"Slow the testing down!"
June 23, 2020 6:55 AM   Subscribe

Truth.

The Lincoln Project unveils its latest ad against Trump.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock (92 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
Can someone find me someone involved with this project so I can go hug them?

Or just blow them kisses, depending on the COVID-19 status.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:03 AM on June 23, 2020 [3 favorites]


Swimming with the sharks: what progressives can learn from Republicans Against Trump (from politics.co.uk and therefore uk-focused)
posted by inire at 7:08 AM on June 23, 2020 [9 favorites]


George Conway's pretty active on Twitter. Of course, he's also married to Kellyanne, and at least eight Trump staffers have tested positive for coronavirus, so I'd probably recommend remaining socially distant.
posted by box at 7:10 AM on June 23, 2020 [13 favorites]


The Lincoln Project's founding document: We Are Republicans, and We Want Trump Defeated. Their most successful ad so far is Mourning in America with 2.6M views on YouTube. And famously one $5000 TV ad buy on Fox & Friends in the middle of Donald's copious TV time. A successful psyops campaign against the President.

They're putting out great agitprop. Ugly videos, quite vicious and nasty. The kind of shit we all hate to see in politics. The Democrats are terrible at doing it too, getting in the mud and creating tightly edited damning propaganda that's at least 80% true. Which is why it's so handy that this Republican group is doing the dirty work for us. Everything about this kind of politics is awful, but then everything about Trump is awful, and maybe it takes some awful to fight awful.
posted by Nelson at 7:19 AM on June 23, 2020 [42 favorites]


I'm going to rip out the fuel gauge in my car so I'll never need to buy gas again.
posted by adept256 at 7:25 AM on June 23, 2020 [58 favorites]


Would this be a good time to mention my UK/US coronavirus limerick?

We're battling a virus called covid,
Which struck like a plague out of Ovid,
To get through it quick,
Constant testing's the trick,
But Boris and Trump can't be bov'id.
posted by Paul Slade at 7:28 AM on June 23, 2020 [52 favorites]


Trump's team immediately tried to spin it as Trump was just kidding.

Then Trump himself threw that spin and his team under the bus.
Weijia Jiang @weijia
Just now I asked the President if he was kidding when he said he told his people to slow down testing, which is how White House officials explained the comment.

He said, “I don’t kid.”

He also said again testing is a double-edged sword, and praised the job the U.S. has done.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 7:36 AM on June 23, 2020 [21 favorites]


But he does kid, about drinking bleach and shining UV light on your guts. You know he was joking, you were there at the conference, right?
posted by benzenedream at 7:39 AM on June 23, 2020 [3 favorites]


Is this a good time to post Sarah Cooper's How to happy father's day?
posted by clawsoon at 7:45 AM on June 23, 2020 [11 favorites]


assuming Trump loses, I wonder what the team behind the Lincoln Project will come up with to tar Biden with in 5 years
posted by Dr. Twist at 7:47 AM on June 23, 2020 [13 favorites]


I don't know if they'll go after Biden. If the GOP doesn't have a post-Trump reckoning they might never want to see them back in office, instead preferring to tolerate central-right liberalism.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 7:49 AM on June 23, 2020


@inire Thanks for that link - a lot of it to me brings back George Lakoff's Moral Politics

When you truly understand how totally different the world view of a Trump/conservative supporter really is, you realize that everything Trump says actually makes a lot of sense. It's just non-sense to the rest of us. Even worse, when we try to argue with it by employing logic we are unwittingly committing ourselves to a losing battle. It really is all about emotions and values.

Problem is - many of the techniques the conservative authoritarian side uses around the world are unthinkable. Even watching this ad I just cringed and turned it off, it's too vulgar, too persuasive, too emotional. But there are minds out there who only respond to this kind of thing, and when they don't see these being deployed by one side they see that side as just weak.
posted by mit5urugi at 7:58 AM on June 23, 2020 [10 favorites]


assuming Trump loses, I wonder what the team behind the Lincoln Project will come up with to tar Biden with in 5 years

welllll we'll cross that bridge when we get there. I don't know how keen they'll be to go after him, though - their thing with Trump is that he is a threat to the Republic. The GOP Senate has zero willingness to rein him in. A second Trump term would destroy America as we know it. And not in a good way either.
posted by azpenguin at 7:59 AM on June 23, 2020 [2 favorites]


They're putting out great agitprop. Ugly videos, quite vicious and nasty. The kind of shit we all hate to see in politics. The Democrats are terrible at doing it too, getting in the mud and creating tightly edited damning propaganda that's at least 80% true. Which is why it's so handy that this Republican group is doing the dirty work for us. Everything about this kind of politics is awful, but then everything about Trump is awful, and maybe it takes some awful to fight awful.

