‘The Lincoln Project’ Depicts Vanity and Self-Regard Among the Anti-Trump Right: TV Review

variety.com:

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.

In the months before the election, the Lincoln Project measures results in eyeballs and in cash; cannily, directors Karim Amer and Fisher Stevens include mentions of how many millions are rolling in, or a clip of a #Resistance devotee announcing they’ve “given more money to The Lincoln Project than anything else.” By series’ end, we have seen the group disassemble due to vitriolic disputes over money and credit.