Running Against the Devil Quotes

“The Party of Lincoln is now the Party of Trump, a weak, cowardly, amoral, and faithless husk of a once-great party of ideas and leadership. They’ll follow him into a political graveyard, red hats, tawdry nationalism, dumb policies, cruel tweets, and all. Their cult-like obedience to him has consumed their honor, and their souls.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves

“Trump isn’t Hitler. Hitler had normal-sized hands and the ability to concentrate for more than thirty seconds.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump — And Democrats from Themselves

“Don’t build a watch; tell voters the time.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump — And Democrats from Themselves

“Most presidents would instantly draw a sharp, clean line between campaign operations and the use of military force. This is the proverbial “wag the dog” scenario where a president in trouble seeks to bomb his way out of it by hitting a target overseas. With no adult supervision in the Pentagon—just who is the acting, provisional, temporary, staffing-agency, drop-in SECDEF this week?—no one should put it past Trump to escalate conflicts with China, Iran, or elsewhere when some part of his lizard brain tells him that some boom-boom will goose his polling numbers.

Some of my former GOP colleagues will whisper, “How dare you accuse the American president of ever using the military for…” and then drop the subject, because no matter how deep they are in the Trump hole, they know who this man is and what he’ll do. Trump proves time and again that morals, laws, norms, traditions, rules, guidelines, recommendations, and tearful pleading from his staff mean nothing when he gets a power boner and decides he’s going to do something stupid. President Hold My Beer comes from the Modern Unitary Executive Power theory, where there are no limits, no laws, and no right and wrong. I’m not saying it’s a matter of if Trump will wag the dog in 2020. I’m saying that anyone who thinks he wouldn’t is a damn fool.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump — And Democrats from Themselves

“Trump is a complete package of the Founders’ greatest fears—delusions of royalty, appeals to the basest appetites of the polity, populism over small-r republicanism, and vulnerability to the blandishments of foreign powers who so obviously are welcome to corrupt him with gifts or flattery of his ravenous ego.

To date, his actions have had the possible check of the 2020 election hanging over him, which has influenced him whether or not he admits it. Trump needs to win reelection to continue his nation-state level, god-tier grifting and to avoid prosecution.

He thrives not on a competition of ideas but on the division of the country. Our parties and politics will follow him down, fighting a dirtier, more savage battle until we’ve forgotten what it means to share even the most common baseline with our fellow Americans. The cold civil war is warming by the day. He’s not the only centrifugal political force, but he’s the most powerful.

This will only accelerate if he is reelected. There will be no end to his ambition and no check on his actions. He will conclude that he’s the winner who wins, and for him that will justify everything in his catalog of errors and terrors. We’ve learned there is no bottom with Trump, no level to which he won’t sink, no excess he won’t embrace.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump — And Democrats from Themselves

“Donald Trump is a terrible, horrible, no-good president. He’ll go down in history with asterisks next to his name for endemic corruption, outrageous stupidity, egregious cruelty, and inhumanity, for diminishing the presidency and the nation, and for being a lout with a terrible wig.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves

“demonstrably weak and not very bright man,”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves

“Trump’s short temper, lack of knowledge or experience in national security matters, and inability to see beyond the time horizon of his next tweet will, in the event of a more kinetic crisis, leave American forces and interests at risk. God forbid an American warship fails in battle, or a Special Forces unit can’t complete a mission. He’ll likely declare them enemies of the people and issue a tweet to mock their shortcomings. The bad guys know the same things our allies know: This is a weak man in a weak White House. He is unreliable, untruthful, and unmanageable. No matter how many flyovers and tank displays are arranged to keep him clapping like a toddler, and no matter how tough he talks on Twitter, they’ve got his number…and America in their sights.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves

“They do need to make the case that Trump is a mentally and morally unwell man, and that he sold a pack of lies to the voters in the fifteen or so swing states that matter in 2020.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves

“I really do put country over party, particularly when the party I served for a generation is on a headlong path toward becoming a collection of mere votaries to a maniacal cult leader.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves

“Some days, you can almost convince yourself he’s trying to lose this election. It feels like he’s sabotaging himself with the tweets, the crazy talk, the scandals generated by his own slips of the tongue and thumbs.

Shake it the fuck off.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump — And Democrats from Themselves

“As a result of Trump’s train-wreck trade war with China and the rest of the world, Midwest farmers have lost many of their international markets; to mitigate the political damage, the Trump administration has showered them with “relief payments” to the tune of over $28 billion. It’s red-hat instead of red-banner socialism. But don’t dare call it that—it’s just the government redistributing wealth because of its failed attempt to manipulate markets and dictate production.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump — And Democrats from Themselves

“Every time I hear “Hillary won the popular vote,” I cringe.