Every single frame of that video was true. Why won't democrats do this? It's like they're allergic to simple black and white messaging. Or winning.
posted by overhauser at 8:00 AM on June 23, 2020 [45 favorites]


Yeah, I kinda feel like this Lincoln Project thing is less an enemy of my enemy thing and more a former enablers of my abuser thing.
posted by Catblack at 8:00 AM on June 23, 2020 [40 favorites]


I think a big part of why establishment Democrats are afraid to really get down and dirty is that many of them have been in elected office for years and see a lot of the GOP as their co-workers, even friends... a stance that the GOP has made abundantly clear is not mutual. I don't doubt that there are members of the GOP in national office who are on the moderate side and willing to work with Democrats towards shared goals, but those people are clearly in the minority. The Democratic establishment live in fear of losing whatever support they have, and are unable to take the risk they associate with getting dirty.

In a related vein, the way we make the Democratic Party more progressive and willing to get dirty is to do what the Tea Party did to the GOP: start local, get progressives into local and state offices, and take over the party infrastructure. We won't have the money backing that the Tea Party had, but I think the biggest obstacle to this is the left/progressive view that engaging with the systems of electoral politics doesn't work. I'm hoping this view is finally starting to crack. There's signs of it, but I don't think it's happening fast enough.
posted by SansPoint at 8:07 AM on June 23, 2020 [18 favorites]


Problem is - many of the techniques the conservative authoritarian side uses around the world are unthinkable. Even watching this ad I just cringed and turned it off, it's too vulgar, too persuasive, too emotional. But there are minds out there who only respond to this kind of thing, and when they don't see these being deployed by one side they see that side as just weak.

Ian Danskin has a good explainer video about this.

In short, liberals don't think about the ends nearly as much as they should. These centrist liberal establishment Democrats are so afraid of the ends justifying the means (because it really is a shit moral philosophy) that they've overcorrected to "with the right means, the ends take care of themselves" which both clearly isn't working and causing the people who should be voting for leftier and progressive policies in droves to abandon Democracy as a system.

At this point we might as well be digging our own political graves.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:08 AM on June 23, 2020 [24 favorites]


In a related vein, the way we make the Democratic Party more progressive and willing to get dirty is to do what the Tea Party did to the GOP: start local, get progressives into local and state offices, and take over the party infrastructure. We won't have the money backing that the Tea Party had, but I think the biggest obstacle to this is the left/progressive view that engaging with the systems of electoral politics doesn't work. I'm hoping this view is finally starting to crack. There's signs of it, but I don't think it's happening fast enough.

Yes. All the establishment players got there by being elected in one way or another. People like Bill Owen? He got there practically by default. He got control of the faction and then he's able to get up on national TV saying he'd use the rules to tear the party to shreds before letting the Democratic Party get too left.

Make another faction. Get out there. Take those positions. Take that power. The turnout for these things are dismal. All those people who are protesting? If 1% of those people turned out to take power in local Democratic Party power bases we could reform it overnight.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:11 AM on June 23, 2020 [1 favorite]


"central right liberalism" Biden? Believe me, from outside the country it resembles a slightly different variation of brokenness and ongoing collapse.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:13 AM on June 23, 2020 [4 favorites]


We're battling a virus called covid,
Which struck like a plague out of Ovid,


Wait, do the Brits pronounce COVID with a short O? Huh. TIL.
posted by The Bellman at 8:14 AM on June 23, 2020 [4 favorites]


assuming Trump loses, I wonder what the team behind the Lincoln Project will come up with to tar Biden with in 5 years


The two party system is an emergent property of the US constitution, and an ineradicable one to boot. The GOP is about to implode, at which point the rift between progressives and technocrats in the Democratic Party will become the basis of two new parties. The Lincoln Project will be on the technocrat side. I will too. And Biden will be retired.
posted by ocschwar at 8:16 AM on June 23, 2020 [4 favorites]


now Ovid iirc was all about turning people into trees and so on, not plagues
posted by thelonius at 8:26 AM on June 23, 2020 [6 favorites]


The two party system is an emergent property of the US constitution, and an ineradicable one to boot.

