‘The Lincoln Project’ Depicts Vanity and Self-Regard Among the Anti-Trump Right: TV Review
Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic It’s been said that former President Donald Trump corrupts all who enter his orbit — that it’s impossible to deal directly with him without taking on his amorality and crassness. “The Lincoln Project,” a new documentary series on Showtime, depicts that process among his political opposition. Here, people devoted to ousting Trump mirror his rhetorical style and his self-regard. And it’s in subtly making this case that the documentary succeeds, even as it grows punishing to watch. The Lincoln Project, a circle of former high-level Republican strategists who made viral anti-Trump ads, seemed throughout the 2020 presidential election to be, Trumpishly, more focused on brand promotion than political work. “No one’s ever fucked with a candidate like we’ve fucked with a candidate,” Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson says early in the doc; those schemes include a Times Square billboard, attention-getting for attention’s sake.