In essence, the whole manifesto is a real-world extension of the largely online Lincoln Project. Like the Lincoln Project, it offers a psychologically reassuring but ultimately questionable narrative frame for anti-Trump Republicans: the “soul” of the Republican party, which has been stolen or crushed by Trump and his wannabes, is at stake, and honorable Republicans must restore it. This is grounded in an elitist view of the Grand Old Party that rests on very loose empirical and historical grounds. As I’ve argued many times before, Trump did not hijack the party, at least not in ideological terms. In fact, for several decades the views of the Republican base had much more in common with Trump than with the signatories of this manifesto. That empirical fact will not change, no matter how hard the Lincoln Project and Never-Trump Republicans try to whitewash the Republican past – a whitewashing the liberal media happily amplifies... Don’t get me wrong. It is great that at least some former prominent Republicans are willing to stand up to Trump and for liberal democracy. But this initiative is not a serious competitor to the current Trumpian Republican party and it will not be the Republican party of the future. It does not even reflect the Republican Party of the past. Instead, it is the Republican party of an imagined past, harkening to a moderate, noble era that never really existed. Amplifying the anti-Trump Republicans’ message uncritically, as many liberal media and politicians are doing, will not make them more relevant within the Republican party. However, it might help them further whitewash their own pasts as well as that of the Republican party.