As I said weeks ago, it was around the time of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing that I unfollowed The Lincoln Project and just stopped participating in all of that “conversation.” Sure, those “ex-Republicans” made some good ads and they had a good social media campaign. But once you realize that all of those dudes were 100% for Amy Coney Barrett, you can’t unlearn that. You can’t unsee it. They aren’t ex-Republicans. They’re just Republicans who disliked Donald Trump. Even though they had a lot in common with Trump, in that they are all a pack of grifters. From Jacobin Magazine:
A group of longtime Republican operatives depicting themselves as anti-Trump stalwarts convinced liberals to give them more money for ineffective television ads and stunts than was raised by the Democratic Party’s national campaign to win state legislatures. The result: Donald Trump won more Republican votes than he did in 2016 as Democrats again lost state legislatures in advance of redistricting that could determine control of Congress for the next decade.
Meanwhile, the GOP operatives are reportedly positioned to go from lighting liberals’ money on fire during the 2020 election to now using liberals’ money to launch a media empire that could push a new Biden administration to the right.
The GOP super PAC, called the Lincoln Project, raised at least $67 million this year from liberals who were told by one of the group’s cofounders that it would win over “independent-leaning men, those college-educated Republicans, the suburban Republican women.” The Lincoln Project was cofounded by Steve Schmidt, who was John McCain’s 2008 campaign manager and who has been publicly boasting that he led the campaigns to help George W. Bush install right-wing judges on the Supreme Court.
While the Lincoln Project’s YouTube videos lampooning Trump received millions of views and endless promotion on MSNBC, the ads proved ineffective in the group’s stated goal: As the Daily Poster first reported, Trump actually increased his share of the Republican vote in 2020 as compared to 2016, when the Lincoln Project did not exist. In all, Trump had support from 91 percent of Republicans and voters who lean Republican, according to a Fox News Voter Analysis that surveyed 109,000 people nationwide just before the election. Although Biden outperformed 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton in suburban areas, Trump won a higher percentage of white women in 2020.
As Lincoln Project burned liberals’ money on unpersuasive videos and expensive stunts — including a Times Square billboard in the uncontested locale of Manhattan — the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee raised far less money in its battle for control of legislatures. The subsequent losses at the state level mean Republicans will now be in a position “to draw favorable maps that will help them elect their preferred state and federal representatives for the next five election cycles,” according to a post-election report by Politico.
I have zero doubts that the Lincoln Project did little of its stated charter. But the one thing I’d like to point out is that the data about who voted for whom and the actual demographic breakdown of the election is going to take a bit longer to compile and analyze. On Wednesday morning, people were overreacting WILDLY to supposed demographic breakdowns about white women voting for Trump, and I think – as we can now see in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin – that a lot of white women were voting for Biden. I think the data is incomplete because they were assessing who showed up at the polls on Election Day (Republicans), and they weren’t accounting for the absentee ballots (which skewed so heavily Democratic).
Now, all that being said, the Lincoln Project is trash and the men behind it are trash. The grift began wafting off of that whole thing months ago, and it was compounded by the near complete silence around Amy Coney Barrett. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter to call out the scam as well:
It’s not too late for them to do the right thing. Lincoln Project should take the L and publicly pledge to give a lot of their fundraising to the people who actually made a big difference. https://t.co/kW7mJMF5IF
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 7, 2020
There’s potential incentive bc @ProjectLincoln is def in scam territory w these results. It’s a pretty bad rep even tho GOP has a thing for failing up.
Come clean, say “listen, we thought it’d work, it didn’t,& in good faith we’re gonna raise X mil for these ppl who deserve it”
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 7, 2020
It’s morning in America. pic.twitter.com/I8vbiZ7kWy
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) November 7, 2020
Screencap of Steve Schmidt, courtesy of MSNBC.
I am proud to say that I’ve never bought into their grifty shtick and muted/blocked them all on twitter early on – Wilson, Conway, Schmidt – every single one of these guys. I hated the fact that “progressive” Twitter was so slavishly taken with them. I honestly think that these people are worse than Trump, because, unlike him, they are intelligent and know exactly what they do. It’s Schmidt who brought Sarah Palin to the grown-up’s table and paved the way for the Tea Party. So they can fuck off all the way to the no man’s land. Only they won’t.
“Progressive twitter” wasn’t taken in by LP. It was Centrist/Resister twitter that loved them. Some of them are still defending LP and attacking AOC!
Yes, AOC is their progressive punching bag. I’m sick of people telling her shut up and sit down when she’s one of the only people willing to actually stand up for progressive ideas and principles. They rather ally with actual republicans than meaningfully engage with the left.
Please don’t come here saying Centrist Dems caped for Lincoln Project…cause THAT ain’t true…we were giving our $ to ACTUAL DEMS in record breaking amounts… and STOP acting like Progressive Dems whose BIGGEST political achievement THUS FAR…was helping to get POS Trump elected in the FIRST place…is the savior of the Democratic Party…the folks who gave LP money are the folks who were trying to allay their guilt for voting for that horror…
America STILL needs to obviously learn that the sweet spot for politics…IS IN THE MIDDLE…which is where ANYTHING…worth ANYTHING…politically…has ALWAYS been set.
