Reminder: today's self-described Lincoln Project Republicans are, uh, *Republicans*
I’ve always noted that the anti-Trump Lincoln Project Republicans were often more effective than Democrats in their messaging against Trump. Because they are Republicans. Republicans believe in fighting for their own side. And since the LP folks switched sides to oppose Trump, they did hard-hitting messaging against him.
The Democrats’ messaging all too often comes off as “vote for us because we’re safe and wishy-washy.” The Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court declaring abortion rights null and void has given us real-time examples of how silly that whole decades-long approach was.
The Democrats tried for decades to Mugwump their position on abortion rights. As polls for a long time showed, and both polls and election results have shown dramatically since Dobbs, the Democrats’ position defending abortion rights was very popular. And the Republican drive to nullify abortion rights was very unpopular. But while the Republicans confidently defended their own unpopular position, the Democrats kept using some variation on “abortion is immoral and icky, but I support it anyway, I guess.” Hillary Clinton’s signature position was that abortion was immoral but should be “safe, legal, and rare.” It took until her second Presidential run before she regularly made a full-throated defense of “abortion rights.”
The Democrats bragged about being a “big-tent” party because they welcomed Democratic candidates who supported the highly unpopular Republican position against abortion rights. They were still muddling around with this nonsense to some extent even in 2022, as Heather “Digby” Parton noted:
Honestly, I just don’t know what to say about this. The Democratic base is overwhelmingly upset over Roe vs Wade being overturned by a right wing extremist Court, kids being gunned down in school and the GOP coup. The Republicans are trying to deflect from all that by talking about inflation. So what are the Democrats going to do? Ignore abortion and democracy and talk non-stop about inflation instead.1
As she notes in a current post, even with the Democrats still having a hangover case of timidity on the abortion issue, voters really care about it, as 2023’s off-year elections are indicating.2
Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project once again encourages the Democrats to fight for their own side, which seems like good advice:
Democrats just can’t get to “just win.” They want to argue and persuade on policy, not personality and character. They want voters to be enlightened and engaged about the election with the glittery promise of 600-page legislative action plans and slide decks. …
The “Just Win” approach to this moment will require Democrats to universally drive the Biden record on the economy and foreign policy. Still, it will also demand amping up the loathing of Trump and Trumpism and telling the American people the horrors that await in the second Trump era.3 [my emphasis]
All reasonable. But it’s also notable that Wilson whiffs at the idea that the Democrats should try to build a mandate for their positions: “I know you want to win on policy, but ‘want’ and ‘need’ are always miles apart. You need to win on making this a contest of good versus evil, freedom versus fascism, and America’s future versus Donald Trump and the darkness that follows.”
But he’s also clear that the Democrats should run on that broad message and not on their own policies:
This race is about the nation's future and, not to put too fine a point on it, [that of] the world. Nothing about Joe Biden’s tenure has been more salutatory than his willingness to speak the truth about the consequences of failure, the survival of the American Republic, and small-d democratic principles. Why can’t national Democrats lock in on this simple message?
The enemy of this clear message is policy. Democrats have an almost religious belief that policy wins elections, and the various constituency groups want their slice of the pie; they want the election to be about their pet issue, be it abortion, gun control, climate change, LGBTQ rights, or other matters about which they’re most passionate. [my emphasis]
Here’s where the Republican side of the Lincoln Project shows through. And it’s a good example of why the Democrats should ignore such advice to campaign as George H.W. Bush Republicans. The Democratic position on both “gun control” and abortion are overwhelming popular and the Republicans position very unpopular. Wilson’s advice to Democrats is to not campaign on those issues even though Democrats’ position is far more popular.
It may be the case that most people don’t have a clear and informed position on transgender issues or sex-change operations. But the issue of same-sex marriage, from which the Democrats were trying to duck-and-cover as late as 2008, is now also overwhelming approved by the general public. Why shouldn’t the Democrats make it clear they are defending the more popular position and Republicans are opposing it? According to this Gallup Poll table4, the Republican anti-same-sex-marriage position is supported by less than 30% of the American public.
Focusing on protecting democracy makes all sorts of sense as a key Democratic campaign issue for 2023-4. But however much Lincoln Project Republicans may prefer the Democrats to stick with positions that are supported by corporate lobbyist and billionaire donors, Democrats need to mobilize their voters on some actual policy issues, as well.
The US is currently experiencing the most significant wave of labor activism since the 1930s. The Democrats should be doing everything they can to support and encourage that movement and to encourage its supporters to actively support Democrats in elections. This recent poll by Morning Consult Pro5 indicates strong support for the current United Auto Workers strike among the general public.
Here’s a new ad from the Lincoln Project6 that seems to be along those lines, George H.W. Bush with a touch of Morning In America, Reagan’s 1984 campaign theme.
It emphasizes the good economic news, and that makes sense. But it notably does not emphasize or even explicitly mention the Freedom-versus-Fascism issue Wilson stresses in his Substack piece.
And at 0:35 in the part where it brags about Biden having made America “respected again” (Morning in America!), the person standing between Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears to be, well, Italy’s “post-fascist” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, head of the Fratelli d'Italia party, widely viewed as a direct successor party of Mussolini’s Fascist Party.
The Fratelli d'Italia, even in leadership positions, is still teeming with die-hard Duce [Mussolini] nostalgics who raise their right hand in a "Roman salute" at every opportunity, make pilgrimages to Mussolini's tomb in Predappio and maintain close contacts with Holocaust deniers.
Meloni herself doesn't do that – but she doesn't seriously distance herself from it either. And the party logo of the Fratelli d'Italia still bears the green-white-red flame flickering over the coffin of dictator Benito Mussolini, symbolized by a black line. When Meloni was recently asked to renounce the flame in the party logo, she refused: "We are proud of it."7
Maybe the Lincoln Project needs to work a bit more on its Freedom-vs.-Fascism messaging!
Another reminder that the Lincoln Project people are Republicans.
Parton, Heather (2022): Dems still think abortion is icky. Digby’s Hullabaloo 06/27/2022. <https://digbysblog.net/2022/06/27/dems-still-think-abortion-is-icky/> (Accessed: 2023-21-09).
Parton, Heather (2022): Breathe. Digby’s Hullabaloo 09/20/2023. <https://digbysblog.net/2023/09/20/breathe/> (Accessed: 2023-21-09).
Wilson, Rick (2023): Tough Love For the Democrats: Autumn 2023 Edition. Rick Wilson’s Substack 09/19/2023. <https://therickwilson.substack.com/p/tough-love-for-the-democrats> (Accessed: 2023-21-09).
LGBTQ+ Rights. Gallup News, n/d. <https://news.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx> (Accessed: 2023-21-09).
Easley, Cameron (2023): UAW Strike Support Endures Among U.S. Public. Morning Consult Pro 09/18/2023. <https://pro.morningconsult.com/instant-intel/uaw-strike-support-americans> (Accessed: 2023-21-09).
American Story. The Lincoln Project YouTube channel 09/20/2023. (Accessed: 2023-21-09).
Straub, Dominik (2023): Faschismusvorwurf: Giorgia Meloni und die "Brüder Italiens". Der Standard 11.09.2022. My translation from the German. <https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000138971111/faschismus-vorwurf-giorgia-meloni-und-die-brueder-italiens> (Accessed: 2023-21-09).