vox--2020-07-17--The Lincoln Project, the rogue former Republicans trying to take down Trump, explained

One tweet describes President Trump ’ s campaign as a “ criminal enterprise.
” An ad — with the hashtag # TrumpIsNotWell — shows the president struggling to walk down a ramp , and another mocks the size of the crowd at Trump ’ s rally in Tulsa , saying , “ You ’ ve probably heard this before , but it was smaller than we expected.
” They ’ re all from a political action group called the Lincoln Project , and according to co-founder Reed Galen , they ’ re meant for one specific audience : Trump himself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ an audience of one ’ strategy , which is clearly aimed at the president , ” Galen told me .
The Lincoln Project is made up of former Republicans who are avowed “ NeverTrump ” conservatives .
The group brought in $ 16.8 million between April and June of this year , much of which came from small donors giving $ 200 or less .
But most of the ads are digital , never reaching television screens .
And a lot of that money has been spent on ads like this one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s decision to commute the sentence of former campaign associate Roger Stone .
The “ # TrumpIsNotWell ” ad appears to have so incensed the president that he spent several minutes of his June 20 rally speech in Tulsa , Oklahoma , discussing his ability to drink water and walk down a ramp .
The Lincoln Project ’ s primary purpose is , as the founders wrote in a December 2019 New York Times op-ed announcing the project , “ defeating President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box and to elect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” As former Republicans , the members of the Lincoln Project believe their ads can destabilize the president and appeal to Trump-skeptical conservatives , giving them room to vote against Trump and for Joe Biden .
In a text , Lincoln Project communications director Keith Edwards told me that the project had no plans beyond defeating Trump .
“ We are focused [ on ] making sure Trump is a one-term president and ensuring Biden takes the oath of office in January .
We ’ re not thinking of anything beyond that.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaign operatives responsible for the Lincoln Project are , through their deep ties to the pre-Trump GOP , indirectly responsible for his rise .
Lincoln Project board members helped George H.W .
Bush win office in 1988 and George W. Bush win reelection in 2004 , as well as down-ballot races where their ads often featured the same kind of fear-mongering they now appear to abhor .
In short , many of those behind the project worked on Republican presidential campaigns and , before Trump , often sounded very much like Trump .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the current iteration of the Republican Party hold the keys to stopping it ?
The Lincoln Project was founded by eight former Republican operatives , most prominent among them George Conway ( married to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway ) , former Republican political strategist Rick Wilson , former New Hampshire GOP chairperson Jennifer Horn , and Steve Schmidt , best known for his work on the late Sen. John McCain ’ s 2008 presidential campaign ( where he helped select Sarah Palin as McCain ’ s vice president ) .
As former @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Lincoln Project believe they have a unique understanding of how Trump , and ideally Republicans more broadly , think .
Their television ad buys have largely been centered on Massachusetts , New Jersey , and Washington , DC , making it clear that their goal is to get many of their ads before Trump himself .
Galen told me that if they were Democrats , their ads might be more easily dismissed by Trump and the GOP more broadly .
“ I think it ’ s the idea that the apostates are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ church [ that ] is the unique thing that [ Trump ] probably can ’ t understand and certainly his people don ’ t know how to react to.
” The ads themselves are often dark and strident , in some ways mirroring Republican attack ads the strategists behind the Lincoln Project may have once used against Democrats .
In Galen ’ s terms , the ads “ [ speak ] to Republican voters with Republican language and Republican iconography.
” For example , in 2002 , Lincoln Project founder Rick Wilson worked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Saxby Chambliss and helped produce an ad against then-Sen. Max Cleland that implied Cleland opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and thus was leaving America vulnerable to terror .
In a 2015 interview with the HuffPost , Wilson said of the ad , “ [ It ] was built ugly .
The ad was built to look like it was primitive and quick and knocked off instantaneously .
It is an ugly ad .
... We knew back then that saying the words ‘ against the president ’ s vital @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ] ” against Cleland .
In Politico , Joanna Weiss argued in favor of the Lincoln Project ’ s ethos : And at least one ad appears to have resulted in a major shake-up at the Trump campaign .
According to the Wall Street Journal , campaign manager Brad Parscale was replaced in part because of this ad , which implied Parscale was using Trump to get rich .
The criticisms of the Lincoln Project are numerous .
Some have pointed to the group ’ s finances , noting that while the group @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after Trump attacked the Lincoln Project on Twitter ) , much of that money has gone to what seem like extremely high ad production costs and to firms run by members of the Lincoln Project ’ s board .
As detailed by Open Secrets : The notion that the Lincoln Project is a scam PAC created purely to enrich its board found credence with Trump allies , including Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel , who described the group as such in a scathing Daily Caller op-ed in April .
As the Daily @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that isn ’ t exactly true .
Instead , the Lincoln Project uses a complex subcontractor arrangement to move money to external companies hired to work on ads , since political groups don ’ t have to disclose their subcontractors .
It ’ s a strategy also used by the Trump campaign , and it means that the financial dealings alone aren ’ t enough to show that the group isn ’ t actually doing something .
But what , exactly , is that something ?
If the point of the Lincoln Project @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the president and his allies , then mission accomplished .
Attacks on the Lincoln Project ( and on NeverTrump Republicans more broadly ) have mounted from a host of right-leaning outlets , many of which deem them “ insignificant ” while devoting significant space to denouncing their efforts .
The right-leaning group Club for Growth even made an attack ad aimed at the Lincoln Project , calling it “ bad for America ” : Then there ’ s the president himself , who tweeted a denunciation of their efforts in early May @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drew more attention to them ) .
But irritating the president , a notoriously thin-skinned person , isn ’ t much of an achievement .
And as the HuffPost ’ s Kevin Robillard argued , making ads that get a lot of attention on Twitter might be a good way of making an audience already predisposed to dislike Trump share them , but it ’ s less likely to get the attention of voters , the vast majority of whom are not on Twitter .
Galen and others supportive of the Lincoln Project @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as one Democratic strategist told Robillard , “ a safe space for Republicans to express their concerns about the president.
” However , the Lincoln Project has recently sworn to go after not just Trump but Republican members of Congress who are supportive of the president , including Sens .
Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell .
In an ad posted online last week , it argues that viewers can “ never , ever ” trust those members again .
In doing so , the Lincoln Project may gain support from Democrats but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not disavowed the party or its policy priorities writ large , conservative writer Henry Olsen argued in the Washington Post ( in a piece titled “ Never Trumpers are Democrats in Republican clothing ” ) : “ Frankly , all they do is make me angry ” Liberals who oppose the Lincoln Project object to its core conceit : Trump , and Trumpism , are a cancer on the Republican Party , and by removing him and his ideas , things can perhaps go back to normal .
In the conservative group ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ John McCain and presidents like George W. Bush exemplified the best of American conservatism , while Trump is an aberration : a former reality show host with divorces , affairs , and affronts to “ traditional morality ” aplenty .
But as historian Eric Foner argued in 2016 , Trump can be seen as “ the logical conclusion of a lot of things the Republican Party has been doing ” for decades , with predecessors like Richard Nixon ’ s “ law and order ” presidential campaign , rife with racist implications , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against Washington corruption .