Well, progressive dems didn’t get taken in by LP AND I guess centrist dems say they weren’t taken in by LP now so NO dems gave LP any money. Problem solved!
I got so dragged on Twitter for saying Lincoln Project was a marketing campaign for the founders and paid for by Democrats.
Agree, AH-GREE LaLa, on everything you noted. And especially on the guilt of those who needed to believe in something Republican after throwing their lot behind Trump in the first place. It was basically the cowards way out. They can stay loyal to their party (not country) but also claim to be against Trump (despite the fact that the LP is Trump, just less Cheeto).
@ LaLa- real progressives held their noses and voted blue, despite any objections we might have to the candidate. Anyone claiming to be progressive and voted for Trump is NOT progressive. Please use common sense.
Every time I found myself beginning to like to Steve Schmidt I had to remind myself that he gave us Sarah Palin. I followed them for a while on Facebook but stopped a while back when it became clear that they weren’t exactly what they trying to make us think they were. And it never ceases to irritate me the Republicans “claim” of Lincoln. Yes, he was a Republican, but we all know the parties have flipped with what they represent and stand for, and by today’s political standards Lincoln was very much a Democrat, so Republicans invoking his name seems very hypocritical.
Did you ever see the Late Show’s segment “Tooning the News” with Rick Wilson? It’s reminiscent of the way The Daily Show/ Colbert Report would take someone down by complimenting them. He was visibly fuming by the end.
If not you should check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNvuYPpX0C0
OMG that was amazing. The awkward silence at the end had me howling.
Great clip! I thought they had good ads, but didn’t know much of their back story. I never donated because I knew that they were republicans and that their “talents” would turn against dems the minute Trump was gone.
All I know is that while I enjoyed their ads humiliating drumpf, I didn’t trust them as far as I could throw them. It was clear to me that they were fine with the actual policies and direction of this administration, they just didn’t like a moronic madman being the face of the party.
So, no, there was no way I would contribute to the LP. My donations went directly to the candidates (and are still going directly to the Georgia candidates now).
Same here. I like the ads, but they are republiTHUGS at heart, and will support a “decent” (ha!) R the minute the Moldy Orange Lame Duck is gone. They are FINE with unqualified right-wing judges stacking/packing the Fed/lower courts, and REALLY fine w/the make-up of SCOTUS.
Don’t trust them. And NEVER forget, Conway is STILL MARRIED to CryptKeeper KellyAnne CONw(m)an with her “alternate facts” agenda.
My donations and volunteering have gone, and will directly go, to Dem candidates, and esp. now, Georgia’s Dem race.
My feeling as a pragmatist was: these fuckers helped craft the current GOP, but hell, as Sun Tzu said.” the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” This was my POV. I never gave them a penny, but I do think they had some sway with some (I) and (R) voters.
I love the New Abnormal podcast bc Molly and Rick are really great together-she has such fun and indulgent laughter. I must say I was pleasantly surprised to hear RW admit that he had had a significant hand in crafting the fkn GOP of today, and regrets it. That said, I have no idea about what he & the rest of LP are using funds to line their pockets. GOP= Grifty Old Pricks, after all. Rick has a great vocabulary, and I enjoy that.
All that said, donate to Rev Warnock and Jon Ossof as often as you can- directly to their sites…this coming from the midwest, the current covid epicenter😷
Folks really gave these grifters money to do what the teens are doing for free on TikTok lol.
Yeah I mean they’re part of the federalist society. I always assumed that once they got rid of trump they’d go right back to ultra conservative shilling. I didn’t even know that average people gave them money. I thought they had secured funds from wealthy never trumper Republicans. This is all besides the fact that they are directly responsible for the current Republican party and conservative supreme court we’re currently stuck with.
Yeah, I’m not sure how many liberals actually gave them money. I enjoyed some of their ads and burns on Twitter but it always seemed to me like they were just preaching to the choir. Seems like they were.
And damn that is a lot of money that could have gone to candidates and to orgs actually getting out the vote.
Exactly! I don’t know any liberals who redirected money to them from dem campaigns. I appreciate their help in driving that Orange man crazy and making it ok for some republicans with morals to vote for Biden, but I never thought for one moment that they were suddenly democrats. They even said that if you follow them on Twitter. They were always going to be true conservatives who disagree with me on 99% of policy, but wanted the amoral, narcissistic conman and cult out of the White House. And if they only changed a small number of votes I’m absolutely ok with that.
Did Michael Steele hook up with them? Because after the election, he did a video saying they were going to work on re-branding the GOP, Marco Rubio too. The way the GOP threw all in for trump, ESPECIALLY with coddling him over losing, there’s no redemption there. I can’t believe Steele is still in the party, must be Stockholm Syndrome.
Schmidt left the party officially and I think Steele did too though I’m not positive.
I, for one, enjoyed every ad they produced. I also did not contribute one thin dime. A win/win for me. Yes…they are probably complicit aholes. They helped to rid the country of an even bigger ahole so for that I thank them so much. Baby steps.
