Guest post: The monster they stitched together in the castle basement
Originally a comment by Freemage on But he’s the second Lincoln.
I went to The Lincoln Project’s website:
OUR MISSION
Defeat President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box.
We do not undertake this task lightly nor from ideological preference. Our many policy differences with national Democrats remain. However, the priority for all patriotic Americans must be a shared fidelity to the Constitution and a commitment to defeat those candidates who have abandoned their constitutional oaths, regardless of party. Electing Democrats who support the Constitution over Republicans who do not is a worthy effort.
I have two issues with them.
1: Too little, too late. This group should’ve been paying for ads and stirring up conflict with the Orange One during the 2016 primaries. And, of course, they’re a handful of voices, none of them in real positions of power. Maybe if they could get Romney to sign up.
2: That river in Egypt. They fail to acknowledge that Trump was not a barbarian who stormed into the GOP castle, but rather the monster they stitched together in the castle basement–a body built of income inequality and lassez-faire economics, a brain rotted by racism and sexism, stitched together with some kowtowing to the Religious Right, and then electrified by the right-wing media machine of which Faux News is only the most public face. Anyone who was in the GOP during Dubya’s reign was part of that creation process.
1. As Trump himself pointed out in his ragetweeting last night, many of the people behind the Lincoln Project were in fact working for other GOP candidates during the 2016 primaries. Rick Wilson was a Marco Rubio guy. Jeff Weaver ran the Kasich campaign. I forget who George Conway worked for. Now it’s true that those campaigns probably ran the wrong strategy — everyone was waiting for Trump to collapse on his own, or for some OTHER guy to take Trump down and suffer collateral damage, so that they could swoop in and win. But I’m not turning down their help. These are consultants who know how Republican voters — or swing voters who can be induced to vote Republican — think, and how to reach those voters.
2. I think most of them are pretty damn aware. I’m most familiar with Rick Wilson, because I read his first book, Everything Trump Touches Dies. He doesn’t skimp on acknowledging the role that he and others played in creating this beast. In fact, he uses the same analogy as you in at least one passage:
The thing the GOP has always understood better than the Democrats is that politics is a numbers game. You turn down the chance to get someone’s help or support out of “principle,” you lose. And when you lose, your principles lose.
I’m willing to welcome these people to the team. Of course, that’s easy for me to say because I’m sort of new to “the team” myself. Nobody’s saying you hire these guys to work for Biden’s campaign directly. But to have them throwing darts at Trump, that bother him enough to send him into a 2am ragetweetstorm? Absolutely.
That puts it too recent, though.Yes, Dubya didn’t rely on the politics of mean, not personally, but the people he surrounded himself with did that dirty work for him. And his politics were plenty mean, and “dumbed down” is a term that I remember a number of people (including myself) using frequently about Dubya and friends.
Then there is Reagan. Back then, they used sugar, as Reagan sweet-talked voters. He didn’t call them names…unless it was welfare queen or something like that. But when he did use insults, it sounded charming to many (not to me). And many remarked on the dumbing down, celebrity culture.
So I think their awareness is quite limited, actually. It didn’t start with Palin. Palin was a natural culmination of years of bad policy and incompetent candidates who swept into the White House through charm, through deceit, and through the fact that their Democratic opponents insisted on treating the voter as though they have a brain and actually talking about policy (like Warren, who has now joined them in the dust bin of history). People who thought politics was about more than bumper stickers and tee-shirt slogans. The Dems misunderestimated the voters, assuming they want information and knowledge about plans. Carter did that. Dukakis did that. Clinton did it, but because he has that aw-shucks manner (and because he was running against Bush 41), he was able to win in spite of it. Dubya did it. Obama was more about soaring rhetoric; there was some policy in his speeches, but he left a lot of that for his website, assuming people who were really interested would travel over there and check it out. Hillary Clinton did that, talking about important issues, issues people claim to care about, but which don’t translate into a neat acronym you can put on a hat.
So, yeah, I’ll accept them as allies, if that is what they are. But I think it’s still important to note the things Freemage noted. Because if these guys were to get back in charge of the GOP, they don’t have the best interests of the country at heart, either. They were almost certainly fine with….great with…Ronald Wilson Reagan, who forms a portion of this stitched together Trumpenstein monster…in fact, probably the heart belongs to Reagan, the tax-cutting, let the rich eat the poor heart.
Well, the thing about Never Trump Conservatives is… they’re conservative. They haven’t changed their minds about guns or abortion or taxes or socialized medicine or other policy matters, and they’re not going to. The long-range plan isn’t to hold hands with them and sing kumbaya together as we walk into the sunset. The goal is to get back to fighting with them over those things.
You can despise them for the policies they continue to promote if you like. But they are showing a bit of courage and dedication to principle in being willing to stand up to a rogue president from their own party. As these last few years have shown, far too few are willing to do that. How many liberals would look the other way if a Trump-like figure abused his or her power, but appointed some good liberal judges and got a few liberal policy victories? (My guess is actually quite a few, because liberals are notoriously fractious and less inclined to fall in line than conservatives. But I can think of a few liberal assholes who would be fine with it as long as the “right people” were getting fucked over.)
The Allies didn’t cooperate with the USSR during WWII because Stalin became a swell guy. Stalin was a brutal dictator who enabled Hitler by cutting a deal with him. But as Churchill said, “if Hitler were to invade Hell, I should at least make a favorable reference to the devil….”
Screechy, I think I agreed with you; I certainly intended to. But I do know a lot of people who, once they ally with someone, will acquiesce in everything. I was having a conversation with my son recently where he was advocating just that. Whatever position they take, just go along, so they will be an ally. So I say, absolutely,. accept them as allies in this, but don’t think you have to give in to everything. For some reason these days people seem to be all or nothing.
iknklast, I agree with your argument in #2. It’s all too facile to pretend that Trump is an anomaly of some sort, when we can draw a straight line from Reagan to Dubya to Trump. Trump is not a deviation from the path of modern Republicanism, he’s the apotheosis of modern Republicanism.
iknklast,
You’re right — the tone of my @3 sounds like I’m taking issue with you, which I didn’t really intend to do. We seem to be more or less on the same page here. Sorry!
That’s OK, Screechy. I am not “deeply offended” and you didn’t do me “actual violence”. ;-)
To be clear, I’m fully down with the notion of using whatever allies we can get against Trump, but I’ll be blunt–the key word is “using”. This is not peace–it’s not even detente. Anything they want, other than stuff legitimately directed at ousting Trump, is off the table.
Reagan vs Mondale, in 1984.
Reagan appealed to the ego of the voter; Mondale to the voter’s conscience.
Reagan romped home. “Make America great again” is I think Trump’s attempt to follow Reagan’s example.