The NeverTrump Grift Continues

Over the years, The Lincoln Project, the grifting NeverTrump organization that a sexual predator founded and is led by a man who called for Donald Trump to be shot, and has poured millions into the pockets of its principals, has raised tens of millions of dollars to keep Donald Trump out of the White House. 

This is what SAM ELLIOT just aligned himself to!

Lincoln Project cofounder Rick Wilson in 2023:

“They’re still going to have to go out and put a bullet in Donald Trump.” pic.twitter.com/bfkKxmiWLZ

— 🇺🇸Scott Beemer🇺🇸 (@RealBeemster) September 23, 2024

Now, Rick Wilson, the man who violently fantasized about Trump’s demise on national TV, has found a new anti-Trump grift. Since keeping Trump out of the White House is no longer a viable product, destroying Donald Trump’s presidency is his new gig. 

This is the same Wilson who assured his social media followers on Election Day, “Trump’s going to lose. He’s gonna lose badly. He’s … going to be wrecked. I don’t know what the Electoral College count is going to be at the end of this, but it’s going to get loud and it’s going…

— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) November 19, 2024

Wilson is determined to destroy Elon Musk in particular. No doubt Musk’s love of government efficiency and free speech make him a particular danger to the transnational elite, and if nothing else Wilson has learned that kissing the asses and flattering them is a nice way to make a buck and improve his social standing. 

No matter what becomes of Elon Musk’s out-of-government “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, Musk himself isn’t going anywhere for a long while. The 53-year-old world’s richest person (at least as of this writing) has too many fingers in too many pies, the ear of President-elect Donald Trump, and too many ideas, energy and influence to be ignored. He’s too big to be “canceled,” although apparently some will try.

Last week offered two starkly different examples of how Trump’s opposition can respond to Musk. Rick Wilson, a former Republican political strategist and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, announced that he’s a senior adviser to a new group called the Two Plus Two Coalition. According to the New York Times, the group plans to target Musk and Rupert Murdoch by uncovering “the hidden sources of disinformation and expose them for what they are,” and operating “as an opposition research firm but with a military-grade intelligence-gathering operation that went far beyond the document vetting typical of a political campaign.”

The coalition, the Times said, “asked donors for a minimum investment of $1 million, and was aiming for an annual budget of $10 million to $15 million.”

The “get Trump” strategy has obviously backfired, making him more popular with ordinary people who have come to see the transnational elite as their enemy, Wilson’s approach is to go after Trump’s allies. I’m not sure that Rupert Murdoch fits the bill, but he is a convenient target because so many liberals hate Fox News.

Wilson’s use of the term “military-grade intelligence operation” says it all. Indeed, the intelligence community has been working to destroy Trump and MAGA for a decade, and as Tulsi Gabbard makes moves to break up the Deep State, they are planning a lucrative exit to continue their anti-Trump crusade. 

Democrats have a growing belief that their efforts must extend beyond the political sphere, trying to go on offense in a splintered media environment where conservatives have amassed more influence. One new liberal dark-money group began prospecting for donors with a pitch that it would unearth unflattering revelations about the Murdoch family and Elon Musk — both pro-Trump media magnates.

The group, called the Two Plus Two Coalition, plans to “target the hidden sources of disinformation and expose them for what they are,” according to a donor prospectus being circulated this past week. The group asked donors for a minimum investment of $1 million, and was aiming for an annual budget of $10 million to $15 million.

Rick Wilson, a former Republican operative who is now a senior adviser to the Two Plus Two Coalition, said his organization would operate as an opposition research firm but with a military-grade intelligence-gathering operation that went far beyond the document vetting typical of a political campaign.Credit…Brad Barket/Getty Images for Fast Company

The group’s senior adviser, Rick Wilson, a former Republican operative who was a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, said in an interview on Thursday that his organization would operate as an opposition research firm but with a military-grade intelligence-gathering operation that went far beyond the document vetting typical of a political campaign.

“A lot of people in the center and on the left have for a long time sort of bemoaned Fox, but they haven’t done anything about it,” Mr. Wilson said.

Wilson, of course, will be but one cog in a machine powered by the worst people in our world. Hundreds of lawyers are being mobilized to use lawfare to stop Trump’s actions, and politicians in Blue States are focused on #resistance through, of all things, federalism. That is a new one for Democrats. 

The Democratic effort will rely on the work of hundreds of lawyers, who are being recruited to combat Trump administration policies on a range of Democratic priorities. Already, advocacy groups have begun workshopping cases and recruiting potential plaintiffs to challenge expected regulations, laws and administrative actions starting on Day 1.

Democracy Forward, a legal group that formed after Mr. Trump won in 2016, has built a multimillion-dollar war chest and marshaled more than 800 lawyers to press a full-throated legal response across a wide range of issues.

Efforts to stymie Trump by painting him as an extremist have failed and even harmed Democrats in the long run, so they will take their lawfare and dirty tricks strategies in a new direction. The playbook is similar to the one they have run for a decade, but the targets may be different. 

Wilson and people like George Conway will grift their way through this rogue’s gallery of Deep State apologists but will have little effect on Trump’s success. They will, however, try to make life hell for people like Elon Musk. 

Rick Wilson truly runs one of the funniest grifts in politics. He spends his time convincing liberal donors to give him millions of dollars that he uses to make himself rich and get a lot of retweets but does nothing to actually help elect Democrats. https://t.co/heWvBW3v9S

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 19, 2024

But it will be the lawfare much more than the media attacks that may sting. The media is being defanged, and opposition research dumps will likely have little effect. If I were Wilson I would be more worried about Musk turning his attention to him than the other way around.