To many liberals , Trump isn ’ t an aberration ; he ’ s the culmination of a decades-long political project .
The Lincoln Project and its GOP exiles , writer Eoin Higgins argued on July 12 in the newsletter Welcome to Hell World , are an example of a “ memory hole ” in action : Everything that happened before Trump ( like the Iraq War or the existence of the Bush administration or the murder of Trayvon Martin ) has been forgotten by liberals allying with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of getting Trump out of office .
Higgins also detailed examples of Lincoln Project members using offensive and bigoted language on Twitter — for example , founder Rick Wilson repeatedly calling people “ retards , ” attacking Muslims , and mocking news coverage of Trayvon Martin ’ s killing in 2012 .
This week , Ben Howe , a video editor who worked with the Lincoln Project , was pushed out after the news outlet the 19th emailed the Lincoln Project evidence of tweets in which Howe had called people “ vaginas ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defended in graphic language the 2014 police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown , saying he would have shot Brown as well .
Alex Griswold , formerly a writer at the Washington Free Beacon , argued that Howe had used no less incendiary language on Twitter than Wilson had .
Higgins told me that the Lincoln Project ’ s ads were an appeal to liberals who believe that conservatives are their ideological opponents but not their enemies .
“ The commercials are part of a general effort by LP to present Trump as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out of the right-wing mainstream , ” he said , “ rather than the logical endpoint of the GOP and the direct ideological heir of the movement that began in earnest with Ronald Reagan.
” When I asked him about the ads themselves , he said , “ Frankly all they do is make me angry by pretending there ’ s any major difference between Reagan [ or ] George W. Bush and Trump other than style.
” He added , “ I ’ m clearly not the target audience.
” He compared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Lincoln Project to those who suggest alliances between the left and alt-right figures .
“ I find it unacceptable for mainstream liberals to ally with this group of bigots .
Doing so is dangerous as it both drives the Democratic Party even further to the right and mainstreams the abhorrent views of the group ’ s leaders to an audience of presumably more left-leaning folks.
” The Lincoln Project did not respond to a request for comment on members ’ past offensive remarks , as of this writing .
The Lincoln Project @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As Galen told me , “ You can ’ t beat the guy with high-mindedness .
You can ’ t beat the guy with platitudes .
You can ’ t beat the guy with calling him names.
” He added later during our conversation , “ it is our job to prosecute the case against Donald Trump .
We will do things that will , in our mind , boost Joe Biden ’ s prospects and image with ... Republican and independent voters.
” But the Lincoln Project appears to hope defeating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Joe Biden would restore some semblance of order .
Trump is the problem , not the Republican Party , not movement conservatism , not the conservative organizations and super PACs to which many of those who stand behind the Lincoln Project once belonged .
Galen told me that , over the next few weeks , the Lincoln Project will be rolling out ads aimed at “ soft Republicans who maybe were never comfortable with Trump but weren ’ t going to vote for Hillary Clinton , and conservative-leaning independents , who , again @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” To get an idea of how these ads might prove effective with those audiences , I spoke to Jonathan Haidt , a social psychologist and professor of ethical leadership at New York University ’ s Stern School of Business , and Christopher Federico , a researcher on political psychology .
After viewing some of the Lincoln Project ’ s ads , Haidt said they were powerful because they focus on moral characteristics that tend to be held by conservatives , like group loyalty , respect for authority and tradition , and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told me that the ads make the “ intuitively compelling conservative case ” that “ Trump has violated conservative morality , over and over again.
” He added , “ The fact that the message comes from people who identify as Republicans is extremely important , it makes the message much more sincere .
It is conservatives expressing conservative values , rather than liberals in some ad agency trying to simply push conservative buttons.
” Federico agreed , telling me , “ A major factor in partisan politics is what we call ‘ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to interpret the world , new information , and persuasive messages in ways that support one ’ s prior identity .
If it is clear to a person that a message is coming from the out-party ( i.e.
, to a Republican that a persuasive message is coming from Democrats or liberals ) , a ‘ perceptual screen ’ will go up and the information or message will be disregarded or heavily counter-argued.
” In his view , the backers of the Lincoln Project being former Republicans helped to turn off the “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ words , it sends a signal from folks with ties to the Republican or conservative in-group that it does not make you a bad Republican or a bad conservative to oppose Trump.
” But I wondered if the perception of these ads by some observers — praiseworthy and effective efforts to take down a bad president — was also a product of a certain psychology .
As the Atlantic ’ s Andrew Ferguson put it , “ like a Trump rally , the ads work exclusively on the predispositions of the faithful.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ oppose Trump praising these ads as uniquely effective or , in Weiss ’ s words , as proof that “ Republicans are better at this than Democrats , ” an example of motivated reasoning on behalf of people who , again , hate Trump ?
Haidt told me , “ In general , people say they like mavericks — people who show independence and think for themselves — but mostly or only when the maverick comes from the other side .
We ’ re not so fond of people on our own side @ @ @ @ @ @ @ position.
” But by going after conservative members of Congress , the Lincoln Project may lose Trump-skeptical Republicans .
By its very nature , the group has already lost the support of Trump ’ s most vociferous critics on the left ; it appeals most to moderates who hate Trump and are active on Twitter .
In some ways , the Lincoln Project is aimed at itself .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
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One tweet describes President Donald Trump’s campaign as a “criminal enterprise.” An ad — with the hashtag #TrumpIsNotWell — shows the president struggling to walk down a ramp, and another mocks the size of the crowd at Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, saying, “You’ve probably heard this before, but it was smaller than we expected.”
They’re all from a political action group called the Lincoln Project, and according to co-founder Reed Galen, they’re meant for one specific audience: Trump himself.
“We have what we call ‘an audience of one’ strategy, which is clearly aimed at the president,” Galen told me.
The Lincoln Project is made up of former Republicans who are avowed “Never Trump” conservatives. The group brought in $16.8 million between April and June of this year, much of which came from donors giving $200 or less. But most of the ads are digital, never reaching television screens.
And a lot of that money has been spent on ads like this one, posted to Twitter following the president’s decision to commute the sentence of former campaign associate Roger Stone.
Trump’s campaign manager is a felon.
His deputy campaign manager is a felon.
His national security advisor is a felon.
His foreign policy advisor is a felon.
His personal lawyer is a felon.
His long time advisor is a felon.
It’s not a campaign, it’s a criminal enterprise. pic.twitter.com/3U2VZNcaiL — The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 12, 2020
The “#TrumpIsNotWell” ad appears to have so incensed the president that he spent several minutes of his June 20 rally speech in Tulsa discussing his ability to drink water and walk down a ramp.
The Lincoln Project’s primary purpose is, as the founders wrote in a December 2019 New York Times op-ed announcing the project, “defeating President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box and to elect those patriots who will hold the line.” As former Republicans, the members of the Lincoln Project believe their ads can destabilize the president and appeal to Trump-skeptical conservatives, giving them room to vote against Trump and for Joe Biden.