Me, too. I enjoyed every ad. The one with trump calling women names and saying it affects our nation’s daughters psychologically–*chef’s kiss*. That being said, I never gave them a dime.
Yeah, this was me too. I watched their ads, sometimes retweeted them. I never gave them a dime and after I found out regular people were giving them money I unfollowed them because I though that stank to high heaven. I mean they are still republicans!
Same. I really enjoyed the ads, but I never donated to them.
I look at it kind of like when Thor teams up with Loki. They need him for a specific mission, but they also know that at some point Loki is going to screw them over. The Lincoln Project was good for this particular election, but we know they’re going to screw us over.
This is exactly how I look at them.
Of course they are going to screw us over eventually.
But we are so close to having an actual fascist dictator right now, that their added voice and ads are welcome.
We currently have a coup going on, and the more noise about that the better
@kkat exactly. Well put
perfect analogy is perfect!
Same here. I shared a few of their videos, but any time someone mentioned giving them money, I asked them to give to grassroots organizations or the candidates themselves instead.
I appreciate anyone and everyone who contributed to trump being voted out, and I would be the LP may helped with some of those votes, but I never forgot who they are.
Being outside the US, ads from LP were the only electoral ads I came across on social media. Whether they made any impact, we might not know but they certainly had reach and on social media that’s what matters. At the end of the day, every action mattered no matter how small. I’m hoping however that at the very least its anti-Trump message had an effect globally to reduce/minimise the appeal for trumpism outside of the US. Hopefully, going forward, more focus is given to grassroots efforts.
Same, I enjoyed their ads. Never gave them money, but people are free to donate their money as they wish.
Don’t dismiss this.
The Lincoln Project’s social media accounts are monetized, as are the members’ accounts. Every click, each view, puts money in their pockets. Every like, share, or retweet furthers their influence, an invaluable free marketing campaign, making them more money.
TLP recently announced they opened a political consulting business, based off their “successful” campaign that literally ate the attention and money that should have gone to fighting for the SCOTUS seat and putting Democrats in the Senate and smaller races.
I’ve been speaking out against them publicly since the hit my radar in early February. These self-proclaimed ‘saviors of democracy’ riding in at the 11th hour in December of 2019 only had two things in mind: Reboot the Republican party and get rich doing it. Thanks to everyone’s insane participation, they are a screaming success and making bank on it — while also taking credit for the real hard work put in by marginalized and minority communities that scored the actual wins here.
The enemy of the enemy is not your friend, and these people are not allies. It’s time for liberal and progressive supporters to wake up, see The Lincoln Project con artists for who they are, own that they were wrong to trust and support them, and publicly speak out against them.
If court-stacking Conway’s fifteen year-old daughter can do it, so can the rest of you.
Agree Kitten
Is anyone really surprised? LP feels very much like the “palatable, competent Nazi” machine starting up for 2024. Just need a handsome man with the right haircut, a pretty wife, and 3-4 kids.
I’m with @ Fluffy. They were useful tools against Trump, but I never gave them my money and I fully expect them to work against Biden in 2024.
The Lincoln Project was always for centrists and Republicans and not progressives and they had been clear about it from the outset. The goal was to get rid of Trump not push AOC’s goals. The exit poll information is not going to be accurate, but the votes cast for that orange buffoon show there are still a lot of Americans who wanted that jerk as president. Clearly the more left Democrat values don’t appeal to a large portion of Americans and the problem with a purity test from someone like AOC who is in a safe Dem seat, is that it won’t attract a lot of the more centrist voters. Abigail Spanberger almost lost her seat and Conor Lamb had a tough ride and all the Dem seats lost were in red districts. There is clearly something Dems are missing in some areas and if you want to be elected you have to work with the people in your district who may be different from the voters in NYC. People who gave to the Lincoln Project gave to them for a reason, because they were appealing to a need they didn’t see elsewhere.
I note that Stacy Abrams, who did excellent work in Georgia is not attacking other groups from her perch. She is in the trenches doing the work. Same with Beto. Right now AOC seems to be doing a lot of Twitter wars and while that attracts one crowd, it’s not all Americans.
It’s so hard to articulate, but the vilification of centrists Democrats is a real issue. Most older and mid-life Dems are pretty centrist and not on the far left of the spectrum. AOC is an impressive woman but she is also very much a populist who likes to be out in front and make a lot of noise. Playing a blame game when we are still counting votes and dealing with a petulant, maniacal person in the white house is the absolute worst thing to do. Present a united front and move on to dealing with the issues needing work right now like getting Georgia to turn blue for the Senate. Let’s go over game play after Biden takes office and the runoff is over. It drives me crazy. You are so right about Stacy Abrams. She is incredible and she just does THE WORK. She doesn’t need to be adored, she just does what needs to be done for the greater good.
Biden/Harris is a centrist ticket but, after the election, centrists like Spanberger started trying to blame progressives for down-ballot losses. AOC spoke out in response to that. Centrists shouldn’t start an argument if they don’t want there to be an argument.
