The Lincoln Project

This week's EITR is "Men of (Dis)honor." Republicans would rather keep an alleged domestic abuser in Congress than lose a seat — no shock when the man leading the party is a convicted felon found liable for sexual abuse. Then there's Thom Tillis and John Cornyn: on their way out the door, already torched by Trump, handed the easiest chance at honor of their careers — and they folded, voting to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General and handing the DOJ to the man at the center of the Epstein cover-up. Rick names the cowards and asks what honor even means in today's GOP.
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Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson, Bluesky @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. 
More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.

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STOP DOOMSCROLLING AND PRESS PLAY. This week we get our hands on THE PLAYBOOK. Brian Tyler Cohen — the #1 New York Times bestselling menace behind Shameless — is back with a brand-new battle plan, THE DAY AFTER: HOW TO WIELD POWER IN A POST-TRUMP WORLD, and it is exactly the kick in the pants the left has been begging for. We’re talking about the morning-after question nobody wants to answer: once the smoke clears, WHAT DO DEMOCRATS ACTUALLY DO WITH POWER?? No more clutching pearls. No more bringing a strongly-worded tweet to a knife fight. Brian lays out why Democrats have to go on OFFENSE, stop apologizing, and use every lever they’ve got — because MAGA isn’t waiting around and neither should we. Rick and Brian get into the guts of it: the fumbles, the fixes, and the ruthless, proactive strategy it’ll take to WIN in 2026 and beyond. It’s loud, it’s urgent, it’s a masterclass in spine. Grab the book, grab your headphones, and let’s GO. 🎙️⚡🇺🇸
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Brian Tyler Cohen is everywhere @BrianTylerCohen, and on his website https://briantylercohen.com. His new book, ‘THE DAY AFTER: HOW TO WIELD POWER IN A POST-TRUMP WORLD,’ is out now, wherever fine books are sold. 

Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson, Bluesky @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. 
More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.

This week’s EITR comes to you from LP’s trip across the pond. Rick reports back from a week of speaking in the UK — on America’s declining standing abroad, the rise of authoritarian populism, and the growing pull of social media, foreign actors, and political figures on Western democracy. He shares stories from the road, compares British and American society, and calls for real political accountability and democratic reform in 2026 and beyond.
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Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson, Bluesky @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. 
More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.

Everybody's got a hot take on how American democracy is dying. Almost nobody has an actual plan to save it. This week, Rick Wilson sits down with Ben Wikler — the former Wisconsin Democratic Party chair who turned a purple-state battleground into a national model, and author of This Is the Plan: How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy — to skip the hand-wringing and get straight to the blueprint. Because the authoritarian playbook Trump is running isn't magic. It's a system. And systems can be beaten by people who understand how they actually work.
Rick and Ben get into the real fight: the systemic threats hollowing out the guardrails, why Supreme Court reform has to be on the table, and the unglamorous grassroots work — local elections, state parties, showing up between the presidential years — that actually moves power. They map the road to a federal trifecta in 2028 and what it would take to finally rip out the rot that's rigged the whole system. It's not a doomscroll and it's not a fairy tale. It's a strategy — and a reminder that the people who built this mess are counting on you believing it can't be fixed. This is the conversation that proves them wrong.
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Ben Wikler is the former chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and author of This Is the Plan: How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy. Find his work at https://www.benwikler.com/, and follow him @benwikler.
Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson, Bluesky @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. 
More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.
#BenWikler #ThisIsThePlan #SaveDemocracy #RickWilson #LincolnProject #SupremeCourt #Grassroots #2028 #Democracy #Politics #PoliticalPodcast #Podcast

While Washington burns, there are people out there actually doing the unglamorous work of winning elections — and this week Rick Wilson brings you two of them. 
First up: Josh Turek, running for Senate in Iowa, where tariffs have gutted family farms, rural hospitals keep going dark, and corporate consolidation has squeezed working families until there's nothing left. Turek's pitch is what he calls a "prairie populist" agenda — lower costs, real support for family farms, healthcare people can actually reach, and a hard shove back against the corporate money that's been running the table. It's the kind of message that used to win the Midwest, and might again.
Then Rick heads to Colorado for Manny Rutinel, currently in the state House and gunning for CO-8 — one of the most competitive districts in the entire country and the most Latino district in the state. The incumbent, Gabe Evans, has voted with Trump an estimated 97% of the time, which is less a voting record than a signature stamp. Rutinel's betting that a working-class background and a genuine grassroots operation beat a rubber stamp with a war chest. Two races, two very different maps, one shared question: can Democrats stop talking past the people they need and start winning them back? These are the fights that decide whether the next Congress is a check on the chaos or a co-signer.
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Josh Turek is a candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa: https://turek4iowa.com
Manny Rutinel is a Colorado State Representative and candidate for Congress in CO-8: https://mannyforcolorado.com
Rick Wilson is @THERICKWILSON on socials and on Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. 
More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.
#JoshTurek #MannyRutinel #Iowa #Colorado #CO8 #Midterms2026 #RickWilson #LincolnProject #Democrats #Politics #PoliticalPodcast #Podcast