In a text, Lincoln Project communications director Keith Edwards told me the project had no plans beyond defeating Trump. “We are focused [on] making sure Trump is a one-term president and ensuring Biden takes the oath of office in January. We’re not thinking of anything beyond that.”
But some observers have argued that the campaign operatives responsible for the Lincoln Project are, through their deep ties to the pre-Trump GOP, indirectly responsible for his rise. Lincoln Project board members helped George H. W. Bush win office in 1988 and George W. Bush win reelection in 2004, as well as down-ballot races where their ads often featured the same kind of fearmongering they now appear to abhor.
In short, many of those behind the project worked on Republican presidential campaigns and, before Trump, often sounded very much like Trump.
So do the operators who helped create the current iteration of the Republican Party hold the keys to stopping it?
Defeating Trump, Republican-style
The Lincoln Project was founded by eight former Republican operatives, most prominent among them George Conway (married to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway), former Republican political strategist Rick Wilson, former New Hampshire GOP chair Jennifer Horn, and Steve Schmidt, best known for his work on Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign (where he helped select Sarah Palin as McCain’s vice president).
As former Republican political strategists, the backers of the Lincoln Project believe they have a unique understanding of how Trump, and ideally Republicans more broadly, think. Their television ad buys have largely been centered on Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Washington, DC, making it clear that their goal is to get many of their ads before Trump himself.
Galen told me that if they were Democrats, their ads might be more easily dismissed by Trump and the GOP more broadly. “I think it’s the idea that the apostates are taking on the head of the GOP church [that] is the unique thing that [Trump] probably can’t understand and certainly his people don’t know how to react to.”
The ads themselves are often dark and strident, in some ways mirroring Republican attack ads the strategists behind the Lincoln Project may have once used against Democrats. In Galen’s terms, the ads “[speak] to Republican voters with Republican language and Republican iconography.”
For example, in 2002, Lincoln Project founder Rick Wilson worked on the Senate campaign for Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss and helped produce an ad against then-Sen. Max Cleland that implied Cleland opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and thus was leaving America vulnerable to terror.
In a 2015 interview with HuffPost, Wilson said the ad “was built ugly. The ad was built to look like it was primitive and quick and knocked off instantaneously. It is an ugly ad. ... We knew back then that saying the words ‘against the president’s vital homeland security efforts’ [would work]” against Cleland.
In Politico, Joanna Weiss argued in favor of the Lincoln Project’s ethos:
The secret of fearmongering is a willingness to go there, and that’s where the Republicans of the Lincoln Project might have an advantage over Trump’s left-leaning opponents. The group’s founders aren’t calibrating their ads around a Democratic base that mistrusts the military, delves into nuance or shies away from causing offense. That leaves ample room for dog-whistle symbols that range from clichés to horror-movie tropes: One ad accuses Trump of being played by China and ends with the image of the White House, the entire screen tinted red.
And at least one ad appears to have resulted in a major shake-up at the Trump campaign. According to the Wall Street Journal, campaign manager Brad Parscale was replaced in part because of this ad, which implied Parscale was using Trump to get rich.
The Lincoln Project’s purpose: Irritate Trump?
The criticisms of the Lincoln Project are numerous. Some have pointed to the group’s finances, noting that while the group has raised millions of dollars (particularly after Trump attacked the Lincoln Project on Twitter), much of that money has gone to what seem like extremely high ad production costs and to firms run by members of the Lincoln Project’s board. As detailed by Open Secrets:
The Lincoln Project reported spending nearly $1.4 million through March. Almost all of that money went to the group’s board members and firms run by them. The super PAC spent nearly $1 million with Summit Strategic Communications, a firm run by Lincoln Project treasurer Reed Galen. Another $215,000 went to Tusk Digital, a company run by Lincoln Project adviser Ron Steslow. Both companies received little business from other federal committees since Trump’s inauguration. That seven-figure spending, noted earlier by campaign finance expert Rob Pyers on Twitter, comes as the group spends relatively little on direct political activity. The super PAC shelled out $364,000 to Galen and Steslow’s companies to run independent expenditures opposing Trump and his Republican allies in Congress. But just 52 percent of that money went to buying and placing ads, with the rest spent on producing the ads themselves.
The notion that the Lincoln Project is a scam PAC created purely to enrich its board found credence with Trump allies, including Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, who described the group as such in a scathing Daily Caller op-ed in April.
As the Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay detailed, that isn’t exactly true. Instead, the Lincoln Project uses a complex subcontractor arrangement to move money to external companies hired to work on ads, since political groups don’t have to disclose their subcontractors. It’s a strategy also used by the Trump campaign, and it means the financial dealings alone aren’t enough to show that the group isn’t actually doing something.
But what, exactly, is that something?
If the point of the Lincoln Project is in part to draw the ire of the president and his allies, then mission accomplished. Attacks on the Lincoln Project (and on Never Trump Republicans more broadly) have mounted from a host of right-leaning outlets, many of which deem them “insignificant” while devoting significant space to denouncing their efforts.
The right-leaning group Club for Growth even made an attack ad aimed at the Lincoln Project, calling it “bad for America”:
Then there’s the president himself, who tweeted a denunciation of their efforts in early May (which, of course, only drew more attention to them).
A group of RINO Republicans who failed badly 12 years ago, then again 8 years ago, and then got BADLY beaten by me, a political first timer, 4 years ago, have copied (no imagination) the concept of an ad from Ronald Reagan, “Morning in America”, doing everything possible to.... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 5, 2020
But irritating the president, a notoriously thin-skinned person, isn’t much of an achievement. And as HuffPost’s Kevin Robillard argued, making ads that get a lot of attention on Twitter might be a good way of making an audience already predisposed to dislike Trump share them, but it’s less likely to get the attention of voters, the vast majority of whom are not on Twitter.
“Good political ad makers & managers are operatives who put aside what personally appeals to them or the Twitterverse & go with the message that moves voters,” Anne Caprara, a Democratic operative who now serves as the chief of staff to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, wrote on Twitter on Thursday night. “But while YOU may think that fancy new anti-Trump ad is so hard hitting & cathartic (‘OMG THIS AD!’) - the voter you need to persuade might find it offensive or off putting or just dumb.”
(Robillard also noted that the group had spent just $2.4 million on television advertising as of early July, much of that spending coming on ads broadcast on Fox News in Washington, DC, aimed at the network’s most famous viewer: Donald Trump.)
Galen and others supportive of the Lincoln Project have argued that it is giving Republicans, as one Democratic strategist told Robillard, “a safe space for Republicans to express their concerns about the president.”
However, the Lincoln Project has recently sworn to go after not just Trump but Republican members of Congress who are supportive of the president, including Sen. Ted Cruz and and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. In an ad posted online last week, it argues that viewers can “never, ever” trust those members again.
