The Words of Abraham Lincoln Condemn the Entire NeverTrump Lincoln Project Goal
President Abraham Lincoln made a prediction in the throes of the Civil War that there would be some in the North who will come to the sad realization when the conflict ended that they, like those who rebelled in the South, were on the wrong side of history.
The same is true of the NeverTrump Lincoln Project, led by a group of former Republican campaign strategists.
These operatives have made their stated objective to hand the White House over to Democrat Joe Biden and the Senate to the wildly liberal Chuck Schumer of New York.
In a famous letter Lincoln penned in August 1863, the 16th president took on the “unconditional Union-men” who opposed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves, which took effect in January 1863.
“You dislike the emancipation proclamation; and, perhaps, would have it retracted,” he wrote in the correspondence, which was read by a friend of Lincoln at a gathering of these “Union-men” in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois.
“You say it is unconstitutional–I think differently. I think the constitution invests its Commander-in-chief, with the law of war, in time of war.”
Lincoln continued his vigorous defense of the decision to issue the proclamation.
“You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter,” he wrote. “Fight you, then exclusively to save the Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union.”
He closed by expressing the hope that in the aftermath of the Union wins at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in July 1863, “peace does not appear so distant as it did.”
“And then, there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they strove to hinder it.”
The NeverTrumpers making up The Lincoln Project are striving to keep President Donald Trump from winning a second term, preferring to see the White House turned over to Joe Biden.
“Some of the most gut punching, bare-knuckled and most widely viewed anti-Trump ads this election season have not come from the Biden campaign,” CBS host Leslie Stahl noted in a story about the group that aired on “60 Minutes” Sunday night.
“They’ve come from The Lincoln Project, trying to convince fellow Republicans to elect a Democrat.”
“I think that we have hurt him. We have cut him,” Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt told the veteran journalist.
“We have defined him. We have provoked him. There was not a glove proverbially laid on him for a really long time. And I think we’re among the first groups to effectively do that,” Schmidt, who managed John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, added.
According to Stahl, the group has raised over $60 million so far, a significant portion of which came from Democrats or donors to Democrats.
In addition to Trump, the group has targeted Republican senators up for re-election like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Martha McSally of Arizona for what Stahl called their “fealty to President Trump.”
The Lincoln Project’s John Weaver, another McCain acolyte and alum of his presidential campaigns, described for Stahl what the group considers the current GOP’s flaws.
“We’ve gone from caring about character, rule of law, defending the Constitution, a cogent national security policy, free trade. Where are those issues?” has asked.
“Imagine if you travel the country for 30 years fighting for Republican principles and you learn it was all a lie. No one cares about all the issues that we fought for,” Weaver continued.
Riddle me this, Lincoln Project people: Will a Joe Biden administration govern more or less consistent with the Constitution and the rule of law than Trump has been?
In 2014, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas identified 76 examples of lawless acts by the Obama administration.
They included disregarding the provisions of the 1996 welfare reform law, the Defense of Marriage Act, the Affordable Care Act, immigration law, Operation Fast and Furious, the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups, and the surveillance of The Associated Press to name some.
Biden himself apparently helped hatch the scheme to entrap incoming Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn with a supposed Logan Act violation in relation to Russia.
It was one in a series of moves designed to ensnare the new incoming administration in the faux Russiagate scandal.
So much for the peaceful transfer of power called for in the Constitution.
On the national security front, the Obama/Biden administration sought to cover up the nature of the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, and also allowed the Islamic State to establish the “caliphate” that Trump defeated.
Biden was against going forward with the 2011 raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, the most significant national security victory of the Obama administration.
Last year, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he stood by a statement in his memoirs declaring that Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Now, contrast that with Trump’s record.
The president targeted and destroyed the Islamic State’s caliphate.
Trump directed the killing of the Iranian terrorist leader Qassem Soleimani and Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
He moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and helped negotiate landmark peace deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
He is on track to appoint nearly 300 judges to the federal bench, including three constitutional conservatives to the Supreme Court.
Biden would surely nominate activist judges, with a bent toward interpreting the Constitution to suit their desired outcomes.
Economically, Trump signed into law the most pro-growth economic tax reform since Ronald Reagan and slashed regulations on businesses, helping lead to the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years, and the lowest ever recorded for African-Americans and Hispanic Americans.
On the character issue, Trump faced impeachment over an alleged quid pro quo deal with Ukraine, which even Ukraine’s leaders maintain never happened.
Meanwhile, Biden did engage in a quid pro quo with Ukraine, admitting in a video that in 2016, he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid if Kyiv did not fire a certain prosecutor.
That prosecutor, before he was fired, happened to be investigating the Ukrainian natural gas company where Biden’s son Hunter was paid a reported $50,000 per month as a board member.
Biden has also been openly accused of sexual assault by a former Senate staffer.
He’s been truth-challenged on many occasions, including embellishing his academic record.
He ended his first presidential bid in 1987 after he was found to have plagiarized speeches by Robert F. Kennedy and British politician Neil Kinnock.
All this doesn’t add up to a person of sterling character.
The Lincoln Project members can use all the highfalutin language they want, but the truth is their opposition for Trump is not based on his failure to govern as a conservative or Biden’s supposed better character.
It’s all a personal vendetta against Trump because they don’t like him.
Conservative commentator and director of the new film “Trump Card” Dinesh D’Souza explained in a recent interview with The Western Journal that NeverTrumpers tend to be “vain” people.
“Well, I think that some of the NeverTrumpers dug in very early against Trump, and they are extremely vain, egotistical people that don’t want to admit that they were completely wrong about Trump not being a conservative,” D’Souza said.
“I think even they know that they were wrong,” he continued, “but they don’t want to admit that they were wrong.”
“The second thing is that Trump, being a scrappy New Yorker, pummeled and insulted some of these people, strafed them if you will. And these are not people who can take a punch.”
D’Souza believes they continue to harbor “wounds and grudges,” which is fueling their attempt to bring down Trump.
“This is basically sort of the Lincoln moment,” he contended. “Lincoln was a moderate man. But when he came to Washington, he realized he was in a very immoderate situation.”
So too, the 45th president found himself in a very immoderate situation when he got to D.C. — i.e. Robert Mueller investigation, extremely hostile media, and Democratic impeachment — not allowing the more traditional ways of a Ronald Reagan.
“I think that … to understand that it is to begin to understand Trump,” D’Souza said.
The Lincoln Project people have deluded themselves into thinking they are doing good for the country by opposing Trump and his agenda to “Make America Great Again.”
They can’t stand the man to the point they won’t even support his conservative policies, but rather vote in big government socialism.
The implications are clear: To borrow a phrase from old Abe, there will be those patriots “with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye,” who will know they fought for the cause of preserving American freedom by backing Trump.
“While, I fear, there will be some [NeverTrumpers] unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they strove to hinder it.”
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