last time, what will go down in the books as "history" will depend entirely on who controls the cameras and where they are pointing them.
And (if you will allow me a brief aside) this is what cracks me up about all the "We need them now but we'll dump them later" progressives I run into on social media. And so to them I ask the following: Who exactly is this "we" that will dump the Lincoln Project once "we" are done with them? Did "we" suddenly inherit an ownership stake in The New York Times? Are "we" now on the executive boards of NBC and CNN and NPR and did I just miss it? And if "we" suddenly have it within our power to decide who gets camera time and who gets axed, how come "we" can't get Chuck Todd fired? Or Bret Stephens? Or Joe Scarborough?
Hell, "we" can't even summon the collective firepower to get Meet the Press to stop putting Hugh Fucking Hewitt on the air, so enough with this "We'll get 'em tomorrow" piffle. Because the Liberal establishment is already busy trading that tomorrow away because for some reason they cannot get it through their heads that these outcast and unrepentant Republican torpedoes and henchmen are using them -- standing on their shoulders and embezzling their credibility -- and not the other way around.
So, what happens when the Trump regime is decapitated and a handful of the worst offenders are driven momentarily into the shadows, but the party apparatus itself is kept intact and is taken over by the Lincoln Project lads and their fellow travelers?
Because you know damn well that's the end-game.
That was the plan in 2016 when the Never Trumpers gambled that Hillary Clinton would clobber Trump, who would, in turn, drag the GOP down with him, thus leaving the door open for them to could sweep to power as the "We Warned You" brigade, and it remains the plan today.
But trying to (re)build a competitive "True" Conservative political party without donors, a national party infrastructure and tens of millions of rank-and-file supporters is trying to build a skyscraper without steel and concrete and glass.
So where will they find those tens of millions of supporters? Poach them from the Democrats?
Of course not.
Magically activate the roughly one-third of the country who are contentedly drunk on cheap Both Siderist popskull and have proven beyond a doubt that they will not step out and take a stand on any issue ever?
Never. Gonna. Happen.
The only viable cache of potential voters large enough and available enough for a new "True" Conservative political party would have to come from the same toxic source from which the GOP has been cultivating and harvesting voters for decades -- that zombie army of tens of millions of reprogrammable racist Republican meatbags who currently swear that the sun rises and sets on Donald John Trump.
And once Trump falls, those people are gonna do exactly what they did after the Fall of Dubya. As your humble scrivener wrote more than a decade ago:
Like German soldiers after the fall of Berlin, they have stopped running away from the catastrophe they created only long enough to burn their uniforms.
So with tens of millions of racist Republican shitheads scrambling to once again escape responsibility for yet another catastrophe they created, be prepared for The Lincoln Project and their fellow travelers to go into the Mass Absolution Business.
Big time.
Republican politicians will be pardoned for their misdeeds and allowed to cop a plea of "I was doing what I thought was best for my constituents under these terrible circumstances"...as long as they kiss the ring of the new Republican Party power-brokers
Republican voters will be granted a general reprieve for, well, y'know, reasons.
Lots of reasons. Hillary was a divisive monster so they had no choice. Democrats are dirty, dirty commies. Barack Obama was a Hateful Divider who ruined the economy and something something economic anxiety.
Whatever.
The important lesson Republicans have had drilled into them over and over again for the past 30 years is that if they just stick together, if they just lie and deny hard enough and loud enough, in the end they will always be allowed to get away with murder because neither the mainstream media nor the Great Wad of the general public want any part of that fight.
So just like last time, it won't matter how ludicrously flimsy the predicate for this Great Amnesty will be and it won't matter how much you and I might shout --
-- because they will keep getting away with it.
Because just like last time, all that will matter is who controls the cameras and where they point them. And they won't be pointing them at you and me, kiddo. They will be pointing them at a small clutch of professional Republican goon and ratfuckers who will be credited by the mainstream media with Saving the Republic. But this time when Republicans voters and the lion's share of Republican politicians are let off the hook, they will be getting their Great Amnesty thanks to the terms under which the Liberal establishment surrendered to the Never Trumpers.