The two party is an emergent property of the single member districts and FPTP system.

It would be perfectly constitutional (Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations) to override the states, turn each congressional district into a ten member district, and make them use IRV to figure out the 10 members. It'd fix gerrymandering and the two party system in the house in one fell swoop.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:28 AM on June 23, 2020 [6 favorites]


Your Childhood Pet Rock: We could also grow the House of Representatives. The size of the house is fixed by law at 435 representatives, but a Constitutional Rule states "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative." - Attempts to remedy the size of the house via the Judiciary have failed, but doubling the size of the House would make House elections much more competitive and open the door to more third-parties.

Also, IRV.
posted by SansPoint at 8:32 AM on June 23, 2020 [4 favorites]


But he does kid, about drinking bleach and shining UV light on your guts. You know he was joking, you were there at the conference, right?

With Trump, there is no past, only the present. The past is lies, the present is the truth.

No need to retcon, or keep track of what who said what and when. It's easier that way.

Also, it's bullshit. But his supporters gobble it up, and spew it out everywhere.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:35 AM on June 23, 2020 [6 favorites]


assuming Trump loses, I wonder

best not to assume anything at this point. Just do the work. Destroy this asshole and his team of misfits, looney tunes and squalid criminals.
posted by philip-random at 8:41 AM on June 23, 2020 [4 favorites]


We could also grow the House of Representatives.

That's exactly what I meant. The House should be at least 10x the size it is now. I would not be averse to 20x the size it is now. It would solve this problem of 700,000* people per district.

* 500,000 - 1,000,000 depending on district
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:50 AM on June 23, 2020 [2 favorites]


Destroy this asshole and his team of misfits, looney tunes and squalid criminals.

...too bad that still leaves all the dark money PACs, foreign pysops campaigns, racist police and military elements and a significant population of dumb-as-shit nativists. If the Democrats win and decide to “look forward and not back”, I'm terrified to imagine what sort of monster the the Republicans will be dredging up for their next turn in power.
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:00 AM on June 23, 2020 [12 favorites]


The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson, from his book, Running Against the Devil:

Part 5, How to Win [a summary, by me]: Only fight the Electoral College Map (FL, PA, OH, GA, MI, NC, VA, AZ, MN, WI, CO, IA, NV, ME, NH); commentary on each of these states, and an assertion that Ohio’s going to be the toughest challenge for Dems. Speak American (“Dems need to dig up a slim volume by former Bill Clinton speechwriter David Kusnet called Speaking American, published in 1992”; framing advice on abortion, guns, immigration, the wall, the economy, the media, judges, no collusion, socialism, immigration). “[B]e vernacular, colloquial, and relatable….For once, tell hem it’s not about you, or the party, or some book of policy proposals but about them.” Attack, and don’t stop. You’re going to feel terrible. It will be terrible. Target attacks to Trump’s weaknesses—his business failures, his tax returns, his lack of wealth; his self-image, reminding him that he’s not physically well enough to be in office (the on-stage weigh-in at the debate!). Make plans, advertise now, roasting the president and trying to move votes from pro-Trump to Trump-questioning. Hire disciplined team who are straight talkers in private and “smart, loyal communicators in front of the cameras and on social media.” VOTER REGISTRATION, LIKE, YESTERDAY. Turnout. Lump Trump in with racists, channers , and remind voters that this guy has chosen to surround himself with evil people. Tell remorseful Trump voters that it’s OK to vote for something else, and that they don’t have to stay stuck in shame, that normalcy once more is a pretty ok reason to vote D. Give up on right-leaning evangelicals. They’re not coming back. Don’t bullshit WWC Trump voters about jobs coming back. Be the party of markets, family, security, and protection for pre-existing conditions. Legal campaign fuckery: amplify the Libertarians, boost the GOP challengers to Trump, prank party lines, kill your spoilers. KEEP INVESTIGATING, and get these people taking oaths, grill them, take pictures of them having to testify. Be ready to go after EVERYONE in the Trump orbit. Fight like this election could be the end of the American experiment.
posted by MonkeyToes at 9:07 AM on June 23, 2020 [65 favorites]


