The Lincoln Project

Coming off last week’s examination of the killing of Renee Nicole Good, Rick lays out how the United States is sliding into an American police state—one powered by ICE intimidation, fear-based propaganda, and a rapidly expanding government surveillance apparatus. Rick breaks down how ICE relies on spectacle, misinformation, and selective enforcement to force citizen compliance, while the Trump-era state deploys AI surveillance and facial recognition, license plate readers, and Flock Safety cameras to monitor Americans in ways that openly undermine the Constitution, the Fourth Amendment, and basic civil liberties. This isn’t about public safety—it’s about control. This isn't a flaw, it's a feature. It's no longer about equal protection under the law, but about protecting power, punishing dissent, and enforcing political obedience. When agencies like ICE are shielded from accountability while technology is used to surveil citizens instead of defend their rights, justice stops being blind and starts taking orders.For best practices on dealing with ICE, this week's episode of The Breakdown features our legal counsel, Mario Nicolais, and is also worth a watch. https://youtube.com/live/eRihj_qXUYw•••••Rick Wilson is on X at @TheRickWilson, on Bluesky at @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and you can check out Rick's Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. You can check out more of LP's work at www.lincolnproject.us and on X at @ProjectLincoln. Visit www.bollandbranch.com/lincoln for 15% off your first order + free shipping. #adGo to www.ethos.com/lincolnproject to see how you could protect your family with life insurance with a free quote in under ten minutes. #ad Check out www.werobot.com/lincolnproject for 60% off. #ad 

Donald Trump didn’t speak for the working class—he played it. In this episode, Rick Wilson sits down with Dropkick Murphys frontman Ken Casey to unpack how Trump’s brand of fake populism conned millions of working Americans while delivering power, tax cuts, and protection to billionaires and authoritarians. Rick and Ken break down how grievance replaced policy, how MAGA culture turned resentment into a loyalty test, and why the people waving the biggest flags ended up getting sold out first. Then they flip the script: punk rock as an early warning system, a working-class truth teller, and a loud, unapologetic form of resistance to fascism, cult politics, and manufactured outrage. This isn’t about music nostalgia—it’s about class consciousness, propaganda, and why real resistance has never come from strongmen at the top, but from people willing to call bullsh*t, turn up the volume, and refuse to be fooled again.•••••You can find Ken Casey at dropkickmurphys.com. Check out their website for tour information and details on their upcoming album! Their updated song "Citizen ICE" is out now.Rick Wilson is on X at @TheRickWilson, on Bluesky at @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and you can check out Rick's Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. You can check out more of LP's work at www.lincolnproject.us and on X at @ProjectLincoln. Visit www.quince.com/lincoln for free shipping & 365-day returns. #ad Go to www.expressvpn.com/lincolnproject to learn more about how you could get up to 4 extra months. #ad

This week, we confront MAGA’s escalating performative cruelty following the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis — a woman shot and killed by an ICE officer and then posthumously smeared as a “domestic terrorist” to justify the violence. As facts emerged, the Trump movement did what it always does: lied, dehumanized, and closed ranks around power. JD Vance went even further, effectively arguing for blanket immunity for federal agents, treating U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as an untouchable arm of the state — Trump’s modern secret police. This episode breaks down how authoritarian movements manufacture enemies, why disinformation follows state violence every time, and how Donald Trump’s political culture rewards cruelty over truth. This isn’t about law and order — it’s about power without accountability, the erosion of civil liberties, and what it means when a political movement decides some lives are disposable. Say her name: Renee Good.•••••If you'd like to support Renee Good’s wife and son, below is a link to their publicly accessible GoFundMe:https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-renee-goods-wife-and-sonRick Wilson is on X at @TheRickWilson, on Bluesky at @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and you can check out Rick's Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. You can check out more of LP's work at www.lincolnproject.us and on X at @ProjectLincoln. 

This weekend, the capture of Nicolás Maduro didn’t close a chapter in Venezuela — it ripped one open. History tells us exactly where this movie goes: swagger first, strategy never. Venezuela isn’t just another “bad guy taken off the board”; it’s an oil-soaked, politically fractured, economically shattered country where outside powers think force can substitute for understanding. That’s how Iraq started. That’s how Vietnam metastasized. And now, under Donald Trump, America is once again flirting with the delusion that you can arrest a dictator, flip a switch, pump the oil, and call it victory. You can’t. You get insurgencies, regional blowback, endless commitments, and a war that exists not because it protects Americans — but because oil, ego, and imperial muscle memory demand it. Welcome to the next forever war, this time in our own hemisphere, where the lessons of the past are ignored, the bill always comes due, and the exit strategy is once again a shrug. • • • • • Rick Wilson is on X at @TheRickWilson, on Bluesky at @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and you can check out Rick's Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. You can check out more of LP's work at www.lincolnproject.us and on X at @ProjectLincoln. 

Giving you an extra special bonus episode of The Lincoln Project podcast, Rick Wilson is joined by special guest Chris Whipple of Vanity Fair, the reporter who just detonated Trumpworld with his explosive reporting on Susie Wiles. Whipple doesn’t just recap the headlines—he reveals new secrets, pulls back the curtain on how power actually operates inside Trump’s inner circle, and explains why Wiles may be the most important—and least understood—figure in modern MAGA politics. As more breaking news unfolds, Rick and Whipple connect the dots between loyalty, control, fear, and the machinery driving Trump’s 2025 operation. If you want to understand who really runs Trumpworld—and why this story keeps getting darker—this is the episode you can’t miss. • • • • • You can find Chris Whipple on X @ccwhip, and on his website https://chriswhipple.com/.  VANITY FAIR PIECE PART 1: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/trump-susie-wiles-interview-exclusive-part-1 VANITY FAIR PIECE PART 2: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/trump-susie-wiles-interview-exclusive-part-2 Rick Wilson is on X at @TheRickWilson, on Bluesky at @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and you can check out Rick's Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. You can check out more of LP's work at www.lincolnproject.us and on X at @ProjectLincoln.