Game Over, Assholes: The Economy Chose Violence
The Lincoln Project
The Lincoln Project
4.6 • 9.1K Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2026
⏱️ 34 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week’s Elephant in the Room is simple: Trump is losing—and everyone can see it. Inflation is still squeezing voters where it hurts, and no amount of fear-mongering can spin grocery bills, rent, or gas prices. On immigration, the administration’s answer has been to let U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement run feral—escalating raids, brutality, and spectacle that dominated headlines this week and triggered backlash even among swing voters. The result? A political own-goal: cruelty without control, chaos without results, and optics so toxic they’re pushing the middle further away. In this episode, Rick breaks down why Donald Trump is hemorrhaging trust on the economy, why extreme ICE tactics are backfiring in real time, and how this week made painfully clear that fear politics doesn’t beat inflation—and never has.
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Rick Wilson is on X at @TheRickWilson, on Bluesky at @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and you can check out Rick's Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. You can check out more of LP's work at www.lincolnproject.us and on X at @ProjectLincoln.Â
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped, and battle-hardt. |
| 0:15.0 | There is not a liberal America, any conservative America. There is the United States of America. |
| 0:24.1 | Good night. |
| 0:25.2 | And good luck. |
| 0:26.4 | Hey folks, the elephant in the room for Friday, January the 30th. |
| 0:30.6 | A month has already gone by in this year, and my lord, I feel like it's going by in dog years. |
| 0:35.7 | And the elephant in the room today is that Trump is losing. |
| 0:43.3 | Now, does that mean he's not dangerous? |
| 0:46.5 | No. |
| 0:47.3 | Does that mean he's not still got troops to point in our streets to attack him, assault American civil liberties and constitutional rights? |
| 0:54.2 | No. No. |
| 0:54.4 | No. |
| 0:54.4 | You need to show your face? |
| 0:56.1 | You can't take my phone. |
| 0:59.9 | You cannot. |
| 1:00.6 | Oh. |
| 1:00.6 | That's illegal, sir. |
| 1:01.5 | That's condemned. |
| 1:02.3 | Hey! |
| 1:02.8 | Hey! |
| 1:04.3 | Hey! |
| 1:05.5 | Stop that shit! |
... |
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