I don't see anything problematic about the Lincoln Project ads. They're honest, and they only bring up relevant issues.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 9:18 AM on June 23, 2020 [5 favorites]


I don't know if they'll go after Biden. If the GOP doesn't have a post-Trump reckoning they might never want to see them back in office, instead preferring to tolerate central-right liberalism.

This seems pretty naive to me. Romney has obviously been setting himself up for a 2024 run as the kinder, gentler GOP candidate who has learned from the mistakes of the past, and if it's not the Lincoln Project per se that's running this same flavor of attack ad against Biden in that election, it will surely be the same set of people behind it.
posted by whir at 9:19 AM on June 23, 2020


...and if it's not the Lincoln Project per se that's running this same flavor of attack ad against Biden in that election, it will surely be the same set of people behind it.

Thing is, those types of attacks against Biden are already in the pipeline and being broadcast, so it’s not like they’ll be unexpected in 2024.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:37 AM on June 23, 2020 [5 favorites]


Some bumper sticker ideas:

Slow The Testing Down: Trump 2020

Freaky Orange Mobster: Trump 2020

Operation Belligerent Asshole: Trump 2020

You Want A Toe? I Can Get You A Toe: Trump 2020

You Don't Need To See No Stinking Taxes: Trump 2020

Festival Of Failure: Trump 2020

Make America Small And Mean: Trump 2020

Make America Hate Again: Trump 2020
posted by uraniumwilly at 9:41 AM on June 23, 2020 [2 favorites]


The campaign that successfully harnesses the power or woke teens is the campaign that will win everything.

The Lincoln Project will go after Biden about 2 seconds after it's announced if he wins.

What really needs to happen is a "The West Wing isn't reality, these people are not your friends" campaign among Democratic leadership and strategists. The GOP as it exists now—a party fully behind Trump—must be destroyed.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 9:44 AM on June 23, 2020 [4 favorites]


The Lincoln Project will end up distracted and fractured by the primary battle in the GOP for 2024 between Mitt Romney, Nikki Haley, and Tom Cotton.
posted by sallybrown at 9:55 AM on June 23, 2020 [2 favorites]


now Ovid iirc was all about turning people into trees and so on, not plagues

*checks clipboard*

I have that down for September.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:57 AM on June 23, 2020 [15 favorites]


If Donald Trump loses the 2020 general election, he will spend the next four years consolidating and rallying his base, entering the 2024 Republican primaries as the lead contender.
posted by mr_roboto at 9:57 AM on June 23, 2020


Gonna be hard to rally his base from exile in Russia.

I anticipate him either refusing to leave the the White House and having some manner of constitutional crisis, or on a plane out of the country on January 20. He's not going to retreat to New York City and wait for SDNY to come knocking on his door.
posted by explosion at 10:01 AM on June 23, 2020 [14 favorites]




I anticipate him either refusing to leave the the White House and having some manner of constitutional crisis, or on a plane out of the country on January 20. He's not going to retreat to New York City and wait for SDNY to come knocking on his door.

Not to mention Trump Tower is probably going to be repossessed in the next few months. He has half a billion in debt due and no leverage on the Chinese to personally guarantee him if he doesn't win the election.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:08 AM on June 23, 2020 [2 favorites]


For some reason I think if Trump loses, he’ll quit early as a “screw you guys” rather than trying to stay late. Either way I don’t foresee an orderly departure on Inauguration morning, which is too bad, because I bet a lot of people would like to line up around the WH and watch him fly away.
posted by sallybrown at 10:08 AM on June 23, 2020 [6 favorites]


I have heard a lot of Tr*mp supporters crowing about how, after he is out of office, Don Junior, Eric, and possibly Ivanka will be next up for office. Do you think there is any possibility that might occur?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 10:09 AM on June 23, 2020


Occur as in, they try to run? Well, maybe. Occur as in they get elected president? No.
posted by Gelatin at 10:11 AM on June 23, 2020 [2 favorites]


I bet a lot of people would like to line up around the WH and watch him fly away.
I bet a lot of people would like to line up around the White House and serve him with subpoenas.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 10:11 AM on June 23, 2020 [15 favorites]


For some reason I think if Trump loses, he’ll quit early as a “screw you guys” rather than trying to stay late. Either way I don’t foresee an orderly departure on Inauguration morning, which is too bad, because I bet a lot of people would like to line up around the WH and watch him fly away.

