On Saturday night's Ayman Mohyeldin show on MSNBC, comedian Josh Gondelman accused the Lincoln Project of a clumsy, ineffective stunt in trying to place fake-Trumpers in front of a Youngkin for Governor bus in Virginia.
Saying he had to keep his language clean he said the Lincoln Project's attempts at mocking Republicans are "corny" and they were were "trying to rat fornicate without fornicating the rat to completion." The term "ratf--king" is an old Watergate-scandal term for dirty tricks.
AYMAN MOHYELDIN: Josh, I got to ask you about this Lincoln Project stunt. They owned up to it, sending actors with tiki torches pretending to be far-right supporters of Glenn Youngkin to a rally yesterday. Pundits ran with it saying look, white supremacists are showing up because he's speaking to their base, we were just talking about there with Carlos. But it turns out it was just a political stunt. What do you make of this as a campaign tactic? Is that effective or did this back fire against, not -- it's not fair to say the McAuliffe campaign or the Democrats, the Lincoln project operated alone. But they're doing this obviously to highlight Youngkin's racist dog whistles. Did this backfire or was it effective?
JOSH GONDELMAN: I don't know. It just seems corny. I think so much of the Lincoln Project stuff is corny, and it’s like – I'm going to try to say this in a television-friendly way. It seems like they would like to try to rat fornicate without fornicating the rat to completion, and it just seems a little like ugh! And it’s like the whole trick was just like we're going to tie this Republican gubernatorial candidate to Donald Trump, a popular ex-president who people still believe when he says the election was stolen. It’s like, good trick, guys! Real cool!
Earlier in the segment, after a clip of Youngkin saying he would ban “critical race theory” in the schools, Mohyeldin forwarded the lie that “fact check, critical race theory, is not being taught in grade schools or high schools in Virginia.” He told former Republican congressman Carlos Curbelo this is a “racist dog whistle” to turn out all those racist Republican voters.