In doing so, the Lincoln Project may gain support from Democrats but lose credence with anti-Trump conservatives who have not disavowed the party or its policy priorities writ large, conservative writer Henry Olsen argued in the Washington Post (in a piece titled “Never Trumpers are Democrats in Republican clothing”):
The year’s Senate races offer a fresh indication of their real motives. The project’s newest television ad names 15 Republican senators whom voters should oppose, including 13 up for reelection. Their sin? Backing Trump on matters such as impeachment. The fact that nearly all Republican voters both approve of Trump’s job performance and opposed impeachment doesn’t seem to matter to those who claim to represent true Republican values.
“Frankly, all they do is make me angry”
Liberals who oppose the Lincoln Project object to its core conceit: Trump, and Trumpism, is a cancer on the Republican Party, and by removing him and his ideas, things can perhaps go back to normal. In the conservative group’s mindset, Republican presidential candidates like John McCain and presidents like George W. Bush exemplified the best of American conservatism, while Trump is an aberration: a former reality show host with divorces, affairs, and affronts to “traditional morality” aplenty.
But as historian Eric Foner argued in 2016, Trump can be seen as “the logical conclusion of a lot of things the Republican Party has been doing” for decades, with predecessors like Richard Nixon’s “law and order” presidential campaign, rife with racist implications, and populist appeal as a businessman railing against Washington corruption. To many liberals, Trump isn’t an aberration; he’s the culmination of a decades-long political project.
The Lincoln Project and its GOP exiles, writer Eoin Higgins argued on July 12 in the newsletter Welcome to Hell World, are an example of a “memory hole” in action: Everything that happened before Trump (like the Iraq War or the existence of the Bush administration or the killing of Trayvon Martin) has been forgotten by liberals allying with the group and sharing their ads in service of getting Trump out of office.
The fact is that the coalition is made up of people who until very recently were happily ensconced in the GOP—meaning that it’s not the policies pursued and beliefs espoused by Trump that are the issue. It’s just his delivery. This is not an abstract issue. The president is part and parcel of the entire Republican project and its logical conclusion after five decades of cultivating an increasingly enraged white base filled with economic and cultural grievances for which the GOP has blamed on the uneven but inexorable march to greater equality in American society.
Higgins also detailed examples of Lincoln Project members using offensive and bigoted language on Twitter — for example, founder Rick Wilson repeatedly calling people “retards,” attacking Muslims, and mocking news coverage of Trayvon Martin’s killing in 2012.
This week, Ben Howe, a video editor who worked with the Lincoln Project, was pushed out after the news outlet the 19th emailed the Lincoln Project evidence of tweets in which Howe had called people “vaginas” and “twats.” He also had defended in graphic language the 2014 police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, saying he would have shot Brown as well. Alex Griswold, formerly a writer at the Washington Free Beacon, argued that Howe had used no less incendiary language on Twitter than Wilson had.
There is no way that taken as a whole, Ben Howe's Twitter history is more offensive or vitriolic than Rick Wilson's. https://t.co/8dEygL01pp — Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) July 14, 2020
Higgins told me the Lincoln Project’s ads were an appeal to liberals who believe that conservatives are their ideological opponents but not their enemies. “The commercials are part of a general effort by LP to present Trump as an aberration, a mistake, something out of the right-wing mainstream,” he said, “rather than the logical endpoint of the GOP and the direct ideological heir of the movement that began in earnest with Ronald Reagan.”
When I asked him about the ads themselves, he said, “Frankly all they do is make me angry by pretending there’s any major difference between Reagan [or] George W. Bush and Trump other than style.” He added, “I’m clearly not the target audience.”
He compared efforts to create alliances between liberals and the Lincoln Project to those who suggest alliances between the left and alt-right figures. “I find it unacceptable for mainstream liberals to ally with this group of bigots. Doing so is dangerous as it both drives the Democratic Party even further to the right and mainstreams the abhorrent views of the group’s leaders to an audience of presumably more left-leaning folks.”
The Lincoln Project did not respond to a request for comment on members’ past offensive remarks, as of this writing.
The Lincoln Project has a distinct focus: Beat Trump. As Galen told me, “You can’t beat the guy with high-mindedness. You can’t beat the guy with platitudes. You can’t beat the guy with calling him names.” He added later during our conversation, “it is our job to prosecute the case against Donald Trump. We will do things that will, in our mind, boost Joe Biden’s prospects and image with ... Republican and independent voters.”
But the Lincoln Project appears to hope defeating Trump and securing the White House for Biden would restore some semblance of order. Trump is the problem, not the Republican Party, not movement conservatism, not the conservative organizations and super PACs to which many of those who stand behind the Lincoln Project once belonged.
Galen told me that, over the next few weeks, the Lincoln Project will be rolling out ads aimed at “soft Republicans who maybe were never comfortable with Trump but weren’t going to vote for Hillary Clinton, and conservative-leaning independents, who, again, maybe never really liked the guy.” To get an idea of how these ads might prove effective with those audiences, I spoke to Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and professor of ethical leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business, and Christopher Federico, a researcher on political psychology.
After viewing some of the Lincoln Project’s ads, Haidt said they were powerful because they focus on moral characteristics that tend to be held by conservatives, like group loyalty, respect for authority and tradition, and a sense of sanctity or purity. He told me that the ads make the “intuitively compelling conservative case” that “Trump has violated conservative morality, over and over again.”
He added, “The fact that the message comes from people who identify as Republicans is extremely important, it makes the message much more sincere. It is conservatives expressing conservative values, rather than liberals in some ad agency trying to simply push conservative buttons.”
Federico agreed, telling me, “A major factor in partisan politics is what we call ‘partisan motivated reasoning’ — a tendency to interpret the world, new information, and persuasive messages in ways that support one’s prior identity. If it is clear to a person that a message is coming from the out-party (i.e., to a Republican that a persuasive message is coming from Democrats or liberals), a ‘perceptual screen’ will go up and the information or message will be disregarded or heavily counter-argued.”
In his view, the backers of the Lincoln Project being former Republicans helped turn off the “perceptual screen”: “In other words, it sends a signal from folks with ties to the Republican or conservative in-group that it does not make you a bad Republican or a bad conservative to oppose Trump.”
But I wondered if the perception of these ads by some observers — praiseworthy and effective efforts to take down a bad president — was also a product of a certain psychology. As the Atlantic’s Andrew Ferguson put it, “like a Trump rally, the ads work exclusively on the predispositions of the faithful.” In other words, are people who oppose Trump praising these ads as uniquely effective or, in Weiss’s words, as proof that “Republicans are better at this than Democrats,” an example of motivated reasoning on behalf of people who, again, hate Trump?
Haidt told me, “In general, people say they like mavericks — people who show independence and think for themselves — but mostly or only when the maverick comes from the other side. We’re not so fond of people on our own side who depart from the team’s position.”
But by going after conservative members of Congress, the Lincoln Project may lose Trump-skeptical Republicans. By its very nature, the group has already lost the support of Trump’s most vociferous critics on the left; it appeals most to moderates who hate Trump and are active on Twitter. In some ways, the Lincoln Project is aimed at itself.


vox--2020-07-17--Florida now has more Covid-19 cases than any other state. Here’s what went wrong.

Florida now has the worst ongoing coronavirus outbreak in the country .
Since the beginning of July , Covid-19 cases in the state have gone up nearly 60 percent , with hospitalizations and deaths rapidly rising as well .
Florida now has 20 percent more daily new Covid-19 cases than Arizona , 70 percent more than Texas , and more than double California .
Florida drew headlines on Sunday for surpassing the record for the highest number of new cases reported in one day , previously held by New York ( though that was driven largely by Florida having much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the peak of its outbreak ) .
The percentage of positive tests is now nearly 19 percent , which is almost four times the recommended maximum of 5 percent .
The high rate — an indicator of how widespread infection is , as well as whether an area is conducting enough testing — suggests Florida still doesn ’ t have enough testing to match its Covid-19 outbreak .
As bad as things are in Florida , the state is likely undercounting the number of cases .
It wasn ’ t always going this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Ron DeSantis made media rounds boasting about Florida ’ s response to the coronavirus pandemic , rebuking those who had criticized the state ’ s actions , and bragging that his state had managed to keep Covid-19 cases low despite a slower , less-aggressive lockdown and a quicker reopening than other places .
In a May article from the conservative National Review — titled “ Where Does Ron DeSantis Go to Get His Apology ?
” — DeSantis said he “ was doing a good job , ” spending much of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and that he ’ d been purportedly driven by the data and science in his response .
DeSantis bragged about how quickly the state was able to reopen due to his great response to the pandemic , saying that “ what we did in March and April is the equivalent of what New York will be or California , when they go to phase three ” — in reference to California ’ s slower-moving phased plan for reopening .
Now , though , experts say it ’ s that rapid reopening — mixed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been defeated and lackluster action in the previous months — that led Florida to its current crisis .
Florida “ defiantly reopened in the name of rejuvenating their economy relatively early , ” C. Brandon Ogbunu , a computational biologist at Yale , told me .
“ The prediction was quite clear that they would have a bad wave at some point.
” Florida was relatively late in closing down statewide , but it was also among the first to reopen .
The state also reopened very quickly — letting restaurants , bars @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at high or full capacity , within weeks of ending its lockdown .
That fast pace of reopening not only made it easier for people to infect each other with the coronavirus , but also made it much harder to evaluate , due to lags in coronavirus case reporting , if each phase of reopening was leading to uncontrollable growth in infections .
At the same time , the public didn ’ t follow precautions .
Fueled by politics and complacency , Floridians are , anecdotally , very inconsistent in physical distancing and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also suggests that people in the state were much quicker to go out , once the lockdown ended , than most other states .
“ I feel like we came out of the stay-at-home [ order ] and just thought , ‘ Oh , it ’ s not a big deal anymore , ’ ” Cindy Prins , an epidemiologist at the University of Florida , told me .
People “ went back to what they were doing before — those activities they were doing before — without modifying this time.
” Recognizing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suspended alcohol consumption at bars on June 26 .
But the state has resisted further action , with DeSantis declaring the state is “ not going back ” on reopening and moving ahead with reopening schools .
Even if Florida ’ s government and residents were to act now , though , the effects of the state ’ s quick reopening will likely linger for weeks as Covid-19 takes time to show symptoms and spread to others .
That ’ s why , experts say , Florida should take more action sooner rather @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now stuck with rising cases , hospitalizations , and deaths in the days or weeks to come .
More targeted measures now , the thinking goes , could help the state avoid the worst and , potentially , another full stay-at-home order .
Like the surge in Arizona and California , Florida ’ s rising Covid-19 outbreak demonstrates the need for constant vigilance in the fight against the coronavirus .
It ’ s now clear that as the governor and public grew complacent in their efforts , the virus slowly spread across the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the consequences — and the important lesson behind them .
“ Don ’ t get comfortable , ” Prins said .
“ Don ’ t think that just because you controlled it you can continue to control it.
” DeSantis initially saw it as a bragging point , but Florida ’ s quick reopening is one of the big reasons , experts said , that the state is now experiencing a huge outbreak .
Florida was slow to close in the beginning of the pandemic .
While California , for example , closed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ March 22 , Florida took until April to issue a stay-at-home order .
Those few weeks can really matter with Covid-19 : When the number of cases can double within just 24 to 72 hours , days and weeks matter .
But at least in Florida , cases did stay relatively low through March and April — with the caveat that low testing capacity back then meant many cases were very likely missed .
Then , Florida was one of the first states to reopen .
Its stay-at-home order expired on May 4 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after it went into effect .
Unlike other states that have seen a surge in cases , like Arizona , Florida actually did see its reported Covid-19 cases drop during its full lockdown before it moved to reopen .
That put it in line with what experts and the White House recommended : a two-week decline in cases before reopening .
The drop happened as Florida ’ s Covid-19 testing numbers increased and the positive rate fell , indicating the decline in cases was genuine .
But after the state reopened , cases @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Florida went wrong , experts say , is it let its guard down .
The state reopened very quickly .
Between early May and early June , the state went from a full lockdown to letting gyms , salons , bars , and indoor dining at restaurants to reopen .
This made it difficult to track the full effects of each phase of reopening — a process experts say requires weeks or even more than a month to fully gauge .
“ When you have a low level of cases in a state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ takes two weeks to replicate , and people are going to transmit to each other , you have to give it time to see the number of cases come up to know that maybe we have an issue , ” Prins said , arguing that six weeks are necessary to see the full effects of each phase of reopening .
But many Floridians seemed to embrace the state ’ s reopening .
Based on restaurant data from OpenTable , Florida was among a handful of states — most of which are now experiencing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trickling back out to restaurants in the first full week of May .
By June , dine-in was down around 60 to 70 percent compared to the same period last year in Florida ; in comparison , it was down by more than 80 percent in California and 90 percent to 100 percent in New York and New Jersey .
The result : Floridians were increasingly out and about , interacting and infecting each other with the coronavirus .
Friends and families began gathering again , especially as they celebrated Memorial Day and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ came together — in poorly ventilated homes , restaurants , and bars , in close proximity to people they don ’ t live with , often for hours at a time — people spread the virus more frequently .
The research backs this up .
One study in Health Affairs concluded : The flipside , then , is likely true : Easing lockdowns likely led to more virus transmission .
This is also what researchers saw in previous disease outbreaks .
Several studies of the 1918 flu pandemic found that quicker and more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lives in those areas .
But this research also shows the consequences of pulling back restrictions too early : A 2007 study in JAMA found that when St. Louis , Missouri — widely praised for its response to the 1918 pandemic — eased its school closures , bans on public gatherings , and other restrictions , it saw a rise in deaths .
Here ’ s how that looks in chart form , with the dotted line representing excess flu deaths and the black and gray bars showing when social distancing measures were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those measures were lifted , and the death rate fell only after they were reinstated .
This did not happen only in St. Louis .
Analyzing data from 43 cities , the JAMA study found this pattern repeatedly across the country .
Howard Markel , a co-author of the study and the director of the University of Michigan ’ s Center for the History of Medicine , described the results as a bunch of “ double-humped epi curves ” — officials instituted social distancing measures , saw flu cases fall , then pulled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rise again .
