Are the Lincoln Project republicans temporary allies or full-fledged converts?
These Never-Trumpers are brutally trolling Trump, causing much glee among the resistance operatives but also a guarded sense of mistrust.
The Lincoln Project has stated they are committed to defeating Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box, and are prepared to spend millions in swing states on presidential and Congressional races, preparing to oppose GOP efforts to stymie a Biden agenda.
A conversation with John Weaver, a project co-founder who was a campaign strategist for John McCain and John Kasich, revealed his commitment to democracy.
Weaver insists that the break is genuine, saying the Lincoln Project wants to see that “drive-by Jim Crowism in many parts of the country is put to an end.” Weaver says they will continue to advocate for voting rights, including mail-in voting, automatic voter registration, and a restored Voting Rights Act even after Biden is elected. He says the GOP would be a better party for the country if everyone participated.
Bigger turnout puts a bigger GOP loss within reach, which makes it more likely that Republicans “will have their own internal reckoning.”
It was asked whether the Lincoln Project accepts the role of the GOP in the current groundwork on racism, including its tolerance for the Confederate flag in the South. Weaver concedes he helped elect Jeff Sessions, a cog in the wheel of Trump’s takeover.
In Weaver’s own telling, conceding complicity in creating conditions for Trump’s rise is crucial to remaking the GOP. Which sheds light on how that might hopefully remain a Lincoln Project goal in a salutary way.
And what if Biden wins? Will the Lincoln Project turn on a Democratic presidency? Weaver says no, that they will work against GOP obstruction to the Biden agenda, who he says will face a deeper crisis than in 2009, when Republicans tried to obstruct Obama in hopes of profiting off continuing economic misery.
And what if Biden and Democrats were to raise taxes on the rich to lift the country? Weaver says they’d “generally be supportive” of moving the country forward.
“Trickle-down economics has proven not to work,” Weaver said, allowing that “growing and growing” inequality is a big reason the American people are losing faith in government, which is often said to have helped Trump’s rise.
So does it appear that the Lincoln Project is more than anti-Trump? Are they anti-Trumpism that ruined the GOP? Should we be skeptical? Should we trust? Or trust but verify?
This opinion piece by Greg Sargent can be found at the Washington Post.