Trump’s debate debacle shows why we Republicans need The Lincoln Project to defeat him
When we launched The Lincoln Project last December, we stated that our mission is to defeat President Donald Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box this year. Trump’s impeachment trial hadn’t yet been held. COVID-19 was already on our shores, but it would be another month before the president was informed about the coronavirus that causes it, and months longer before he’d even admit it was a problem.
I left the Republican Party four years ago, when members nominated Trump to be their presidential nominee. Tuesday’s debate between Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden reaffirmed my decision. Never before has a Republican president, or any president, been so unfit for office, so antithetical to American values and such a clear and present danger to our democratic system.
That Trump was rude, brutish and unhinged most of Tuesday evening should not have come as a surprise to anyone who’s watched him for the past four decades. He’s the same person now as he was when he flitted around New York City, partied with Jeffery Epstein and swindled workers and lenders alike.
For 90 minutes, the president bullied and lied his way through what was billed as a debate.
Tuesday night was not America’s finest hour. It further demonstrated what happens when the citizenry refuses to take responsibility for the welfare of our country, our neighbors and our future. Only an informed electorate, genuinely concerned about the direction of the United States, will be able to wrest control of our destiny away from the forces that Trump will continue to unleash.
Biden did an admirable job attempting to joust with the human equivalent of the Tasmanian devil. He made his points directly to the camera, to the people, while Trump butted in, yelled, talked over him, taunted him about his sons and lied about any number of issues. In the face of such a fusillade, Biden managed to look human during an event that started disastrously and went downhill from there.
If he hasn’t made it clear before, Trump did it again during the debate: He tells you exactly what he’s going to do. He is the ultimate projectionist. When he says that there may be a “bad ending” to the campaign should he lose, he’s communicating two things: First, he knows he’s going to lose and he’s not happy about it. Second, he is perfectly willing to use the organs of state power to create an enormous, violent mess from which the country will struggle to recover.
Next, he flatly refused to decry white supremacist groups. Instead, he encouraged them to be ready. Again, this is no accident. When the story of Campaign 2020 is written, Trump’s willingness to divide the country along racial lines will be a key piece of why he will lose in November. Most Americans do not, and will not, subscribe to the racist, nativist, nationalist platform upon which the president is pinning his reelection campaign. For all our faults as a country, this sort of ugliness is fundamentally un-American.
For the next month, Americans will find themselves in a strange continuum. Not unlike a football team inside the 20 yard line, time and space will compress between now and Election Day. The heat will rise, the noise will become deafening, and the president’s attempts to distract, scare and disenfranchise will reach fever pitch. It is incumbent upon all of us — not only as Americans but as patriots — to say: Enough is enough.
On Nov. 3, we will vote. Donald Trump will lose. And he will leave.
Reed Galen is an independent political strategist. He and three of his fellow cofounders of the political action committee The Lincoln Project will take part in American Public Square at Jewell’s virtual Evening at the Square event Oct. 13. Details are at www.AmericanPublicSquare.org/event/tlp.
This story was originally published October 4, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Trump’s debate debacle shows why we Republicans need The Lincoln Project to defeat him."