Yeah, I’m a moderate Democrat and I live in the south. I think progressives bring a lot to the table for the party, new ideas, fresh energy, good outreach skills and I’m genuinely glad they’re here in the party, but contrary to Twitter they don’t make up a majority of Democrats. Dems aren’t going to capitulate to progressives until they start flipping seats which maybe they eventually will, but for now they tend to win in already blue areas. It’s honestly not a dig. I tend to think we all (dems) have similar end goals, we just disagree on how to get there.
A lot of democratic districts are very different from AOCs and don’t have the solid blue cushion she has – they have to be more moderate, which I don’t think is a dirty word. The party in-fighting has to stop from all sides.
I know centrists dems don’t want to hear this, but they are Republicans in Europe. You are the conservatives.
If you want great free/affordable education, housing, healthcare, etc. in your lifetimes, you need to pull back from your centrist mantra. Only saying that you’ll vote pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, then start talking in parables when progressives say “defund the police,” “BLM” and “nationalized healthcare” isn’t going to help create a party that is working towards a more just America.
I guess after coming from full-fledged Nazism, America is not ready to be progressive, but we need a MASSIVE course-correction if we ever want to avoid this situation again. Centrism isn’t the solution for me because I don’t want to be just left of fascism.
@Lemons – that’s fine, – I’m pretty liberal myself, and I live in a very blue district in a very blue state. But calling centrists “left of fascists” (which is so ridiculous btw) overlooks the reality of congressional districts. If we want power in the House and Senate, we need to get people elected from the Dem party. That’s how we get control of committees. that’s how we diminish McConnell’s power.
I don’t believe politicians should pander their beliefs to their constituents, I think they should try to convince their constituents of their (the politician’s) beliefs and persuade them to see why their stance is correct. But its also just fact that what sells in AOC’s district or my super blue district is not going to sell in Jared Lamb’s district and by insisting that anyone centrist is “just left of Nazism” isn’t going to help Jared Lamb hold onto his seat. And we need his seat. We cant govern if we aren’t in power.
@Becks1 I’m a progressive in Georgia living in France, so I see a lot of “the sides.”
Being at the center literally means just that. It doesn’t matter what views the center holds, those on the right of center were ready to support a fascist regime. How do you negotiate with that? Why? So those centrists dems, if they are not working to educate their constituents are preaching to people who seem to be okay with slaughtering the “liberals” and “anti-fa” w/e that is. Democrats have to realize that IF these voters are lost causes, they need to focus on energizing those who didn’t vote and those who will vote when they are of age. That might be the best way to bring the older “lost” generation back to the left.
And the centrists need to be building a stronger coalition with progressives rather than blaming them for lost elections. It’s not AOC’s fault nor her platform that will affect Jared Lamb’s election if he is reaching his constituents.
I agree with Becks – my district flipped to blue in 2018 and thankfully stayed there again, but it’s split over a red county and a blue county. If AOC ran here, she’d never win, but we have a fairly moderate rep who does a lot of work with veterans and seniors, and managed to get re-elected, which is important.
I like AOC, and wish everywhere could be that progressive, but given the 4 years we just had, Dems controlling the House is vital, and to do that some reps need to be more centrist.
Abigail Spanberger didn’t almost lose her seat, she just suffered from the same red mirage Biden did. She won by almost 2 points in a former red district. Though I tend to agree with the idea that progressives are not going to be able to win in areas outside of cities, California and the northeast currently. Candidates reflect their constituency. I think the party is big enough for both moderates and progressives. We have the same end goals. Demanding that either branch capitulate absolutely is unrealistic and unfair to the people who elected them.
@Chris, I love your statement: “Candidates reflect their constituency.” For a good chunk of my 20s, I worked for centrist Democrats in the south. I was a legislative assistant for the House Minority Leader in my state. He was a Democrat representing a very red area, but he was respected, because he did good things for his constituents.
For me, AOC is hit or miss. I appreciate many of her talking points, particularly about how expensive it is to be in Congress. But I loathe purity tests, and I think she doesn’t always back up her statements with work. @Nic919 is absolutely right. AOC is in a safe seat. People like Spanberger are not. They have to employ a slightly different strategy to stay in the game.
Purity tests are the reason why Congress can’t get anything done. We can badmouth that melting turtle and GOP all we want about stonewalling legislation but the AOC group’s purity test/all or nothing mentality is equally a problem.
If you want to look at progessive politics run amok look no further than San Francisco – where the school board wants to spend money they don’t have on rebranding all the school names (no, they want to rename Washington, Lincoln, and Lowell with other names not numbers like NY). Plus they also want to get rid of Lowell’s admissions requirements and put them in the lotto. Lowell is a college prep school where kids have to meet a certain gpa and state testing requirements to get in. Private school kids have to take an entrance exam. The school board basically called kids working hard to get in “racists.”
I think a lot of people forget, too, that those centrist Democrats in red states lean conservative because they are legitimately the better option and quite often are protecting their constituents from far more harmful right wing candidates. The unfortunate reality is that as popular as Sanders is among young people, he’s not winning those primaries. People can rail about the DNC all they want, but at the end of the day, the votes just weren’t there – and this election proved hands down that even with voter suppression, if enough people show up to fight, we can overturn it. If the passion was there for Sanders, we would’ve done it, but we’ve got time to go before we are there.
