WEAVER: Well, I mean, there’s been a big cost to the United States and to this country with the way he’s conducted himself, and he’s dividing us on his way out the door. Look; this battle was not something we chose. It kind of came to us. We felt we had no choice but to enter it. I mean, we’re in a battle for the hearts and minds of the American people, and we have to take that kind of approach. Lincoln, if you remember, wanted to bind the wounds of the nation, but he wanted to do so only after the opposition was crushed. And don’t forget the second part of that.
SHAPIRO: Many of the members of your group have been vocal critics of the president since his first campaign, but many of them did not urge people to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Why have you changed approach this year to actively encourage Republicans to vote for Joe Biden?
WEAVER: If we can move one person to just not vote for Trump but perhaps they won’t vote for Biden, that’s a victory. But if we could make the full conversion, that’s even a larger victory.
SHAPIRO: Let’s imagine the campaign works and Biden wins. Do you then go back to fighting against the progressive initiatives that he’s likely to push for on health care, immigration, the tax code and other issues where your group strongly disagrees with the Democratic platform?
WEAVER: Well, this is like the first season of “Night Of The Living Dead.” And if we’re able to dispatch the main zombie of this season into the zombie afterlife, there are other like-minded zombies roaming the body politic in America, like Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley and some of these governors in the South who have done such a poor job in dealing with the pandemic because they didn’t want to anger the president. So our work is just beginning, but we’re focused on zombie No. 1 right now.
SHAPIRO: John Weaver is a longtime Republican political strategist, and he is a member of The Lincoln project.
Best in Moderation
Article URL : https://www.npr.org/2020/06/30/885659576/a-group-of-conservative-political-strategists-is-urging-republicans-to-vote-for-