Really? I bet he'll try to absolutely wreck the place out of spite.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:12 AM on June 23, 2020 [7 favorites]


For some reason I think if Trump loses, he’ll quit early as a “screw you guys” rather than trying to stay late

If only to secure a pardon from President Pence, yeah.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:13 AM on June 23, 2020 [4 favorites]


Oh please, he's the epitome of rich white man. He's going to walk away cleaner than Nixon did.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 10:17 AM on June 23, 2020 [2 favorites]


For some reason I think if Trump loses, he’ll quit early as a “screw you guys” rather than trying to stay late.

A couple of us have thought that same thing: if the polls show an impossibility of winning, there'll be a declaration of victory and he'll just go. That or "health reasons" will provide the cover. If he were half the deal-maker he said he was, he'd have already floated the former, looking for a face-saving way out.
posted by jquinby at 10:20 AM on June 23, 2020 [1 favorite]


This one is a nice hatchet job on Fucks News.
posted by flabdablet at 10:29 AM on June 23, 2020 [3 favorites]


We Are Republicans, and We Want Trump Defeated.

Even if Trump manages to keep from rigging the vote, Republicans are still why this country is broken.

Republicans are still responsible for gutting regulatory systems that protect our food, air, water, airplanes. Republicans are still responsible for the installation of two illegitimate Supreme Court justices* who have already done their part to protect Republican gerrymandering, and help preserve illegal White House policies by granting emergency stays in unprecedented numbers. Republicans are still responsible for public health decisions that have lead to the deaths of 120k+ Americans and the unemployment of millions, with no relief offered. Republicans are still responsible for tax breaks that will soon bankrupt this country, if nothing is done to repeal and reverse changes to progressive taxation policy.

I think it's great that these guys want Trump out. I just think they need to be held to account, as well. I don't think you should get to rip off this country, get yours, and walk away while pinning the blame on one person, as much as he deserves it.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:44 AM on June 23, 2020 [38 favorites]


Lincoln Project is entertaining and all, but I've been noticing this populist strategy they're cultivating and I don't like it. The Never-Trump crowd has a lot of political insiders! Experienced campaign people! But they only plug into regular people's critiques and frustrations. They arent using the power of their experience to take Trump down. They should be more incisive, they should be able to hit the roots of Republican power, they should be hitting other people. Where is the Stephen Miller commercial? He's fair game, and at least as significant as Trump's daily foibles.

I saw Steve Schmidt on CNN or something last night and it was the same. Peanut gallery commentary about the tweets of the day. He was McCain's campaign manager, he has secret knowledge. None of these people have told me anything I didn't already know from reading the news that day, none of them have made me go "whoa," the way someone baldly betraying their problematic associations would. And that's what these people owe us for voting for Trump: permanent damage to the Republican party.
posted by rhizome at 10:56 AM on June 23, 2020 [9 favorites]


Just now watching Country Over Party, and hour and a bit originally presented as a livestream that the speeches I linked above were excerpted from. Includes an audience Q&A session at the end.

I agree with Tshbo! that Republicans need to be held to account. The difference between these particular Republicans and those who have jumped onto Trump's overtly grotesque bandwagon, it seems to me on first impression, is that these people show some degree of willingness to be held to account; all of them seem to be taking the position that yes, the Republican Party desperately needs to change, and that working from inside it is the best way to get that done.

I think that's a reasonable position. Wrong, maybe, but reasonable.
posted by flabdablet at 11:01 AM on June 23, 2020 [1 favorite]


Where is the Stephen Miller commercial? He's fair game, and at least as significant as Trump's daily foibles.

Your average voter doesn't know who the hell Stephen Miller is. Attacks on him are wasted money.