The correct answer to this is “And?”

Winning the popular vote and $5.45 gets you a venti mocha latte at Starbucks.

It. Means. Nothing.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump — And Democrats from Themselves

“Our close alliances are strained as never before. A frazzled NATO feels the eager heat of Russia’s breath in the east, with the Baltic states, Poland, and Germany wondering if we’re about to see a new Cold War, only this time with the United States more friendly to Russia than to the West. America’s role as a NATO ally will continue to degrade as Trump’s bromance with Putin, his extortion of the allies, and his utter ignorance of the traditions and meaning of the Western Alliance is demonstrated time and again. But hey, Trump Tower Moscow will make it worthwhile, right?”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves

“The GOP passed a tax bill that is performing exactly as expected and predicted: A handful of hedge funds, America’s top corporations, and a few dozen billionaires were given a trillion-dollar-plus tax benefit. Even the tax cut’s most fervent proponents know that its effects were short-lived, the bill is coming due, and in 2022 or thereabouts it’s going to lead to annual deficits of close to $2 trillion. When the bubble pops, the correction hits, and Wall Street investment firms and banks go tango uniform, Trump will bail them out before you can say “golden parachute.” The “average guy with a 401k” who is going to get crushed in the next drop? Not so much.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves

“The promised auto, coal, steel, and manufacturing jobs aren’t just fiction; they’re a cruel lie to people who spent the last three decades in a slow, painful decline.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves

“Old people vote. You know who votes in the swing states where this election will be fought? Really old people. Instead of high-profile videos with Cardi B (no disrespect to Cardi, who famously once threatened to dog-walk the egregious Tomi Lahren), maybe focus on registering and reaching more of those old-fart voters in counties in swing states. If your celebrity and music-industry friends want to flood social media with GOTV messages, let them. It makes them feel important and it’s the cheapest outsourcing you can get. Just don’t build your models on the idea that you’re going to spike young voter turnout beyond 20 percent. The problem with chasing the youth vote is threefold: First, they’re unlikely to be registered. You have to devote a lot of work to going out, grabbing them, registering them, educating them, and motivating them to go out and vote. If they were established but less active voters, you’d have voter history and other data to work with. There are lower-effort, lower-cost ways to make this work. Second, they’re not conditioned to vote; that November morning is much more likely to involve regret at not finishing a paper than missing a vote. Third, and finally, a meaningful fraction of the national youth vote overall is located in California. Its gigantic population skews the number, and since the Golden State’s Electoral College outcome is never in doubt, it doesn’t matter. What’s our motto, kids? “The Electoral College is the only game in town.” This year, the Democrats have been racing to win the Free Shit election with young voters by promising to make college “free” (a word that makes any economic conservative lower their glasses, put down the brandy snifter, and arch an eyebrow) and to forgive $1.53 trillion gazillion dollars of student loan debt. Set aside that the rising price of college is what happens to everything subsidized or guaranteed by the government.17 Set aside that those subsidies cause college costs to wildly exceed the rate of inflation across the board, and that it sucks to have $200k in student loan debt for your degree in Intersectional Yodeling. Set aside that the college loan system is run by predatory asswipes. The big miss here is a massive policy disconnect—a student-loan jubilee would be a massive subsidy to white, upper-middle-class people in their mid-thirties to late forties. I’m not saying Democrats shouldn’t try to appeal to young voters on some level, but I want them to have a realistic expectation about just how hard it is to move those numbers in sufficient volume in the key Electoral College states. When I asked one of the smartest electoral modeling brains in the business about this issue, he flooded me with an inbox of spreadsheets and data points. But the key answer he gave me was this: “The EC states in play are mostly old as fuck. If your models assume young voter magic, you’re gonna have a bad day.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves

“All of this is building toward an economic disaster out of proportion to the mere correction we would experience after a long period of growth, all else being equal. No, the collapse next time won’t just be awful; it’ll be made more dangerous and destructive by an economic ignoramus trying to rage-tweet the country away from the economic cliff. My suggested portfolio in the coming Trump depression is gold, ammunition, and canned goods.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves

