XPost: alt.business, alt.journalism.newspapers, alt.politics.democrats.d   
   XPost: alt.politics.democrats.house   
   From: dirty-whore-harris@nytimes.com   
      
   As the Trump presidency recedes into history and while Trumpism   
   as a political force is in abeyance between elections, it is   
   urgent for his opponents to have an honest reckoning with their   
   own past. Anti-Trump forces threw their whole might into   
   defeating him and the fact of victory doesn’t mean that every   
   tactic was effective or necessary. Indeed, some of the anti-   
   Trump manifestations, like the cults that grew around former FBI   
   director James Comey and special counsel Robert Mueller, seem   
   especially dubious and counterproductive.   
      
   The hopes pinned on such stalwart establishment figures to bring   
   down Trump now seem like pipe dreams, as the focus on potential   
   Russian collusion yielded at best partial evidence and almost no   
   real political results. In the end, Trump was defeated in the   
   normal way most political figures are, by his opponents’   
   stitching together a larger political coalition and winning at   
   the ballot box.   
      
   Even in the realm of electoral politics, there were some dubious   
   bets. Many Democrats fantasized about the potential of Never   
   Trump Republicans to break Trump’s hold on the GOP. Over the   
   last five years, erstwhile Republicans like David Frum, Charles   
   Sykes, and William Kristol have won a surprising new audience   
   among liberals eager to hear their anti-Trump message.   
      
   The pitch the Never Trump Republicans made was often based on a   
   compelling redemption narrative. They had worked inside the GOP   
   and knew all its dirty tricks. Now, like Dr. Frankenstein, they   
   saw the evil they had created and were committed to destroying   
   it. Since they understood the monster better than anyone, they   
   could be trusted to lead the charge.   
      
   That was the argument the Lincoln Project, a political action   
   committee formed in late 2019, made to donors. The group was   
   founded by four veterans of Republican politics: Steve Schmidt,   
   John Weaver, Reed Galen, and Rick Wilson. They were all men with   
   a reputation for political hardball. Wilson, for example,   
   created the infamous 2002 ad accusing Democratic Senator Max   
   Cleland, a veteran who had lost his legs and an arm during the   
   Vietnam War, of being soft on terrorism.   
      
   Writing in Mashable in November 2020, shortly before the   
   presidential election, Rebecca Ruiz asserted,   
      
   The Lincoln Project is arguably a liberal’s dream. It’s a once-   
   in-a-lifetime reversal of fortunes. Accustomed to being at the   
   mercy of Republican operatives, liberals now get to watch them   
   use those same dreaded tactics in an effort to elect a Democrat   
   president. Even better, their team of brawlers insists on aiming   
   the punches directly at the president and those who push his   
   agenda, which Democrats haven’t done with the same consistent   
   fearlessness.   
      
   The Lincoln Project released a slew of anti-Trump attack ads,   
   many just for social media, although some also aired on   
   television. These ads were notably personal, sometimes focusing   
   on Trump’s verbal slips, with suggestions that he was suffering   
   from impaired mental health. They certainly had the ability to   
   get under Trump’s skin, leading the former president to rail   
   against the group as “LOSERS” and “RINO Republicans.”   
      
   Trump perhaps felt threatened by a group that used his own   
   tactics. If the Lincoln Project was politically anti-Trump, it   
   was also stylistically Trumpian. Fighting fire with fire made   
   sense given the emergency of the Trump era.   
      
   Countless liberals bought the Lincoln Project’s line, spreading   
   its message on Twitter and donating profusely. In a little over   
   a year, it collected an astonishing $87 million in donations.   
      
   Much of that money was wasted. As it turns out, the Lincoln   
   Project was Trumpian not just in using harsh rhetoric but also   
   in being a con game. An extensive report published on Monday by   
   The New York Times makes clear that the organization was run by   
   mountebanks of a rare order.   
      
   According to the newspaper, “The behind-the-scenes moves by the   
   four original founders showed that whatever their political   
   goals, they were also privately taking steps to make money from   
   the earliest stages, and wanted to limit the number of people   
   who would share in the spoils. Over time, the Lincoln Project   
   directed about $27 million—nearly a third of its total fund-   
   raising—to Mr. Galen’s consulting firm, from which the four men   
   were paid, according to people familiar with the arrangement.”   
      
   That $27 million was only the beginning of the elaborate shell   
   game. The Lincoln Project also had intimate financial ties with   
   the contractors it paid money to. Reed Galen collected a   
   commission on the $13.3 million the Lincoln Project paid to one   
   ad maker. The governance of the organization was an ethical   
   disaster, with contractors who got paid also getting seats on   
   the board of directors. The nominal management of the   
   organization was often kept in the dark about the financial   
   dealings of the four founders.   
      
   Beyond the self-dealing, the Lincoln Project covered up serious   
   sexual harassment allegations against one of the founders, John   
   Weaver. The New York Times spoke “to more than 25 people who   
   received harassing messages, including one person who was 14   
   when Mr. Weaver first contacted him.” People at the Lincoln   
   Project knew about some of these allegations, although not the   
   one about the 14-year-old, as early as January 2020.   
      
   Jennifer Horn, a New Hampshire Republican who was listed as one   
   of the cofounders of the Lincoln Project even though she was   
   excluded from decision making, told the Times, “When I spoke to   
   one of the founders to raise my objections and concerns, I was   
   yelled at, demeaned and lied to.”   
      
   All of this is sordid enough. But some might be tempted to   
   forgive the Lincoln Project if its efforts had in fact helped   
   defeat Trump. But there is no evidence that they did. As The   
   Washington Post reported in an election postmortem, “Despite   
   pleas by ‘Never Trump’ voices, the president secured a larger   
   share of Republican voters nationally, 94 percent in 2020, than   
   four years ago, when he won 88 percent and third-party   
   candidates received more support.”   
      
   An online panel conducted by Civis Analytics evaluated the   
   effective of a range of anti-Trump ads. As The Daily Poster   
   reported in November, “In the document’s review of 65 Democratic-   
   aligned ads on air as of election day, the Lincoln Project’s two   
   tested ads ranked 52nd and 53rd for persuading voters to support   
   Biden.” Other Lincoln Project ads tested as not just ineffective   
   but as positively counterproductive: They persuaded viewers to   
   vote for Trump.   
      
   The ineffectiveness of the ads should be no surprise. Twenty   
   twenty was a polarizing election, with voters of both parties   
   coming out in droves along starkly partisan lines. In that   
   environment, the Lincoln Project made the wrong arguments to the   
   wrong voters. Beyond that, there’s little reason to think that   
   lifelong Republican consultants were really interested in   
      
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