None of these people have told me anything I didn't already know from reading the news that day,

Your average voter doesn't read the news. They're not on Twitter, they're not reading longform articles in Vanity Fair. They get a hit of cable news at the muffler shop or whatever, they see a few headlines float by on their phones, and that's about it.
posted by schoolgirl report at 11:04 AM on June 23, 2020 [42 favorites]


schoolgirl report has it. So much that's baffling about American politics makes so much more sense when you remember that 90% of the public only knows about the loudest 5% of the news.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 11:08 AM on June 23, 2020 [26 favorites]


I bet a lot of people would like to line up around the WH and watch him fly away.
I bet a lot of people would like to line up around the White House and serve him with subpoenas.


I bet a lot of people would like to line up around the White House and see how far they can throw a tomato.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:09 AM on June 23, 2020 [9 favorites]


They should be more incisive, they should be able to hit the roots of Republican power, they should be hitting other people. Where is the Stephen Miller commercial? He's fair game, and at least as significant as Trump's daily foibles.

They seem to be concentrating their attacks on people who can actually be voted out, and they're not shy about drawing attention to the Miller agenda; see this piece against Thom Tillis.

Their ads also appear to be aimed at the people who might actually be doing that voting out, like this one for the Kentucky base of Rich Mitch.

I think there's some good work here.
posted by flabdablet at 11:10 AM on June 23, 2020 [8 favorites]


see how far they can throw a tomato

prolly go a bit further if you stuffed it into a shoe first
posted by flabdablet at 11:12 AM on June 23, 2020 [6 favorites]


now Ovid iirc was all about turning people into trees and so on, not plagues

Okay YOU rhyme Thucydides

posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 11:17 AM on June 23, 2020 [23 favorites]


I'm tired of reading Thucydides / I'd go out but there's too much humidities
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:22 AM on June 23, 2020 [36 favorites]


I watched as GW Bush left the White House on Jan 20 2009, in a helicopter drifting over the remnants of Obama’s jubilant inaugural crowd. It was immensely cathartic to yell at him on his way out. Can’t even imagine how much better it would have felt if he had been kicked out after one term and was heading for a sea of legal trouble and was watching his world collapsing around him in real time with no tools at his disposal except rage tweets. So yeah, I’d line up.
posted by saturday_morning at 11:31 AM on June 23, 2020 [8 favorites]


There once was a Greek called Thucydides
To rhyme whom requires taking liberties.
"That's monstrous!" you cry, to which I reply:
Just wait til I tackle Arkimmadees.
posted by flabdablet at 11:33 AM on June 23, 2020 [39 favorites]


Those body bags from :51 on... wow.
posted by doctornemo at 12:09 PM on June 23, 2020 [1 favorite]


I posted this yesterday on mlkshp, asking somebody there to post it here, so thank you
posted by growabrain at 12:17 PM on June 23, 2020


Yeah, that 'Shrinking' ad just straight up says he has a tiny dick. They should've hired Stormy Daniels to do the voiceover.
(That is probably not an actual good idea. Probably.)
posted by box at 1:00 PM on June 23, 2020


They should've hired Stormy Daniels to do the voiceover.

Stormy Daniels has commented on the size of the attendance at the Tulsa rally.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 1:11 PM on June 23, 2020 [4 favorites]


During the campaign, Biden should offer to let him spend a week in the Bunker to get used to not being President any more.
posted by jamjam at 1:31 PM on June 23, 2020


Metafilter: Destroy this asshole/ rhyme Thucydides.
posted by dannyboybell at 1:32 PM on June 23, 2020 [4 favorites]


I think the videos are good, I'm glad they're getting under Trump's skin, if they wanna spend money and social media time making Trump and certain other Republicans feel beleaguered and beset on all sides that's fine and might well do some good even if it just influences a relative handful of voters.

Mostly it seems to me that they view getting rid of Trump as a sort of Great Project, and once that's done I'm not sure this alliance will hold. Some are definitely more aware of core tenets of Republican-ism being a problem than others.

The Lincoln Project will end up distracted and fractured by the primary battle in the GOP for 2024 between Mitt Romney, Nikki Haley, and Tom Cotton.

