Politics
Lincoln Project says Donald Trump is no Honest Abe
A series of ads and podcasts will contrast the Republican leaders.
The anti-Donald Trump Lincoln Project is using the Great American State Fair to show how the current President doesn’t measure up to Abraham Lincoln.
The group is launching its first in a series of ads spotlighting Lincoln, with a focus on Lincoln’s 1858 speech accepting the Republican Senate nomination from Illinois.
The spot posits that a “nation can’t be half one thing and half another and survive,” arguing that Lincoln was unique in saying that slavery was wrong.
A narrator argues that a similar dichotomy prevails today, between democracy and autocracy and “rule of law and rule of one man.”
Tessa Gould, Lincoln Project Executive Director, contrasts Lincoln having “reinvigorated American liberty, destroyed slavery, and set the nation on a moral course that still survives today” with Trump allegedly “tearing down the true foundations of American success.”
More ads are on the way.
Friday’s “Better Angels” will argue that Lincoln’s inaugural speech was an “inflection point” that offered “reconciliation.”
June 30’s “Lincoln vs. Trump” contrasts Lincoln’s “wartime building record” with the current President, who allegedly “dismantles in peacetime.”
“Suckers and Losers” will explore the “chasm” between a “President who wept for the fallen and one who called them suckers.” It comes out July 2, and is said to be the “emotional gut punch of the series.”
“Character” will be released July 4, and it will tie Lincoln quotes into America’s 250th anniversary.
Podcasts are forthcoming as well, and guests include political consultant emeritus James Carville and lawyer Jeffrey Toobin.