“Here’s the painful irony: The big-picture economy, which is largely out of any president’s control, is the real source of this president’s political strength with voters who like him. The SSRN poll for CNN in June 2019 had a striking finding. Of those who approve of Trump, a plurality of 26 percent said they do so because of the economy, more than twice the next most-frequent answer. In the same economic issue basket, 8 percent cited jobs as a reason for liking him. On immigration, 4 percent said that’s the reason they like him. When it comes to other aspects of Trump’s persona, support falls to the single digits. Just 1 percent said they approve of him because he’s draining the proverbial D.C. swamp. A whopping 1 percent said they like him because he’s honest, which proves you can fool 1 percent of the people all the time. All of this is a sign of trouble ahead for Donald Trump, because his economic record is a rickety construction prone to collapse from external forces at any moment. A BUBBLE, READY TO POP The long, sweet climb in economic prosperity we’ve enjoyed for a decade comes down to the decisions of two men and one institution: George W. Bush in taking the vastly unpopular step of bailing out Wall Street in the 2009 economic crisis, and Barack Obama for flooding the economy with economic stimulus in his first term. The Federal Reserve enabled both of these decisions by issuing an ocean of low- or zero-interest credit for ten years. Sure, the bill will come due someday, but the party is still going. While Trump took short-term political advantage of it, every bubble gets pricked by the old invisible hand. In the current economic case, the blizzard of Trumpian bullshit will inevitably hit the fan. We’re awash in trillion-dollar deficits, the national debt is asymptotically approaching infinity, and we have a president who’s never hesitated to borrow and spend well beyond his means, or to simply throw up his hands and declare bankruptcy when it suits him. We never did—and most likely never will—tackle entitlement reform. Nations don’t get to go bankrupt; they collapse. The GOP passed a tax bill that is performing exactly as expected and predicted: A handful of hedge funds, America’s top corporations, and a few dozen billionaires were given a trillion-dollar-plus tax benefit. Even the tax cut’s most fervent proponents know that its effects were short-lived, the bill is coming due, and in 2022 or thereabouts it’s going to lead to annual deficits of close to $2 trillion.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves

“I’ve written at length about Trump’s racial history, and the picture is hideously below the mark of what America deserves in a president; he’s an awful, dark stain on our history. What the first term makes abundantly clear is that it’s not an act, it’s not a strategy, and it’s not something the American people can bear. It is exactly who he is: a fucking racist. The referendum on Trump’s racism will play out in 2020, and well beyond, costing the GOP seats, status, and support for generations. They have no one to blame but themselves. IT’S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE Which leads us to what he looks like in a second term. Cognitive decline is an ugly, hard reality for millions of Americans. As the Silent Generation slips into their final years, and the oldest Boomers join them, families all over America confront Alzheimer’s and many other tolls of aging. For many afflicted with a loss of memory and ability, this decline is a sad, steady reduction in the joys of life. For Trump, it’s part of the reality show, though not one he wants to focus on. Comparing Trump now with video clips from a decade ago is chilling. The slippage in his verbal acuity is marked. His rages and explosions of temper aren’t part of an act; they’re no longer controlled or controllable. The nearest contemporary parallel was the second-term decline of Ronald Reagan. Americans sensed the terrible gravity of Alzheimer’s pulling at him, but he was still surrounded by largely competent people and was, on the whole, a healthy man. For all the disagreements Democrats had with him, Reagan could never be considered an impulsive narcissist with a hair-trigger temper and no concern for others. Reagan actually bothered to understand nuclear weapons and the risks they posed, unlike President Missile Parade. Trump’s lack of knowledge should terrify you as much as it does me, especially as his cognitive decline continues apace. Given his hold over the cabinet, there’s no workable solution for this president’s combination of apparent mental infirmities and uncontrolled urges and racist fuckery, suggesting a second term will be more dangerous than the first.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves

“If the Democratic Party has any leadership at all, they should dedicate themselves to narrowing the field, fast, and pushing the lower-tier also-rans into Senate, governorship, and house races as quickly as possible. The field remained so large in late 2019 it became a running joke.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves

“The next four years will make the Trump administration’s first four pale in comparison. The kleptocratic festival of crony capitalism, lobbyist giveaways, consumer-screwing protections for predatory lenders, environmental rapine, immigration cruelty, and fiscal insanity in his first term was a warmup act. In the second, all the political restraints are off.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves

“Trump, the iconoclast hero of America’s forgotten working class, has delivered unparalleled prosperity and finally made America Great Again. He has built the wall, kept every promise, and told the truth at every point. He is the smartest, handsomest president in history, not of the United States, but of the world, and we are lucky to have him give up his valuable time to serve as our leader. His royal family beside him, he will lead us to greater heights.”
― Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves