Rick Wilson just took America's authoritarian meltdown on the road, and this time the stage isn't a cable news set, it's PETER GABRIEL'S WOMAD FESTIVAL in the UK. This week Rick tells the story of his OWN journey through GOP politics — from party operative to outspoken critic — as a CAUTIONARY TALE for a world watching democracy erode in real time. He's not just talking about America anymore. He's connecting the dots on how authoritarianism creeps in EVERYWHERE, from Washington to Westminster and beyond, and why the warning signs look the same no matter what flag is flying. Expect the same no-BS Rick Wilson energy, now aimed at a global audience that needs to hear it. This is history, strategy, and a warning label all rolled into one.•••••Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson, Bluesky @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.#RickWilson #LincolnProject #WOMAD #WOMADFestival #PeterGabriel #Authoritarianism #Democracy #EITR #SaveDemocracy #GOP #Politics2026 #UKpolitics #PoliticalPodcast #WakeUpAmerica👉 Grab your free seat to the 2-Day AI Claude-athon: https://links.outskill.com/THLIAUG3🔐 100% Discount for the first 1000 people💥 Dive deep into claude, its models and Learn Automations, Build AI Agents, Make videos & images – all for free! #adVisit https://bollandbranch.com/lincoln and use code 'LINCOLN' to unlock 15% off. #ad

This week's EITR is "Men of (Dis)honor." Republicans would rather keep an alleged domestic abuser in Congress than lose a seat — no shock when the man leading the party is a convicted felon found liable for sexual abuse. Then there's Thom Tillis and John Cornyn: on their way out the door, already torched by Trump, handed the easiest chance at honor of their careers — and they folded, voting to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General and handing the DOJ to the man at the center of the Epstein cover-up. Rick names the cowards and asks what honor even means in today's GOP.•••••Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson, Bluesky @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.Visit https://babbel.com/lincolnproject for up to 60% off. #ad

STOP DOOMSCROLLING AND PRESS PLAY. This week we get our hands on THE PLAYBOOK. Brian Tyler Cohen — the #1 New York Times bestselling menace behind Shameless — is back with a brand-new battle plan, THE DAY AFTER: HOW TO WIELD POWER IN A POST-TRUMP WORLD, and it is exactly the kick in the pants the left has been begging for. We’re talking about the morning-after question nobody wants to answer: once the smoke clears, WHAT DO DEMOCRATS ACTUALLY DO WITH POWER?? No more clutching pearls. No more bringing a strongly-worded tweet to a knife fight. Brian lays out why Democrats have to go on OFFENSE, stop apologizing, and use every lever they’ve got — because MAGA isn’t waiting around and neither should we. Rick and Brian get into the guts of it: the fumbles, the fixes, and the ruthless, proactive strategy it’ll take to WIN in 2026 and beyond. It’s loud, it’s urgent, it’s a masterclass in spine. Grab the book, grab your headphones, and let’s GO. 🎙️⚡🇺🇸•••••Brian Tyler Cohen is everywhere @BrianTylerCohen, and on his website https://briantylercohen.com. His new book, ‘THE DAY AFTER: HOW TO WIELD POWER IN A POST-TRUMP WORLD,’ is out now, wherever fine books are sold. Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson, Bluesky @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.

This week’s EITR comes to you from LP’s trip across the pond. Rick reports back from a week of speaking in the UK — on America’s declining standing abroad, the rise of authoritarian populism, and the growing pull of social media, foreign actors, and political figures on Western democracy. He shares stories from the road, compares British and American society, and calls for real political accountability and democratic reform in 2026 and beyond.•••••Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson, Bluesky @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.

Everybody's got a hot take on how American democracy is dying. Almost nobody has an actual plan to save it. This week, Rick Wilson sits down with Ben Wikler — the former Wisconsin Democratic Party chair who turned a purple-state battleground into a national model, and author of This Is the Plan: How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy — to skip the hand-wringing and get straight to the blueprint. Because the authoritarian playbook Trump is running isn't magic. It's a system. And systems can be beaten by people who understand how they actually work.Rick and Ben get into the real fight: the systemic threats hollowing out the guardrails, why Supreme Court reform has to be on the table, and the unglamorous grassroots work — local elections, state parties, showing up between the presidential years — that actually moves power. They map the road to a federal trifecta in 2028 and what it would take to finally rip out the rot that's rigged the whole system. It's not a doomscroll and it's not a fairy tale. It's a strategy — and a reminder that the people who built this mess are counting on you believing it can't be fixed. This is the conversation that proves them wrong.•••••Ben Wikler is the former chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and author of This Is the Plan: How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy. Find his work at https://www.benwikler.com/, and follow him @benwikler.Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson, Bluesky @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.#BenWikler #ThisIsThePlan #SaveDemocracy #RickWilson #LincolnProject #SupremeCourt #Grassroots #2028 #Democracy #Politics #PoliticalPodcast #Podcast

While Washington burns, there are people out there actually doing the unglamorous work of winning elections — and this week Rick Wilson brings you two of them. First up: Josh Turek, running for Senate in Iowa, where tariffs have gutted family farms, rural hospitals keep going dark, and corporate consolidation has squeezed working families until there's nothing left. Turek's pitch is what he calls a "prairie populist" agenda — lower costs, real support for family farms, healthcare people can actually reach, and a hard shove back against the corporate money that's been running the table. It's the kind of message that used to win the Midwest, and might again.Then Rick heads to Colorado for Manny Rutinel, currently in the state House and gunning for CO-8 — one of the most competitive districts in the entire country and the most Latino district in the state. The incumbent, Gabe Evans, has voted with Trump an estimated 97% of the time, which is less a voting record than a signature stamp. Rutinel's betting that a working-class background and a genuine grassroots operation beat a rubber stamp with a war chest. Two races, two very different maps, one shared question: can Democrats stop talking past the people they need and start winning them back? These are the fights that decide whether the next Congress is a check on the chaos or a co-signer.•••••Josh Turek is a candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa: https://turek4iowa.comManny Rutinel is a Colorado State Representative and candidate for Congress in CO-8: https://mannyforcolorado.comRick Wilson is @THERICKWILSON on socials and on Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.#JoshTurek #MannyRutinel #Iowa #Colorado #CO8 #Midterms2026 #RickWilson #LincolnProject #Democrats #Politics #PoliticalPodcast #Podcast