Good analysis. As a European living in a Northern, progressive country I totally agree with your assessment. I think even for us observing from afar is quite clear that the majority of Americans do not want a progressive agenda and think that centrism is where it’s at. As much as this sounds disappointing to progressives, it’s time to accept that and move forward to establishing a majority again before (rightly) pushing for better policies.
Yeah, I don’t rule out that the general public may get more progressive over time and that’s fine, but that’s not where we’re at right now. AOC appeals to and attracts youth votes to the party, but Spanbergers flip seats in red areas. And we need to win, we cannot make policy if we don’t win.
Exactly. The LP NEVER said they were ex-Republicans and I think they were very clear in what they wanted to do. Get rid of Donald Trump. Everyone knew that as soon as that was successful they’d turn their ire back to the Democratic party. It’s only matter of time before they start attacking Biden/Harris.
Personally I am center left socially and closer to left of center fiscally. I NEVER vote red on the federal level and I mostly vote blue on the state and local level with a few reds – though in the past four years it’s been all blue all the time.
I don’t know why AOC believes that Black people as a bloc are progressive. The Black South Carolinians MADE Biden. I mean what does that say? Of course I speak without citation on this but I believe that we are a bell curve with the majority falling left and right of center, and center. It’s good to have AOC, but I do wonder if she truly understands that unless your constituents like what you are offering you won’t win an election? I get tired of her attacking her colleagues for their “lack of progressiveness,” when those colleagues don’t have districts that want that platform. It’s easier for a group to pull one person along than it is for one person to push a group of people. AOC isn’t pushing any groups, she’s being pulled along by people who want what she offers. And that’s great because her voice is needed. However, it in no way diminishes the need and validity for other voices. For instance she was talking about getting John Clyburn primaried out. If she thinks she can make that happen, she has another thing coming.
But back to the topic at hand. I certainly hope every few liberals gave money to the LP. They were fun to watch, but no.
The fact that we’re now claiming their ads were trash all along is unfair. I live in a very deep red county in PA and am involved in a grassroots dem group. We HAVE to team up with level headed Republicans (however few are left) if we want to pull the center back to a non-bigoted place. Our goal in my county was to simply remind blue collar dems and educated republicans that you are smarter than this, and you can rebuild your party without Trump. That was step 1. Those people are always going to be Pro-Life and want pro life courts, but if we can prevent them from electing another Trump and get them to feel shame again when they say something racist, it’s a win.
I think focusing on Trump is the problem. It’s not Trump, it’s the Republican pro-corporate, anti- people agenda that is the issue. We have to keep hammering that it’s the message that’s the problem, not the spokesman. The LP want people to believe that only Trump is the bad guy. And really the only issue they have with Trump is that he’s an embarrassing buffoon.
@msiam absolutely right. Trump wouldn’t be where he is without the support of the Republican party. The LP never looked at WHY trump was so successful in their party. They acted like he was the problem, not the symptom.
I agree with both points I think. LP did help bring a few never Trump R’s over to vote for Biden, and I can appreciate that. But I agree the base values of the party are not beneficial to most citizens, and the problem is bigger than Trump.
Personally I will probably never vote for a Republican, at any level, but I would much prefer to be arguing over policy, taxes, etc, rather than have the opposing side be full on Nazis and domestic terrorists.
Their ads were good because the Dem party is so bad at ads like that and I honestly think better ads directly calling out Trump in 2016 might have made a difference. I do think that the Biden campaign was a lot better at social media and ads than Hillary’s campaign was.
But beyond that – I never donated, and I do always think their goal was clear – get rid of Trump. They’re probably thrilled with the results of state legislatures. If people thought they would feel otherwise, then they really were fooled.
Part of Hillary’s problem was that she EXPECTED to win. She felt it was “owed” her, after stepping back for Obama.
Good luck on the 55% of white women thing, that’s cemented. I don’t believe 53% voted for him in 2016 either, when it all shook out a plurality, not a majority, of white women voted for him that year. But I had to eat it every day anyway, and I’ll have to eat this, because it just feels so good to tweet about and add in that Karens don’t wash their legs…really doesn’t matter if it’s true, nobody cares. I ate it for four years, but I’ve blocked the viciously misogynistic tweeters this year. I’m done with all that. But they aren’t. So 55% is now fact, and that’s that.
Experts say to never trust exit polls, that the exit polls were debunked by solid deep research.
I don’t mind it being acknowledged that white women have racial issues they need to reconcile in our inner circles. I do get irritated when it’s used as an across the board insult to distract from the fact that white men voted for him in greater numbers both times, and when it’s ignored that if you break it down across age lines, there’s a noticeably higher percentage among younger white women who vote progressive. It’s a problem, but I’m not here for white men using it as a bludgeon to pretend they don’t have the majority of power and responsibility to correct their role in this.
Exactly Veronica. I’m not really here for ANY men using it as a bludgeon against women. I don’t mind it from black women, and I agree we have a lot of problems among white women though.