By agreeing that 2016 is the new Year Zero.
By agreeing that every Republican's actions prior to 2016 are off-limits now and forever.
The New Big Lie would incorporate some elements of the Old Big Lie ("Both Sides Do It") --
We should ALL,the Dems,the GOP,the media,admit our role in turning politics into theatre. Being outrageous equals clicks,viewers & therefore ratings & $ for media & fame for politicians. Being normal gets you ignored & a primary challenger for being “too weak”.
I fear we’re headed toward a place where hefty majorities of both sides of the electorate are going to regularly embrace unsupported and blatantly false assertions.
Technological fragmentation of media enabled it, and siloed fan-servicing media practices are accelerating it... https://t.co/DK1UwQNpA9
-- and some minor variations, but the major themes would be:
Surprise! Donald Trump is not a real Republican. Despite the fact that he rolled up historic victories in the Republican primaries, easily wiped out an entire field of better-qualified Republican contenders, was nominated by the Republican Party, won on the Republican ticket, and has made the Republican congress into his willing political bidet, somehow Donald Trump is not a real Republican. This is a lie which Joe Scarborough is particularity fond of, having repeated on his teevee show, by my count, about seven million times over the past three years. Joe Scarborough, who might as well have handed Trump a personal check for 100 million dollars for all the free air-time he gave him.
Also, for you kids keeping score at home, Donald Trump is not a real Conservative either.
Because Donald Trump cannot be a real Republican (nor a real Conservative) a deus ex machina must be quickly tinkered together to explain how he was nominated and how he won as a Republican. And thus "Economic Anxiety" was born -- the magical plot device which, though never actually explained, by sheer, sledgehammer media repetition became the commonly accepted excuse for why, in less than one year, Donald Trump transformed David Brooks' Burkean, forward-looking "detoxified" Republican Party of 2014 into the shitpile of racism, ignorance, paranoia and rage Republican Party of 2015.
The creation of an agreed-upon canonical time-line that divides all of history into BE (Before Escalator) and AE( After Escalator). Before Escalator: David Brooks' Burkean, forward-looking "detoxified" Republican Party After Escalator: A shitpile of racism, ignorance, paranoia and rage of "Economic Anxiety".
So prepare for all of that.
Prepare to see the Bush-Off Machine retooled, repainted, gassed up and rolled out as the Trump-Off Machine.
Prepare to witness the glorious fulfillment of Mr. David Brooks' Great Project. From me, a very long time ago:
And once actual Liberal voices have been all but ablated from the American political media, prepare to see your new BFFs at the Lincoln Project begin to turn their guns on your favorite "crazy leftist socialist" soon after the 2020 election.
As they come for your Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, prepare to see this massive lurch to the right affirmed by quotes citing all the praise the Liberal establishment is currently heaping on the Never Trumpers. "But you said Bill Kristol was an honorable man. But you said Rick Wilson is a national treasure."
Prepare for the GOP to go right on being exactly the same monster factory is has always been, but marginally more cunning. The same old shitpile of bigots and imbeciles, but without the leader of the party saying the quiet racist crazy part out loud every god damn day.
Prepare for Donald Trump to permanently become the low bar which Republican politicians will be required to clear. Which means that, if you're a Republican, as long as you don't masturbate on camera while quoting "Mein Kampf", congratulations, you're now a bona fide Sensible and Serious Republican! Just like Eisenhower!
And as the New Republican Party busies itself grooming more careful and cunning fascists like Tom Cotton for high office, prepare for every Beltway media outlet to lose their collective minds the minute the Justice Department under a Democratic president goes after any of the Trump Traitors.
The chorus of "But you said 'Lock Her Up' was wrong! But you said prosecuting your political enemies was wrong!" will be deafening.
(For those of you who are unfamiliar with the expression, selling one's birthright for a mess of pottage is a reference to the Biblical character of Esau, who sold his birthright for a meal of lentils (Genesis 25:29-34). It means to hastily and foolishly trade something of great, but deferred value for something of low, but immediate value.)
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