Romney they'd get behind, Haley maybe 50/50, they're definitely down on Cotton (especially after his "kill 'em all" NYT editorial), although I could see him regaining some support from some of them if he can keep from being egregiously racist and violent (which he probably can't, so . . .)
posted by soundguy99 at 1:39 PM on June 23, 2020 [1 favorite]


Polite reminder that many people have disabilities that make it difficult to walk down a ramp or to drink a glass of water, and there are many better and non-ableist things to criticize Trump for.
posted by Lexica at 2:47 PM on June 23, 2020 [9 favorites]


Indeed, and when I said that the Lincoln project ads were focusing on relevant features, I hadn't seen the small penis/bad coordination ad.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 3:15 PM on June 23, 2020


Yeah, that's why I characterized these ads way up above as "ugly, vicious, and nasty". Mocking an elderly man for having trouble walking down a ramp isn't funny. Small dick jokes can sometimes be funny maybe, but really aren't appropriate for political discourse.

OTOH they are appropriate aimed at Trump. Trump himself has defended the size of his penis. Trump has mocked disabled people time and time again, including actually pantomiming muscle spasms as a way to belittle a disabled journalist. Over and over Trump paints his opponents as physically weak, or low energy, or sleepy, or otherwise enfeebled. So I'm not going to lose any sleep if some Republican PAC makes some cruel ads going after him on that. I might even secretly hope they work and undermine his support among the monstrous people Trump cultivates with all his offensive ableist behavior. I am grateful that the Lincoln Project allows Democrats to stay above this ugliness.
posted by Nelson at 3:49 PM on June 23, 2020 [10 favorites]


"But they're a bad person" doesn't make it okay to be ableist. "But they're a bad person" doesn't make it okay to express anti-fat hatred.

"But they're a bad person" is not an excuse to utter the same kind of hatred that bad people do, and people who are doubling down on "yes it is" might do well to spend some time examining why it's so important to you to say these things that people are telling you are hurtful and harmful.
posted by Lexica at 4:34 PM on June 23, 2020 [8 favorites]


it's also worth reflecting on some words of warning that came from Italy immediately after Trump's election, that one of the reasons ...

... Mr. Berlusconi was able to govern Italy for as long as he did is mostly thanks to the incompetence of his opposition. It was so rabidly obsessed with his personality that any substantive political debate disappeared; it focused only on personal attacks, the effect of which was to increase Mr. Berlusconi’s popularity. His secret was an ability to set off a Pavlovian reaction among his leftist opponents, which engendered instantaneous sympathy in most moderate voters. Mr. Trump is no different.

posted by philip-random at 5:27 PM on June 23, 2020 [6 favorites]


This isn't Italy. A big part of Trump's appeal is an idealized macho man. Him looking weak or frail is like seeing the wizard in the Wizard of Oz, or the Emperor's New Clothes. Him walking across the lawn to the White House from Marine One looking like a broken and defeated man undermines his image.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:08 PM on June 23, 2020 [7 favorites]


Also, Berlusconi's approval ratings were 62% in October 2008. Trump's approval ratings have been underwater his entire presidency and his popularity has never reached 46%.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:12 PM on June 23, 2020 [2 favorites]


This is the guy who mocked a deaf reporter to great cheers from his deplorables. Fuck him.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 7:39 PM on June 23, 2020 [13 favorites]


Yep.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:45 PM on June 23, 2020


If you like The Lincoln Project, check out The New Abnormal. It features Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson; the latter is a founding member of The Lincoln Project, and the former is pretty much the political polar opposite of Wilson. They just both hate Trump. Wilson gives some interesting insights into The Lincoln Project, what their strategy is, and why they are doing what they are doing. Not a PG podcast, but they get some really good guests.
posted by ryoshu at 9:00 PM on June 23, 2020 [1 favorite]


I'm tired of reading Thucydides / I'd go out but there's too much humidities

That sounds like Tom Paxton.
posted by neuron at 10:07 PM on June 23, 2020


Speaking as a seriously physically disabled person, I have no problem with carefully targeted ads mocking Trump's physical shortcomings. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. He certainly earned it, and done right it works. Just don't overplay that hand.

