I’m sorry. These guys are living in my head. That's on me. I need to get this out of my system, so I can drop it.
The Lincoln Project played you. Sure, their ads were loads of fun; political voyeurism at its finest. I watched them, too. But they were entertainment. They were not the best political ads of all time. Not close. Good ads move markets & create some kind of capital for the ad-maker's clients: financial, political, social, whatever the client considers to be of value. Their ads did neither, while earning them $67M in ‘consultant fees.’ That was the point, all along, yknow.
That’s your money, or it was. It’s theirs now.
The reactions to the ads were always 'Fuck you' or 'Fucking-A', almost never 'Gee, they make a good point, I'd better think this over a little more.’
They played you.
The money you sent to The Lincoln Project could have gone to Sara Gideon or Cal Cunningham or Theresa Greenfield or Jaime Harrison or MJ Hegar or Steve Bullock or Jon Ossoff or Barbara Bollier or any Democratic House candidate in any swing district anywhere or any downballot race that might have helped to flip state party control going into reapportionment. There are thousands of things you could have done that might have actually mattered. Instead, you helped make Rick Wilson, Steve Schmidt, et al even wealthier than they already are.
The Lincoln Project has never had a page on ActBlue.
Forget that 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' nonsense. They were never your friends. They never had your well-being at heart. Thirty seconds, maximum, of googling Rick Wilson would have told you that. These guys have spent decades making tons of money by recognizing a mark when they saw one. If there's any principle at all behind their actions, it's because they can no longer control the monster they created. It's the lack of control that appalls them, not the monster.
But I know. Those ads felt really good to watch.
They played you, hard.
The chances of the Democrats flipping the Senate are bleak. They may yet lose the House. The 2020 census will lead to even more gerrymandering. Joe Biden is screwed. (To digress, President Biden, which, on top of everything else, is not yet a sure thing, will have to do a lot of things that will give us lefties fits if he wants to get anything done at all, but that’s another screed for another day.) This is what your schadenfreude bought you.
The Lincoln Project played you. Like a violin. They can't wait to do it again. Have a nice day.
5 November 2020. Delray Beach FL.
©2020 Don McKennan
