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ZEIT ONLINE: How would you explain to the many people in Germany and elsewhere around the world who remain puzzled by the conduct of President Trump and the Republican Party what has happened since his election almost four years ago?
Reed Galen: That's a great question. What's happened is that we have seen a systematic dismantling of the political and legal norms surrounding the American presidency. The Republican Party and its elected leaders have been part and parcel to that dismantling: Every time Donald Trump did or said something that was fundamentally unpresidential, unethical, against norms or flat out illegal not one Republican, with the exception of Mitt Romney, has said or done anything to stop him. Now we're 55 days from an election, 200.000 dead Americans from the coronavirus, six million infected, 25 million out of work and it turns out that they have all known all along what a bad person Trump is, how unfit for the office he is, how negligent he is. And now it is up to the American people to make their decision about the direction of this country. And from our perspective it could not be a more clear choice. We have a president who does not respect the country, he does not respect its people, he does not respect its military, he does not respect its traditions. And all of that becomes more abundantly clear on an all almost daily basis, if it wasn't clear enough before.
ZEIT ONLINE: How would you describe the Lincoln Project and its mission for those not yet familiar with it?
Galen: We're a bunch of former and some current Republicans who decided last December that it was time to defeat Donald Trump and Trumpism and his aiders and abetters at the ballot box this coming November. We have spent the past eight months working towards that effort. We create and release advertising, we do content creation, we have a grass roots operation in the states that decide the election this fall. And everyday we get up and we see more of what he has said and done and we are more convinced than ever that we were right.
ZEIT ONLINE: The Lincoln Project made a name for itself through its viral anti-Trump videos and by trolling Trump on Twitter. Why do you think have your videos and tweets hit a nerve?
Galen: The one thing that Donald Trump cannot abide by is reality staring him in the face. We show him the reality that he is creating in this country and we don't let him off the hook about it and we do it again and again and again. And he really does not like it. And the more he doesn't like it and the more poorly he reacts – the more we do it.
ZEIT ONLINE: But of course, being viral and popular doesn't necessarily mean being effective and sway voters in an election where most voters are already decidedly pro or against Trump. Why do you think the Lincoln Project campaign can have a real impact and with whom?
Galen: First you have to define what being effective is. For most of this campaign our effectiveness has been about ensuring that Donald Trump is distracted. That he is not focused on what's going on as far as his presidential campaign is concerned and so for the first five or six months of this year he was not focused on figuring out how to defeat Joe Biden, but to figure out to best respond to us, which he has still not done. Our effectiveness is measured in the hours, days and weeks that he did not spend prosecuting his case against Joe Biden or why he should be the next president, but in responding to a bunch of political consultants who understand how to get inside his head and stay there.
On the voter front, we spent a lot of time and effort ensuring that voters we believe are not fans of Trump, Republicans and Independents, will spend the rest of this election campaign understanding why we are against him and why they should not vote for him or vote for Joe Biden this fall.