In my last article before the 2020 election, I warned that there is a reactionary malignancy at the center of American politics, and that the Republican Party, as led by Donald Trump, is the most vocal and powerful source of this malignancy. Hence, I believed that the danger posed by this malignancy was so great that it threatened to tear this country apart. I should say that January’s storming of the Capitol has vindicated my position, and now the Republican Party is at an impasse — is it to remain the party of Donald Trump, the alt-right and QAnon, or is it possible to return to the Reagan-esque “principled conservatism” of the 1980s to early 2000s?

With 74 percent of Republicans wanting Trump to remain active in politics in some way, it seems clear that the former president is to remain a kingmaker in right-wing politics. This is especially clear in light of Trump’s closing address at Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC,) in which he condemned Republicans who voted to convict him in his second impeachment trial, arousing thunderous applause from the audience.

Nonetheless, there remains a small, but vocal, contingency of Republican pundits who continue to oppose the former president’s crass rhetoric, poor managerial skills and cult of personality. Of course, this is not a new phenomenon. Since Trump’s initial campaign launch in 2015, a gaggle of long-time Republican political operatives and commentators have come out of the woodwork to condemn Trump at every possible turn, garnering uncritical praise on networks like MSNBC.

In the 2020 election, some of the former president’s most impassioned Republican critics seemingly coalesced to form The Lincoln Project, a Super PAC “dedicated to defeating President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box and to elect those patriots who will hold the line.” In other words, this group seeks to “[preserve] the principles” which have supposedly defined American conservatism before Trump.

Yet, for all of The Lincoln Project’s hyperbolic moralizations, emphasizing fidelity to “the rule of law, the Constitution and the American character,” one is truly hard-pressed to find any substantive policy disagreements between The Lincoln Project’s brand of conservatism and Trumpism. In fact, in areas where these disagreements can be identified, it seems that The Lincoln Project believes that Trump was not reactionary enough.

Of course, this should come as no surprise, as several of The Lincoln Project’s key members, such as co-founders Rick Wilson and Steve Schmidt, are long time neoconservatives who have been instrumental in bringing about a rightward shift in American politics. Co-founder Steve Schmidt is rather infamous for his advocacy for Sarah Palin’s vice presidential nomination in 2008 — a move which is arguably one of the antecedents for the rise of Trumpism, as Palin’s reactionary politics and rhetoric have been key to pushing the GOP further right in the past decade.

In the area of foreign policy for example, the group seems to believe that Trump has not been sufficiently hawkish, even going so far as to call for “asymmetric warfare” against Russia and advocating for further geopolitical escalation against China. In short, while opposed to some of the former president’s worst tendencies, members of The Lincoln Project are still ultimately responsible for supporting a political culture which gave rise to Trump in the first place.

In several of The Lincoln Project’s ads, soundbites of former President Ronald Reagan have been juxtaposed with Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, with the implication that Reagan, with his characteristic charm and oratory skills, should be regarded as an exemplar of leadership in these times of crisis. This is certainly ironic given how Reagan infamously ignored the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

I believe that the group’s deification of Reagan in contrast to Trump is very telling in regard to the group’s goals and mindset — these “Never Trump” Republicans seek a return to a political culture that no longer exists, one in which the archetype of the “respectable Republican” may be restored. They look to abandon much of the openly reactionary rhetoric which now defines the Republican Party, while implementing the same policies of militarism and neoliberalism.

Unfortunately for The Lincoln Project, their efforts to combat Trumpism have been rather astonishingly unsuccessful. According to exit polls, Donald Trump actually increased his share of the Republican vote compared to 2016. Nonetheless, The Lincoln Project experienced remarkable financial success during the 2020 election cycle, raising about $90 million dollars, in part due to large donations from billionaires, such as Walmart heiress Christy Walton. After the election, there were even talks among the group to form a media company.

But pride comes before the fall, and in recent weeks, The Lincoln Project has fallen amidst a barrage of scandals. First is the revelation that co-founder John Weaver stands accused of sexual harassment by 21 young men, including one who was underage when Weaver initially contacted him. Then, when co-founder Jennifer Horn resigned from the organization following the publicization of these charges, the organization accused her of conspiring with Amanda Becker of The 19th News to publicly denigrate them, publishing several private Twitter exchanges between Horn and The Lincoln Project’s membership in retaliation.

But the coup de grâce came last month, when it was revealed that, of the nearly $90 million the group has raised, roughly $50 million has gone to firms controlled by the group’s leaders, such as the consulting firms of co-founders Reed Galen and Ron Steslow. According to the Associated Press, “Schmidt collected a $1.5 million payment in December but quickly returned it.”

Alas, the unraveling of The Lincoln Project has exposed these anti-Trump Republicans as paper tigers — representatives of a political culture that no longer exists. Indeed, the collapse of The Lincoln Project almost seems like something of an inevitability. Despite their exaggerated sense of moral superiority and political savviness, the group’s demise is ironically representative of one of the core reasons Donald Trump was elected: frustration towards the political establishment, which is disconnected from the general public. This is the ultimate reason why Trumpism will remain the norm among conservatives, as its pseudo-populist rhetoric appeals to a very real sense of alienation this country — a sense which these Never Trump Republicans fail to understand.

Colin Mangan is a sophomore double-majoring in philosophy and sociology.