I am not saying it’s not true. I could totally believe this, but I am deeply skeptical of this year’s exit polling. I mean how are they exit polling the mail in ballot voters that we know trended democratic? The pollsters say they are doing things like “weighting” and supplementing with follow up phone calls, but there are too many variables in this pandemic election. One article I read, I don’t remember where? Maybe CNN earlier this week said that college educated white women voted for Biden in greater numbers that Clinton. Two points higher I believe. Non college educated white women voted for Trump at the same rate this year as in 2020. A big difference is the new voter registrations in the Republican party. They did a better job of it. So I’m not sure if we’re seeing an actual increase percentage wise, or just a truer reflection of what was there because many non voters decided to vote this time. Either way it’s disheartening.
No one likes to mention 47% of white women didn’t vote for Trump. We are a huge voting base. Nothing will progress in the long run by arming an agenda with guilt and misogyny. I was a far left progressive Bernie supporter. I moved center left because of the ever increasing vitriol and misogyny from progressives, especially men.
A good friend of mine works for the Lincoln Project. He is LGBT and grew up in a conservative household but has become steadily liberal over the years. He also worked for Hillary Clinton in 2016. He has a good heart and genuinely wanted to devote his skills to defeating Donald Trump, and the Lincoln project was who hired him to do it. He believes his ad sales were vital to helping swing Arazona. I dont known if that is true. I do know that he is a lovely person and does not like ACB or anything else Trump has inflicted on us. He cares about famly separation and health care and protecting America diversity.
Any progressive I knew with a healthy dose of skepticism was wary of Lincoln Project from the start. Frankly, we should be wary of anything conservative at this point. The Republican party is a fascist organization. They back a fascist. They’re helping to sow chaos and fear regarding the democratic progress in this country because they lost. If we do not show up over and over again to reject them at the polls, they will put another demagogue in line in 2024. Their only real complain with Trump is that he was incompetent.
I enjoyed the ads I saw but they will never get one cent from me, I will never follow them. Can’t even start. If you thought Reagan and GW were your guys you are part of the problem, and part of how we got to this hellscape.
I’m a little conflicted about all of this. My mind was made up years ago, I was always going to vote down ballot democrat no matter what, so I tuned out a good chunk of the election sruff when it become too much. But there were a lot of people undecided out there (how, I will never understand). The thing I liked about the Lincoln Project was that their ads went low when other Democratic ads I saw tended to be more cookie cutter. I thought that was good because they appealled to a crassness that trump voters understand. So maybe it was a grift, but I doubt their ads didnt sway at least some voters.
Also, and I dont want to be offensive to anyone, but there’s a time and a place for AOC and right now isnt it. I’m a democrat, but I wish dems and progressives would stop fighting each other right now and come together a bit. This soon after the election is not the right time, imo, for her to be talking about in-fighting with other Dems so publically. People are paying attention, especially with the GA runoff, and it’s a turnoff. The things she’s saying are absolutely true, but gee, can she wait until I dont know, March or April, a few months after the dust has settled and not 5 days after?
AOC is used as the “ bogeyman” in political ads down here in Georgia. She’s the “dangerous radicals” that it is implied that the two democratic senate candidates are cozying up to. It’s a very different world than NY. But it is moving in the right direction, now is the time for unity and thought. “Defund the police” was the right idea with a terrible slogan that was instantly perverted. The entire party (Bernie too, and where is he? ) needs a strong unified approach that’s a little tougher than they have used in the past for their nationwide campaigns.
Separate from the. AOC/ Georgia issues, Grifters or not, the Lincoln projects ads did a lot of damage and i suspect they shamed more than a few centrists away from voting for “but my taxes and 401k” and into doing what was right. At this point, getting trump out was job 1.
100% @busyann
The whole reason behind her behavior is to put Biden and Pelosi on the defensive so that they can force decisions on cabinet and committee decisions. I agree with you that it is the wrong time and place, but AOC and Rashida T. know exactly what they are doing, and they intended on sowing division in an attempt to get their way.
100% agree
I never had to unfollow heh heh. 😁
They were patting eachother on the back yesterday saying that they helped save the country.
Nope, you didn’t turn Georgia blue, African American voters in that state did.
The only thing I found likable about these guys is the way they used to torment Trump. I never gave them a cent because I can’t abide anyone who voted for Trump even once.
Exactly!
I keep seeing “dems giving LP money and didn’t know it was a grift.” Like y’all, everyone knew who LP was all along … they were appealing to former republicans and moderates. SOME of the exit data indicates that LP did make a difference, but I’ll wait until more info shakes out before believing either side. And frankly, given how much they fucked with Trump’s head and kept him attacking LP (and not dems), it may have been worth it.
Given that AOC spent more money than almost anyone else (in a very blue district) and still got a smaller portion of the vote (last I saw) than candidates in red districts, she really needs to work on her messaging and that misleading graph that she keeps sharing.
https://twitter.com/oldladydem/status/1325522214217723910?s=21
I hope people who are criticizing AOC for being too much or that it’s not a good time to say these things realize that Doug Jones from AL and Beto O’Rourke from TX (both male) are saying the same things right now about not rushing to reject progressive ideas or their techniques for reaching voters. Feel free to call them out as well.
AOC is raising a ton of money and awareness for GA senate run-off btw.