Florida is now seeing that in real time : Social distancing worked at first .
But as the state relaxed social distancing , it quickly saw cases rise .
“ We know what has worked , ” Ogbunu said .
“ It ’ s very , very clear now that states that were defiant with regard to their social distancing policies are suffering the consequences for it.
” On top of the policy response , experts worry that Floridians never really got the message that precautions against Covid-19 would be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ come ( until a vaccine or effective treatment is available ) .
In some ways , it seems the public came under the impression that drastic action was only needed during the one-month lockdown — hence the rush back to restaurants , bars , and other indoor venues when Florida reopened , with at best spotty adherence to physical distancing and wearing a mask .
Studies suggest that , for the general public , physical distancing and masking really do work .
A review of the research published in The Lancet found that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than 1 m is highly effective and that face masks are associated with protection , even in non-health-care settings.
” But , experts said , it ’ s on them and public officials to get the word out about what the public needs to do .
To this end , Florida hasn ’ t done a good job — especially to the extent DeSantis and local , state , and federal officials played into the politicization of such measures .
“ We didn ’ t have a population that knew and believed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Aileen Maria Marty , an infectious diseases specialist at Florida International University , told me .
“ They took the virus for granted.
” One factor is the recommended precautions , including physical distancing but especially masks , became politicized .
President Donald Trump has by and large refused to wear a mask in public , even saying that people wear masks to spite him and suggesting , contrary to the evidence , that masks do more harm than good .
DeSantis , a Trump ally , joined the president in the Oval @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s response to Covid-19 , claim that the state ’ s light touch was correct , and that , relative to other states , “ Florida ’ s done better.
” This kind of politicization created pockets of resistance , particularly among conservatives who see social distancing , masks , and other steps as an overreaction to Covid-19 and the policies requiring such measures as government overreach .
Most recently , this was seen in an anti-mask “ freedom rally ” in a Florida restaurant , which organizers advertised as a “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the enforcement of state restrictions on restaurants to “ tyranny , ” the “ Gestapo , ” and “ Nazi Germany.
” Beyond politicization , there has been complacency and fatigue toward stricter Covid-19 measures .
Surveys from Gallup found that just 39 percent of people were “ always ” social distancing in late June , compared with 65 percent in early April ; the number of people who “ sometimes , ” “ rarely , ” or “ never ” practice social distancing increased from 7 to 27 percent in the same @ @ @ @ @ @ @ true for younger people , many of whom perhaps feel that they ’ re less vulnerable to Covid-19 than older populations .
It ’ s no coincidence , then , that coronavirus cases in Florida disproportionately rose at first among younger people .
But the problem is that young people can still get sick , suffer long-term complications , and die from Covid-19 .
They can also spread the virus to older populations that are more vulnerable — which in Florida increasingly seems to be happening .
When recommendations were followed , experts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out incorrectly .
Anecdotally , it ’ s common for people to wear masks inappropriately — to the point they ’ re not covering their nose or even mouth .
That , experts argued , comes down to an education problem .
Other factors , beyond policy and the public response to Covid-19 , likely played a role as well in the rise in cases .
While summer in other parts of the country lets people go outside more often — where the coronavirus is less likely to spread — triple-digit temperatures in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where poor ventilation and close contact is more likely to lead to transmission .
Some officials in Florida have argued that Black Lives Matter protests played a role in the new outbreak .
But the research and data so far suggest the demonstrations didn ’ t lead to a significant increase in Covid-19 cases , thanks to protests mostly taking place outside and participants embracing steps , such as wearing masks , that mitigate the risk of transmission .
Florida now has to deal with the consequences In response to the surge in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ closed bars across the state .
He argued the move was needed due to people disobeying social distancing guidance , forcing further action .
“ People weren ’ t following it , ” he claimed .
“ There was widespread noncompliance , and that led to issues .
If folks just follow the guidelines , we ’ re going to be in good shape .
When you depart from that , then it becomes problematic.
” DeSantis , however , has so far resisted going further .
He hasn ’ t moved to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as California ’ s governor did , and instead pushed forward with schools reopening as soon as possible .
And he ’ s rejected a statewide mask mandate — which could reduce transmission , based on studies of states and of Germany .
Anything Florida does at this point isn ’ t too little , but it is likely too late “ We need to immediately have a civil order about wearing masks in the same way we have civil penalties for running a stop sign , ” Marty said .
“ It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to protect ourselves and others.
” It ’ s probably too late to completely reverse the outbreak .
Because people can spread the virus without showing symptoms , can take up to weeks to show symptoms or get seriously ill , and there ’ s a delay in when new cases and deaths are reported , Florida is bound to see days or weeks of new infections and deaths even if DeSantis suddenly closes the state back down .
That gets to a point that experts often make about disease outbreaks : It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s obviously a problem .
“ One of the things I ’ ve learned in any outbreak is that if it seems you overreacted , you ’ ve done a good job , ” Krutika Kuppalli , an infectious disease specialist and a fellow in the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security , told me .
What looks like overreaction , she added , means that “ we prevented things from becoming a catastrophe .
We don ’ t want to wait until things are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that ’ s too late.
” In that sense , any action Florida takes would help , but those results could take weeks to really reverse trends .
So anything Florida does at this point isn ’ t too little , but it is likely too late .
But to make sure things don ’ t get much worse , experts have called for more aggressive steps .
Some have asked for more targeted restrictions , particularly on indoor venues .
They support statewide mask mandates .
They want more aggressive education , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and isolation of the sick , all of which is currently held back by big delays in testing results .
If the state government doesn ’ t act , experts said local officials could — and some cities and counties are already imposing stricter standards , including mask mandates .
Short of government action , experts urged the public to take precautions against Covid-19 more seriously .
People should wear masks , prioritize outdoor venues over indoor spaces , keep 6 feet from each other , avoid touching their faces , and wash @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a whole does all of that could dictate how bad things get — and could help make up , at least partially , for government inaction .
The goal now is to avoid things getting so out of control that another stay-at-home order is necessary .
Everyone wants to avoid this , but the reality is that it may be the only way to stop an outbreak if it gets too bad — which is damaging not just for public health but for other parts of American life , too .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They don ’ t spend money .
They don ’ t invest in things , ” Jade Pagkas-Bather , an infectious diseases expert and doctor at the University of Chicago , told me .
“ When you fail to invest in the health of your population , then there are longitudinal downstream effects.
” But as Florida gets worse by the day , it gets closer to requiring drastic measures to reclaim control of the pandemic .
If Florida ’ s leaders had acted sooner or more cautiously , maybe much of this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they bragged about how great the state was doing , and now Floridians are suffering a predictable , preventable crisis .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and an economic downturn .
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Florida now has the worst ongoing coronavirus outbreak in the country.
Since the beginning of July, Covid-19 cases in the state have gone up nearly 60 percent, with hospitalizations and deaths rapidly rising as well. Florida now has 20 percent more daily new Covid-19 cases than Arizona, 70 percent more than Texas, and more than double California. Florida drew headlines on Sunday for surpassing the record for the highest number of new cases reported in one day, previously held by New York (though that was driven largely by Florida having much more testing than New York did at the peak of its outbreak).
