‘Interns Coming Out of My Ears’: The Decline and Fall of the ‘Greatest Super PAC in American History’

Andrew StilesNovember 6, 2022

“I’m not sure my penis could be any more erect right now,” Rick Wilson squeals in episode one of The Lincoln Project, a Showtime documentary series about the disgraced super PAC he founded in 2019. Wilson, a frumpy troll who spends an unhealthy amount of time on Twitter telling strangers he just slept with their wives, is reviewing a new digital ad the group is about to post online. Like most of their work, it’s subtle and cerebral. You see, it attacks Donald Trump—who has been known to call his enemies “losers”—by calling him a loser. Brilliant.

If the goal was to make viral videos antagonizing Trump that would seduce the national media, assuage some mentally disturbed liberals, and raise money for the Lincoln Project, it worked. If they had a different goal in mind—making a difference in the election, “saving democracy”—the result was less clear. The five-part series tells the story of how an organization dedicated to exposing Trump’s apparent flaws—his galactic arrogance, insatiable greed, childish behavior, petty feuds, crude language, sexual malfeasance, and dysfunctional leadership—came to embody those same flaws before collapsing into itself like a dying star.

In hindsight, given the players involved, the Lincoln Project’s self-inflicted downfall seems inevitable. At the time of its launch, however, few could have anticipated the lurid saga about to unfold in front of the cameras, least of all directors Karim Amer and Fisher Stevens, who started filming at the height of the pandemic in 2020. Stevens, the white Hollywood actor and Democratic donor best known for portraying an Indian doctor in the Short Circuit movies, linked up with the group after being seduced by one of those viral ads. The Lincoln Project is not the puff piece they presumably set to make, which is why it debuted last month as opposed to last year.

The series traces the super PAC’s rise and fall from its official launch in Manhattan’s East Village before a crowd of rich liberals to the bitter infighting among co-founders seeking to turn cultural clout into “generational wealth,” as well as the allegations of sexual misconduct against co-founder John Weaver that ultimately dashed their dream of creating what Wilson describes as “the greatest super PAC in American history.” That sound you hear? The world’s smallest violin playing just for them.

It’s a story with no protagonists and very few