Centrist Dems should maybe reflect on their fragility…
I enjoyed their ads and hatred of Trump but I wouldn’t have dreamed of giving them money!
Yeah. They even had a shirt I liked a lot, but I could not get past that while they may not support Trump, they’re a big part of why we had Trump. I’m so petty, I wouldn’t even “like” any of their videos on twitter, not even the ones I REALLY liked.
Also, I don’t know how the individual members felt about Trump appointing Amy Coney Barrett, but The Lincoln Project itself did not support Trump making the appointment. They issued at least one statement saying the next President should make the appointment and I remember a couple of ads about it too (but I’m only about 70% sure that at least one of the ads was theirs).
It may be fair to say they should have done more re the Barrett nomination, but it’s incorrect to say they supported it.
All you need to know about the LP grift is that they have been completely silent on the Georgia senate elections. Their issue was with Trump as a person, not with the racist Republican Party. A Dem senate might result in Dem policies, which they do not want.
They were on “60 Minutes” and Lesley Stahl asked them when they thought the party turned for the worse and they mumbled something about the Tea Party, ignoring the decades of racism ranging from dog whistles to outright race-baiting. The involvement of George Conway should have been a tip-off. And I agree with the posts above, they never fooled the left/progressives, it was always the hashtag-resistance that were their marks, people who justifiably hated Trump but see politics as a battle of personality.
The day after the election was called for Biden the Onion posted on Twitter a headline, “Lincoln Project Releases New Ad Calling for Biden Impeachment.” Perfect.
It’s funny how MSNBC hasn’t got the message, I still that bald doofus Steve Schmidt screaming monotonically at me all week.
I follow most of them and they said right off the bat they’re promoting the Democratic candidates in Georgia.
I saw this ad a little while ago, it’s their ad supporting Warnack and Ossoff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDyFqUumeGg
Just to be clear, I’m not defending The Lincoln Project, and I don’t disagree with the rest of your post. From what I’ve heard they want to get rid of Trump enablers in addition to Trump. But, as I commented above, I do think they paved the way for Trump and I do not think they acknowledge (or even realize) their part in getting us here.
That’s not true, they are constantly retweeting and posting and made ads about the two Dems running for senate in Ga.
Hmmm, they are actively working on getting both Dems elected in Georgia. There was a slight swing of independents and Republicans towards Biden. They were very vocal about how horrendous it was that Amy Coney Barrett was getting pushed through. They are extremely active in getting out the military and veteran vote. They’ve been actively calling out GOP leadership for failing to get behind Biden. You can say they don’t like AOC (and lots of moderates don’t) but I just don’t think it’s accurate to they’re going back to being Republicans. They’ve pretty much burned all of their bridges there. (And yes, of course, Stacy Abrams deserves all the credit in Georgia.)
To be honest, I side-eye even that because it verifies my feeling that the modern Democratic party is closer to the 90s Republicans and reflects how far right we’ve been pulled trying to be moderate and ceding ground to the increasingly hard right wing. I don’t know if America is ready for Sanders and AOC yet – America is very moderate-centrist outside the West Coast/upper North East wing of the United States, and it’s going to take time to swing more progressive across the board. To most Europeans, we’re flat out right wing. Clinton tried fixing healthcare all the way back in the 90s, and it got crushed out the gate by conservative groups and corporate interests. It took another decade just to get the ACA through, and that’s only with a mostly Democratic majority that had to compromise on the public option to get independent Joe Lieberman on board with the votes to pass it.
It’s why I think a lot of progressive coalitions really need to start putting as much work in at a state level to install certain programs and use them as example moving forward. At this point, unless younger people start showing up routinely with the same numbers of their elders to all elections, we’re going to see incremental change at best. There’s too much anti-socialist propaganda installed from the Cold War in the older generations to get past it.
This right here. The country is just not that far from center as whole. The votes for far-left policies are not there. I wish they were. I’m for them, but I’m a realist.
Defund the Police had to be the worst slogan of all time. Only some far out left want that. Everyone else just wants to reform the police and give funding to mental health and other supporting services that would take the pressure off the police and provide a better outcome for society.
@kacy-I read an interview with James Clyburn. He said that before John Lewis passed, they had a conversation about that very thing. He said the same thing happened to derail the civil rights movement: it got the tag “Burn baby burn.” You lose the moderates that you must have.
Yep, the moment that slogan picked up, I groaned out loud. I knew exactly how it was going to be twisted and misused by the opposite side to drum up racial anxiety and anarchist fear. The moment you have to explain your slogan, it’s failed.
Progressive movements have got to start understanding how the other side works – not to cede territory but to understand why their methods and tactics work so well. Public relations is 90% of selling something to a community, and that’s an area where I feel we keep falling down on the message.
All I can say is… “I knew it.” None of this is surprising or shocking. The enemy of your enemy is NOT your friend. More likely than not they are looking for an opportunity to screw you BOTH over.