The percentage of positive tests over the previous week hit nearly 19 percent, which is almost four times the recommended maximum of 5 percent. The high rate — an indicator of how widespread infection is, as well as whether an area is conducting enough testing — suggests Florida still doesn’t have enough testing to match its Covid-19 outbreak. As bad as things are in Florida, the state is likely undercounting the number of cases.
It wasn’t always going this way. Just weeks ago, Gov. Ron DeSantis made media rounds boasting about Florida’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, rebuking those who had criticized the state’s actions, and bragging that his state had managed to keep Covid-19 cases low despite a slower, less-aggressive lockdown and a quicker reopening than other places.
In a May article from the conservative National Review — titled “Where Does Ron DeSantis Go to Get His Apology?” — DeSantis said he “was doing a good job,” spending much of the article arguing that his critics were wrong and that he’d been purportedly driven by the data and science in his response.
DeSantis bragged about how quickly the state was able to reopen due to his great response to the pandemic, saying that “what we did in March and April is the equivalent of what New York will be or California, when they go to phase three” — in reference to California’s slower-moving phased plan for reopening.
Now, though, experts say it’s that rapid reopening — mixed with public complacency that the virus had been defeated and lackluster action in the previous months — that led Florida to its current crisis.
Florida “defiantly reopened in the name of rejuvenating their economy relatively early,” C. Brandon Ogbunu, a computational biologist at Yale, told me. “The prediction was quite clear that they would have a bad wave at some point.”
Florida was relatively late in closing down statewide, but it was also among the first to reopen. The state also reopened very quickly — letting restaurants, bars, and other businesses reopen, sometimes at high or full capacity, within weeks of ending its lockdown. That fast pace of reopening not only made it easier for people to infect each other with the coronavirus, but also made it much harder to evaluate, due to lags in coronavirus case reporting, if each phase of reopening was leading to uncontrollable growth in infections.
At the same time, the public didn’t follow precautions. Fueled by politics and complacency, people in Florida are, anecdotally, very inconsistent in physical distancing and wearing masks, experts said. Data also suggests that people in the state were much quicker to go out, once the lockdown ended, than most other states.
“I feel like we came out of the stay-at-home [order] and just thought, ‘Oh, it’s not a big deal anymore,’” Cindy Prins, an epidemiologist at the University of Florida, told me. People “went back to what they were doing before — those activities they were doing before — without modifying this time.”
Recognizing the surge in cases, the state suspended alcohol consumption at bars on June 26. But the state has resisted further action, with DeSantis declaring the state is “not going back” on reopening and moving ahead with reopening schools.
Even if Florida’s government and residents were to act now, though, the effects of the state’s quick reopening will likely linger for weeks as Covid-19 takes time to show symptoms and spread to others. That’s why, experts say, Florida should take more action sooner rather than later — as it’s now stuck with more cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in the days or weeks to come. More targeted measures now, the thinking goes, could help the state avoid the worst and, potentially, another full stay-at-home order.
DeSantis’s office didn’t return requests for comment.
Like the surge in Arizona and California, Florida’s rising Covid-19 outbreak demonstrates the need for constant vigilance in the fight against the coronavirus. It’s now clear that as the governor and public grew complacent in their efforts, the virus slowly spread across the population. We’re now seeing the consequences — and the important lesson behind them.
“Don’t get comfortable,” Prins said. “Don’t think that just because you controlled it you can continue to control it.”
Florida reopened too quickly
DeSantis initially saw it as a bragging point, but Florida’s quick reopening is one of the big reasons, experts said, that the state is now experiencing a huge outbreak.
Florida was slow to close in the beginning of the pandemic. While California, for example, closed on March 19 and New York on March 22, Florida took until April to issue a stay-at-home order. Those few weeks can really matter with Covid-19: When the number of cases can double within just 24 to 72 hours, days and weeks matter.
But at least in Florida, cases did stay relatively low through March and April — with the caveat that low testing capacity back then meant many cases were very likely missed.
Then, Florida was one of the first states to reopen. Its stay-at-home order expired on May 4, a little more than a month after it went into effect.
Unlike other states that have seen a surge in cases, like Arizona, Florida actually did see its reported Covid-19 cases drop during its full lockdown before it moved to reopen. That put it in line with what experts and the White House recommended: a two-week decline in cases before reopening. The drop happened as Florida’s Covid-19 testing numbers increased and the positive rate fell, indicating the decline in cases was genuine.
But after the state reopened, cases began to surge in June.
Where Florida went wrong, experts say, is it let its guard down. The state reopened very quickly. Between early May and early June, the state went from a full lockdown to letting gyms, salons, bars, and indoor dining at restaurants to reopen. This made it difficult to track the full effects of each phase of reopening — a process experts say requires weeks or even more than a month to fully gauge.
“When you have a low level of cases in a state, and you have a virus that takes two weeks to replicate, and people are going to transmit to each other, you have to give it time to see the number of cases come up to know that maybe we have an issue,” Prins said, arguing that six weeks are necessary to see the full effects of each phase of reopening.
But many people in Florida seemed to embrace the state’s reopening. Based on restaurant data from OpenTable, Florida was among a handful of states — most of which are now experiencing major outbreaks — to see people start trickling back out to restaurants in the first full week of May. By June, dine-in was down around 60 to 70 percent compared to the same period last year in Florida; in comparison, it was down by more than 80 percent in California and 90 percent to 100 percent in New York and New Jersey.
The result: People in Florida were increasingly out and about, interacting and infecting each other with the coronavirus. Friends and families began gathering again, especially as they celebrated Memorial Day and the summer kicked off. Tourists came into the state for the summer, too. As they came together — in poorly ventilated homes, restaurants, and bars, in close proximity to people they don’t live with, often for hours at a time — people spread the virus more frequently.
The research backs this up. One study in Health Affairs concluded:
Adoption of government-imposed social distancing measures reduced the daily growth rate by 5.4 percentage points after 1–5 days, 6.8 after 6–10 days, 8.2 after 11–15 days, and 9.1 after 16–20 days. Holding the amount of voluntary social distancing constant, these results imply 10 times greater spread by April 27 without SIPOs (10 million cases) and more than 35 times greater spread without any of the four measures (35 million).
The flipside, then, is likely true: Easing lockdowns likely led to more virus transmission.
This is also what researchers saw in previous disease outbreaks.
Several studies of the 1918 flu pandemic found that quicker and more aggressive steps to enforce social distancing saved lives in those areas. But this research also shows the consequences of pulling back restrictions too early: A 2007 study in JAMA found that when St. Louis, Missouri — widely praised for its response to the 1918 pandemic — eased its school closures, bans on public gatherings, and other restrictions, it saw a rise in deaths.
Here’s how that looks in chart form, with the dotted line representing excess flu deaths and the black and gray bars showing when social distancing measures were in place. The peak came after those measures were lifted, and the death rate fell only after they were reinstated.