Also think that the Dems don't have the luxury of playing as dirty as the Repubs. Some dirty, yes. As dirty, no.
posted by Pouteria at 11:25 PM on June 23, 2020 [7 favorites]


None of these people have told me anything I didn't already know from reading the news that day,

You probably weren't a likely Trump voter so your perception of these ads is of purely academic interest.
posted by atrazine at 2:23 AM on June 24, 2020


Something that hasn't been considered here, re: Trump's ramp walk, is that the guy apparently wears quite aggressive heel lifts in his shoes. The exaggerated forward-leaning posture (combined with his excess weight) probably makes descending a semi-steeply-inclined ramp like the one at West Point more than a little dicey. What many are attributing to physical deterioration may simply be due to the man's extreme vanity.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:13 AM on June 24, 2020 [7 favorites]


¿Por qué no los dos?
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 4:43 AM on June 24, 2020 [6 favorites]


If you are a Trump voter, you are voting for the spectacle and the disruption. I'm not certain the ads will have any effect on people who vote for Trump. They know he lies, and they know he is ridiculous, that's what they like. They like for a big stupid guy they can identify with to have a lot of power and use that power like they would, f*** all the establishment and their facts and knowledge.

But the ads may have an effect on the people who enable Trump, reminding them that the Republican Party is stretched at its seams. I think the Mitch McConnell ad is powerful.
posted by mumimor at 6:31 AM on June 24, 2020 [3 favorites]


I still think Trump will have a stroke before his term has ended but that's just because I want it to happen. I would think that upon losing the election, the smartest thing for him to do would be immediately resign for some self-promoting and vague reason. Then Pence can pardon him. Note, this would be the smartest thing to do. Trump sometimes avoids doing the smart thing.
posted by Ber at 2:01 PM on June 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


You'd be surprised at how people fall for the propaganda that Trump is the only one not lying to them constantly. Indeed, just in the past month I had to whack an acquaintance with a clue-by-four after he spent too much time listening to the red pill reddit bro crowd that permeates his neighborhood.

I was surprised at how primed these twentysomethings had been for that kind of message after hearing their parents screaming "¡Comunistá!" at the TV every time a Democrat happened to be on screen.
posted by wierdo at 2:02 PM on June 24, 2020


To be fair, if your parents' lives were ruined by cronyists masquerading as left wing populists you'd probably be very careful of any sort of collectivism.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 4:56 PM on June 24, 2020 [2 favorites]


Thucydides
Cupidities
Knew
No
Fastidities
posted by jamjam at 6:11 PM on June 24, 2020 [4 favorites]


If you like The Lincoln Project, check out The New Abnormal. It features Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson; the latter is a founding member of The Lincoln Project, and the former is pretty much the political polar opposite of Wilson.

Fuck Rick Wilson. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend.

In 2008, Wilson made ads attacking Barack Obama by showing the incendiary statements of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. “I wanted to scare the living shite out of white people in Pennsylvania and Ohio,” Wilson said. “Today, they would all be Trump voters, I’m sure.”
posted by oneirodynia at 11:21 PM on June 25, 2020 [2 favorites]


You know, it sure seems of late that Reverend Wright was absolutely correct. As nonreligious as I am, there are times that it is very easy to believe that God has in fact damned America. Between the plagues, the pestilence, and the unholy alliance between the holy rollers and the Trumpists it almost feels as if supernatural intervention was required to get us to this point.

Yes, I know that this all is the result of shitty selfish people, centuries of racism, the worship of money and markets as if they were deities, not anything supernatural, but the simplistic story provided by religion is easier to wrap the mind around.
posted by wierdo at 2:13 AM on June 26, 2020


I thought God had damned America because of all the indulgence of homosexuality? I grew up with Pat Robertson on national TV telling me every hurricane, disease, economic disaster, and football loss was my fault. He's still doing it.
posted by Nelson at 5:46 AM on June 26, 2020 [1 favorite]


I thought God had damned America because

as a friend once put it, if there is a god, you know he's going to use good ole fashioned science to get most of his work done. Which in the case of the US of A, which seems to have gotten itself to a point where the existence (or not) of a virus has become a political opinion ....

I don't even know how to finish that sentence.
posted by philip-random at 7:48 AM on June 26, 2020 [3 favorites]


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