If people want to give TLP money, that’s on them. IMO they did more to help Biden win than AOC or any one of their squad – NONE of them endorsed Joe and barely did anything to help his campaign. I won’t ever forget the booing of Hilary during the primaries. The progressives just spend most of their time on their purity tests and attacking the party while they enjoy their super safe blue seats. And then when Joe won they want to take credit when they did more harm than good and AIC just loves putting out misleading facts – she said Ilhan carried Joe in her district when JOE got more votes than she did. They’re going to do more harm than good in Georgia too, mark my words
Agree. One of the squad is my congressperson and I voted for her twice. However, while she was all over the place during the primaries, once she won, I didn’t hear a peep from her about Joe or Kamala. Same with Bernie who I follow on Facebook, after the primaries and the convention he went back to the same diatribe about the one per cent and Medicare for all, I don’t think I saw one post in support of Joe. I unfollowed him and if he runs, he won’t get my vote. My sneaking suspicion is that they prefer someone like Trump because it helps them to amplify their message. But the really dangerous progressives were the ones who pushed the “don’t vote at all” message, especially in the black community.
categorically untrue comment.
Sorry, but the rise of pillocks like this is down to the lemming urge that people have for someone “great” to follow. I’ve always been suspicious of Conway, who criticises Trump but was enthusiastically tossing his salad when KellyAnne got the job. Look at EVERY action and keep a healthy bit of skepticism. We like to think we’re better than Trumpers. But we’re actually not much different.
I never gave them any money. The last donation I made was to Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. But the Lincoln Project does have its uses – primarily trolling President Thinskin.
Centrist Dems gave money to fund the conservative candidates The Lincoln Project will run against centrist Dem candidates in 2022. Don’t they ever tire of getting duped?
I’m sure Abigail Spanberger will blame AOC.
Yeah I totally side eyed these hypocrites and the likes of George Conway and Ana Navarro. They all have this nostalgia for the Reagan years, basically endorse a lot of Trumps and the GOPs policies and lack of responsible governance, but are just embarrassed by his uncouthness and blatant racism. It’s about protecting their brand so they can be media pundits and finding an acceptable neo-con candidate to run in 2024. As mentioned, it was the Democratic moderates who lost, while the grassroots progressives kept their seats or won new seats.
I admit to retweeting them early on before I knew who was behind it. A lot of people that I follow, mostly celebrities, still RT them. Their videos were good, but I couldn’t bring myself to support them after I was made aware of their origins.
It is too soon to tell which ads swayed or resonated with what groups. I didn’t give to the Lincoln Project, but I appreciated their help in defeating Trump. It was a daunting task: 70 million voted for him, and only 5 million more for Biden. We don’t know where those votes came from yet.
What I do know, as a liberal Democrat, is that in a divided populace, which we are, the center is the safest place to build a coalition, Right now, our politics–and Congress- are stuck on the edges of the right and left. We desperately need to find a middle ground that can begin–just begin–to build some bipartisanship. For this, I commend the Lincoln Project; they recognized a fascist narcissist and worked hard to defeat him. Should they give up who they are–moderate to conservative Republicans? No. I wouldn’t expect them to. But can they work together with Democrats on centrist policies? I think yes.
I am loath to call them grifters. They raised and spent their money on what motivated them–the defeat of Trump, who frightens all people who believe in democratic norms. I welcome them to the fold.
We all have to work with people we may not agree 100percent with: that is called compromise for the greater good.
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is barely 2 years into her career in Washington. She represents working-class, highly-diverse (and high-percentage minority) neighborhoods in the largest city in America. She no more represents “America” than Dan Crenshaw or Kelly Loeffler. In terms of learning the process of governing, she’s very junior. I.e., if she were a white male, or she were not a cute, lipstick wearing, sassy young woman, she’d be unremarkable and unnoticed by media.
What she and progressives generally seem unable to grasp is that it was NOT POSSIBLE mathematically for BIden to win this election without winning some percentage of Republican votes. There aren’t enough Democrats, let alone progressives, to elect a president.
What the Lincoln Project team did, that was not mentioned in this article was they gave Republican ambivalent voters “permission” to vote for Biden. THIS was the problem for most of Trump’s administration – human nature is that we want to belong… people hate being ostracized. No one wants to be the lone dissenting voice in their family or friend circle.
LP told them “you’re not alone”. They gave anti-Trump Republicans a community, and it turned out to be very, very large. So the fact that they didn’t ‘flip’ a state is nothing to do with whether they were successful – they were successful in FINALLY breaking through the invisible shackles that many Republicans felt hobbled by, encouraging them to vote for Biden.
The biggest problem in American politics today besides Gerrymandering, is that we pretend Americans are Republican or Democrat – that’s the great lie. We’re center right, center left, right, left, and far right and far left.
Two parties aren’t enough. The far right has invaded and gutted the Republican party, and yet Progressives are trying to do *the same thing* to the Democratic Party. And if they succeed they’ll hand the GOP the House in ’22, and the Presidency in ’24.
I’d welcome Bill Weld and John Kasich, with help from the Lincoln Project, to establish a new center-right party under the brand of New Conservatives or something like that. Then Bernie and his friends can actually build up a Social Democrats party, instead of trying to shoehorn their beliefs into the center left Democratic party.
THEN maybe we’ll return to a pre-19th century coalition style of government that our Founders intended, and that forces legislators to actually legislate, instead of just bitching at each other for not being loyal or passing some ideological purity test.