The Lincoln Project Goes Full Joseph McCarthy as The Witch Hunt Phase Intensifies

Be afraid. Be Very afraid.

I was a big fan of the Lincoln Project early on. I fell in love with Rick Wilson’s brilliant book about defeating Trump, Running Against the Devil. That was a very long time ago. A lot has changed since then, especially in my own mind and heart as I came to realize that there is a pretty good chance Wilson and the other conservatives need to keep the fight alive not to help Democrats but to help their own Conservative party which was broken apart by Trump in 2016. Worst of all, Trump humiliated Jeb Bush and other establishment Republicans which angered both the Clintons and the Bush families - and we all know pretty well how dangerous that would be.

In the end it would take many negative ads by the Lincoln project, probably outright sabotage, along with $15 billion in spending, a pandemic and mail-in voting to finally defeat Trump. The down ballot voting was a pretty good indicator that America was not that happy with the left.

That meant that all eyes were going to be on 2024. When news broke that it was Trump who had done what no other Republican had done in 60 years by building a broader coalition of black, hispanic and women voters that meant there was a good chance Trumpism was going to be around for a while. And maybe even Trump himself in 2024. But the came Trump’s strange 11th hour charade of a stolen election and the tragic and terrifying Capitol riot and that was that for Trump. But the Lincoln Project folks are too smart to let it go at that. Rick Wilson always says Trump has the luck of the Devil and that’s likely still true.

With a trial for impeachment (Trump’s second) and a Senate vote upcoming, the Lincoln Project are threatening Ted Cruz, who was one of a few Senators who were willing to hold the line so Trump could make his case in congress about voter irregularities - which is his constitutional right, along with the hundreds of thousands of supporters who showed up in DC that day. Wilson has been heard in interviews calling them “Jim Crow racism” - which is odd, considering Trump’s reach with black voters. That is how he is positioning Trump’s fight — racism. And you know, if there is one thing on the left that scares us into doing anything - it’s the charge of racism, even though it is debatable that Trump’s desire to recount had anything to do with that. Although it’s certainly possible that it reads that way, what with the focus on Philadelphia and Georgia.

But Trump’s support with black votes and black candidates was undeniable ( you would not know this unless you spent time in Trump world seeing it with your own eyes) so it is not as easy as it might be to make that accusation stick.

What worries me more is how easily the Lincoln Project is slipping into full blown witch hunt mode, which is only going to turn people like Ted Cruz into martyrs and make them look bad. They’d be better off using their millions raised to find better candidates for the Conservatives or even the Moderates. But they are like a dog with a bone - they’re not going to let it go.

I do still admire the Lincoln Project, even if they’ve all pretty much unfollowed me on Twitter (not that I blame them) but I think by now they are doing more harm than good by keeping the flames of rage on fire. Can’t we just find a way to unite and move on?

This is only the beginning of what promises to be a long and painful witch hunt that will play well on Twitter but turn off the majority of Americans who are not sitting on a pile of millions like the Lincoln Project people are. The Democrats have a job to do and that’s to put the country back in order. The Conservatives in the Lincoln Project liked it better when they had the upper hand and Democrats were not in charge, no matter what they’re saying now. They are conservatives in their hearts, which means they are not going to want the policies the progressive left are about to push for.

What worries me more is the era of paranoia and persecutions that exists everywhere. It isn’t just the Lincoln Project, but it’s also spreading - and fuels much of “cancel culture.” We will destroy ourselves before all is said and done.

We’ve been here before, too many times before. In their book The Fourth Turning, Strauss and Howe make the case that something like this happens every 80 years. The thing is, are we through the bad part or are we only just beginning? Will the fight be on our own soil - as with the American Revolution or the Civil War, or the Salem Witch trials, Japanese Internment Camps or the Red Scare? Or will it be an international world war, to start in the next 5 or 10 years?

The book Pendulum is based on The Fourth Turning but orders the years slightly differently. They divide it into the “me” cycles and “we” cycles. The height of the “we” cycles, where we are now, there are what they call the “witch hunt phase.” Their prediction says that “witch hunt phase” will reach its climax in 2023. Howe who co-wrote the Fourth Turning puts the end of all of it and a new turning to begin around 2030.

This graphic found on the internet does not include other key movements that arose since 2008 - like Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party and Black Lives Matter. The alt-right, as such, has different meanings for different people. The far right can apply to people like Nigel Farage in the UK or France’s Marine Le Pen. The alt-right are generally thought to be racist, misogynist trolls. One is reaching for power in government and the other is trying to disrupt it. These are very different things, although Trump appealed to both. But here is the Fourth Turning theory, more or less:

As you can see, we do seem to be headed in the “war” direction, if you look also at the tensions boiling up internationally, specifically the Brexit vote and what they were trying to prevent — migrants but especially those from Muslim countries. The US went through, or tried to go through, something similar with the America First policy, seen as a threat early on and the name stuck.

This is likely to intensify in the coming years, and perhaps it will come to a head somewhere. The “CCP” or the Chinese Communist Party appears to be considered a major threat to many on the right. And there are always going to be our enemies in the Middle East. Russia could, say, form an alliance with Iran. Maybe Saudi Arabia.

We put a period on the end of the sentence with WWII by dropping nukes on Japan. That obviously means any world war now is likely to involve nukes. They’d have to, right? Who could have ever imagined Adolf Hitler and his meth-fueled Nazis trying to overtake the world? Does it get that bad? Does it get worse? Will there be a rise of authoritarians that the US decides to deal with?

Don Winslow @donwinslow

NEW VIDEO #TrumpsNewArmy VOLUME UP On January 20th Donald Trump will no longer be The Commander in Chief. He will lose control of the U.S. Armed Forces and take control of a NEW ARMY.

Fear sells. CNN and MSNBC’s ratings have never been better. Fear sells on social media too, as Don Winslow has just discovered with his truly dystopian plans for an army to ferret out Trump supporters wherever they may be. You can see more about this at Caitlin Johnstone’s Substack, which does not mince words about what this is.

Her piece outlines what Hysteria Twitter is up to, but she closes it this way:

This is just liberals being pushed toward targeting anyone who isn't ideologically aligned with them for destruction. I really, really hope it doesn't take off, because it is profoundly ugly. Please don't let the manipulators trick you into ripping each other to pieces, America. They're only pointing you at each other so you don't look at them.

Winslow is afflicted by something that really only happens on social media, but specifically Twitter. With that many followers and that many likes and that many tweets - like the guy tweets all day and all night with a religious fervor — it probably has messed with his sense of power. I would imagine he feels much more important on Twitter, that he has a hand in how events turn out. I know what that feels like. I went through it in 2016 when I was supporting Hillary. It is a powerful drug and nearly impossible to walk away from. But it is not good for this country. It is not good for humanity. Dehumanization is always always always wrong.

This is a terrifying way to begin the next four years. It is, however, a great time to think about unplugging, finding nature, watching some great movies, cooking, listening to music. It’s also a great time to rethink where you put your eyeballs and your money online. Make sure to only support those people who really do have your best interests at heart.