This did not happen only in St. Louis. Analyzing data from 43 cities, the JAMA study found this pattern repeatedly across the country. Howard Markel, a co-author of the study and the director of the University of Michigan’s Center for the History of Medicine, described the results as a bunch of “double-humped epi curves” — officials instituted social distancing measures, saw flu cases fall, then pulled back the measures and saw flu cases rise again.
Florida is now seeing that in real time: Social distancing worked at first. But as the state relaxed social distancing, it quickly saw cases rise.
“We know what has worked,” Ogbunu said. “It’s very, very clear now that states that were defiant with regard to their social distancing policies are suffering the consequences for it.”
People didn’t always follow public health advice
On top of the policy response, experts worry that people in Florida never really got the message that precautions against Covid-19 would be needed for months and possibly years to come (until a vaccine or effective treatment is available). In some ways, it seems the public came under the impression that drastic action was only needed during the one-month lockdown — hence the rush back to restaurants, bars, and other indoor venues when Florida reopened, with at best spotty adherence to physical distancing and wearing a mask.
Studies suggest that, for the general public, physical distancing and masking really do work. A review of the research published in The Lancet found that “evidence shows that physical distancing of more than 1 m is highly effective and that face masks are associated with protection, even in non-health-care settings.”
But, experts said, it’s on them and public officials to get the word out about what the public needs to do. To this end, Florida hasn’t done a good job — especially to the extent DeSantis and local, state, and federal officials played into the politicization of such measures.
“We didn’t have a population that knew and believed that this virus is dangerous,” Aileen Maria Marty, an infectious diseases specialist at Florida International University, told me. “They took the virus for granted.”
One factor is the recommended precautions, including physical distancing but especially masks, became politicized. President Donald Trump has by and large refused to wear a mask in public, even saying that people wear masks to spite him and suggesting, contrary to the evidence, that masks do more harm than good. DeSantis, a Trump ally, joined the president in the Oval Office in April to boast about Florida’s response to Covid-19, claim that the state’s light touch was correct, and that, relative to other states, “Florida’s done better.”
This kind of politicization created pockets of resistance, particularly among conservatives who see social distancing, masks, and other steps as an overreaction to Covid-19 and the policies requiring such measures as government overreach. Most recently, this was seen in an anti-mask “freedom rally” in a Florida restaurant, which organizers advertised as a “mask free zone.” One organizer compared the enforcement of state restrictions on restaurants to “tyranny,” the “Gestapo,” and “Nazi Germany.”
Beyond politicization, there has been complacency and fatigue toward stricter Covid-19 measures. Surveys from Gallup found that just 39 percent of people were “always” social distancing in late June, compared with 65 percent in early April; the number of people who “sometimes,” “rarely,” or “never” practice social distancing increased from 7 to 27 percent in the same time frame.
This may be particularly true for younger people, many of whom perhaps feel that they’re less vulnerable to Covid-19 than older populations. It’s no coincidence, then, that coronavirus cases in Florida disproportionately rose at first among younger people. But the problem is that young people can still get sick, suffer long-term complications, and die from Covid-19. They can also spread the virus to older populations that are more vulnerable — which in Florida increasingly seems to be happening.
When recommendations were followed, experts worried that the measures were sometimes carried out incorrectly. Anecdotally, it’s common for people to wear masks inappropriately — to the point they’re not covering their nose or even mouth. That, experts argued, comes down to an education problem.
Other factors, beyond policy and the public response to Covid-19, likely played a role as well in the rise in cases. While summer in other parts of the country lets people go outside more often — where the coronavirus is less likely to spread — triple-digit temperatures in Florida can actually push people inside, where poor ventilation and close contact is more likely to lead to transmission.
Some officials in Florida have argued that Black Lives Matter protests played a role in the new outbreak. But the research and data so far suggest the demonstrations didn’t lead to a significant increase in Covid-19 cases, thanks to protests mostly taking place outside and participants embracing steps, such as wearing masks, that mitigate the risk of transmission.
Florida now has to deal with the consequences
In response to the surge in cases, DeSantis on June 26 effectively closed bars across the state.
He argued the move was needed due to people disobeying social distancing guidance, forcing further action. “People weren’t following it,” he claimed. “There was widespread noncompliance, and that led to issues. If folks just follow the guidelines, we’re going to be in good shape. When you depart from that, then it becomes problematic.”
DeSantis, however, has so far resisted going further. He hasn’t moved to close down the state more widely, as California’s governor did, and instead pushed forward with schools reopening as soon as possible. And he’s rejected a statewide mask mandate — which could reduce transmission, based on studies of states and of Germany.
Anything Florida does at this point isn’t too little, but it is likely too late
“We need to immediately have a civil order about wearing masks in the same way we have civil penalties for running a stop sign,” Marty said. “It is a reasonable request that we do to protect ourselves and others.”
It’s probably too late to completely reverse the outbreak. Because people can spread the virus without showing symptoms, can take up to weeks to show symptoms or get seriously ill, and there’s a delay in when new cases and deaths are reported, Florida is bound to see days or weeks of new infections and deaths even if DeSantis suddenly closes the state back down.
That gets to a point that experts often make about disease outbreaks: It’s important to act before it’s obviously a problem.
“One of the things I’ve learned in any outbreak is that if it seems you overreacted, you’ve done a good job,” Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious disease specialist and a fellow in the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told me. What looks like overreaction, she added, means that “we prevented things from becoming a catastrophe. We don’t want to wait until things are a catastrophe and then react, because that’s too late.”
In that sense, any action Florida takes would help, but those results could take weeks to really reverse trends. So anything Florida does at this point isn’t too little, but it is likely too late.
But to make sure things don’t get much worse, experts have called for more aggressive steps. Some have asked for more targeted restrictions, particularly on indoor venues. They support statewide mask mandates. They want more aggressive education, along with more testing, tracing, and isolation of the sick, all of which is currently held back by big delays in testing results.
If the state government doesn’t act, experts said local officials could — and some cities and counties are already imposing stricter standards, including mask mandates.
Short of government action, experts urged the public to take precautions against Covid-19 more seriously. People should wear masks, prioritize outdoor venues over indoor spaces, keep 6 feet from each other, avoid touching their faces, and wash their hands. How well a community as a whole does all of that could dictate how bad things get — and could help make up, at least partially, for government inaction.
The goal now is to avoid things getting so out of control that another stay-at-home order is necessary. Everyone wants to avoid this, but the reality is that it may be the only way to stop an outbreak if it gets too bad — which is damaging not just for public health but for other parts of American life, too.
“Dead people don’t shop. They don’t spend money. They don’t invest in things,” Jade Pagkas-Bather, an infectious diseases expert and doctor at the University of Chicago, told me. “When you fail to invest in the health of your population, then there are longitudinal downstream effects.”
But as Florida gets worse by the day, it gets closer to requiring drastic measures to reclaim control of the pandemic. If Florida’s leaders had acted sooner or more cautiously, maybe much of this could have been prevented. Instead, they bragged about how great the state was doing, and now Floridians are suffering a predictable, preventable crisis.