[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by dobbles

A little bit of a look at the Lincoln project:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...is-surprising/

I hope people read the full article, because the snippet you've posted really doesn't do the content of it any justice whatsoever. If that quote is the only thing one takes away from the article, they're less informed for having done so.

The Lincoln Project’s declared mission is “defeating Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box.” That includes a pledge to elect Democrats over Republicans who, like Trump, do not “support the Constitution.”

...

But how deep does this commitment to democracy really run? One test is whether the Lincoln Project is breaking permanently with the GOP embrace of voter suppression, gerrymandering and other anti-democratic tactics. Pressed on this, Weaver insisted the break is genuine. He told me the Lincoln Project is committed to ensuring that the “drive-by Jim Crowism in many parts of the country is put to an end.” After towering civil rights icon John Lewis passed away, the Lincoln Project released a video extolling his role in the struggle for voting rights and linked it to today’s protests against police brutality, declaring that Americans can honor his legacy this fall by “exercising the right to vote.”

But will the Lincoln Project remain committed to concrete expansions of voting rights after Trump is gone? Weaver said yes, noting it will keep advocating for automatic voter registration and a restored Voting Rights Act, and continue fighting efforts to “make it difficult for black people or poor people to vote.”

“No more of that,” Weaver said.

The Lincoln Project’s efforts to get right on racial issues have also included scalding attacks on Trump’s racism and support for the Confederacy, such as this “Flag of Treason” video.

But this raises another question — whether the Lincoln Project accepts the GOP’s own role in laying the groundwork for the moment. That includes the “Southern Strategy,” toleration of the Confederate flag, and a less blatant anti-immigrant sentiment that Trump made more explicit. Pressed on this, Weaver made an interesting concession. He allowed that he helped elect Jeff Sessions to the Senate in the 1990s. Given Sessions’s racially charged history and his longtime role in building a U.S. nativist movement, Weaver allowed this had contributed in its own small way to pushing the GOP toward a Trump takeover.

“I have my own atonement to do every day about that,” Weaver told me. “Did I contribute to putting a brick in the road to where we are today? Yeah, I did.”

In Weaver’s own telling, conceding complicity in creating conditions for Trump’s rise is crucial to remaking the GOP. Which sheds light on how that might hopefully remain a Lincoln Project goal in a salutary way.