Two acts, one circus. Part one: Trump shuffled out last night, grabbed the podium like it was the only thing keeping him upright, and delivered a low-energy, incoherent rerun of his greatest 2020 grievances. And here's the thing — it doesn't matter what he said or how badly he said it. The speech had exactly one job: to poison the well before the 2026 election, to get millions of Americans primed to distrust the results months before a single vote is cast. It wasn't a rant. It was a pre-game. Rick Wilson breaks down why the incoherence is the point, and why the "rigged" groundwork being laid right now should have every one of us paying attention.Part two: enter Todd Blanche, stumbling through an AG confirmation hearing that played like an audition for a job he'd already promised to somebody else. He dodged and dissembled on the Epstein files, made a spectacle of himself under basic questioning, and then — in a Freudian slip for the ages — referred to himself as "Trump's lawyer." Which, let's be honest, is the truest thing anyone said all day. Rick digs into what it means when the person up for the nation's top law enforcement job can't stop admitting who he actually works for. Grab a drink. You'll need it.•••••Rick Wilson is @TheRickWilson on socials and on Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.#Trump #ToddBlanche #Epstein #Election2026 #ElectionIntegrity #RickWilson #LincolnProject #ElephantInTheRoom #Politics #PoliticalPodcast #CurrentEvents #Podcast

Here's a sentence that should stop you cold: a Democratic governor just cut loose one of the most notorious election criminals in the country — because Donald Trump told him to. Tina Peters, the Colorado clerk convicted for helping breach her own county's voting system and handing the guts of it to Mike Lindell's crew, was doing nine years. Then Trump started posting "FREE TINA," and Governor Jared Polis obliged — slashing her sentence and springing her on parole, dressing it up as a "free speech" stand. His own party censured him. All six Colorado Democrats in Congress lit him up. And it still happened.This week Rick Wilson is joined by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold — the election-integrity watchdog who fought Peters from the start — to break down what this commutation really signals: that the pressure campaign works, that the people who attacked our elections are being rehabilitated in real time, and that it's a dress rehearsal for what's coming this fall. Rick and Jena get into how the machinery of election sabotage actually operates, why the midterms are the next target, and — most importantly — what we can do right now to lock the doors before November. The last election deniers got prosecuted. This time they're getting pardoned. Time to pay attention.•••••Jena Griswold is the Colorado Secretary of State. Check out her campaign for Colorado Attorney General at https://jenaforcolorado.com and follow her @JenaGriswold.Rick Wilson is @TheRickWilson and on Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.#TinaPeters #JenaGriswold #JaredPolis #ElectionIntegrity #Trump #Colorado #RickWilson #LincolnProject #Midterms #Democracy #Politics #Podcast

Trump flew to Ankara for the NATO summit and turned it into an open-mic disaster. In two days he threatened to bomb Iran again, screamed at Europe for blocking his Greenland obsession, called Spain "a terrible partner," and trashed half the alliance for skipping his war — then spread his arms and declared it all a lovefest of "tremendous love." This week's Elephant in the Room, Rick Wilson breaks down the clown show.Here's what the spin can't hide: our allies aren't laughing with him — they're backing away. Rick gets into what it actually costs when a president treats the most powerful alliance on earth like his personal roast: the credibility bleeding out, the adversaries taking notes, the friends who've quietly stopped counting on us. Greenland grabs, Iran threats, insulted partners, and a standing ovation he gave himself. It'd be hilarious if it weren't our national security.•••••Rick Wilson is @TheRickWilson and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and @ProjectLincoln.Go to https://shopify.com/lincolnproject to start your free trial today. #Trump #NATO #Ankara #Greenland #Iran #RickWilson #LincolnProject #ElephantInTheRoom #ForeignPolicy #Politics #CurrentEvents #Podcast

Somewhere near you, Big Tech is quietly bolting together a windowless box the size of a stadium — and it's thirsty as hell. The AI gold rush has unleashed a wave of massive data centers that swallow staggering amounts of water and electricity, spike local utility bills, and buckle small-town grids that were never built to feed a machine that never sleeps. The trillion-dollar companies get the profits and the press releases. The town next door gets the drained reservoir, the power crunch, and the bill. If that racket sounds familiar, it should.This week, Rick Wilson sits down with the one and only Erin Brockovich — the legendary crusader who's spent her whole life dragging corporate giants into the light and making them pay — to break down the fight communities are waking up to across the country. They get into who's really footing the cost of the AI boom, why local families keep getting steamrolled by companies with unlimited lawyers, how ordinary people are actually beating these projects when they organize early and loud, and exactly what to do if a data center shows up on your doorstep. It's a David-and-Goliath story with a very 2026 twist — and Erin's entire career is proof that Goliath bleeds.•••••Erin Brockovich is a legendary environmental activist and consumer advocate. Find her work at Brockovichdatacenter.com, thebrockovichreport.com, and follow her at @ErinBrockovich.Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson and on Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.#ErinBrockovich #DataCenters #BigTech #AI #WaterCrisis #RickWilson #LincolnProject #Environment #Grassroots #Politics #Podcast