Don’t Cry For Liz Cheney
Boom goes the dynamite. The Republicans continue their relentless march to turn Trump lies into the GOP reality, no matter who is in the way.
And just like that, Representative Liz Cheney is gone. If not in body, in power. She was the 3rd most powerful Republican in the House leadership and she lost that position for taking an odd, and at odds position to her colleagues; she insisted on telling the truth about the former president.
Nothing is punished so much as being right in a wrong world.
She went down shooting though;
“We cannot embrace both the big lie and the Constitution," Cheney said on her way out the door. She says she'll do "everything I can" to ensure Trump never gets near the Oval again. "We cannot be dragged backward by the dangerous lies of a former president."
And then the door slammed on her, as a victory howl went up from Mar-a-Largo. High fives all around!
And she’s out, by a non-recorded voice vote, McCarthy and the House GOP were on-brand cowards to the end. This is what happens in today’s Republican party for daring to put your head up and say, “Hey, wait a minute, this isn’t right…” You get that head chopped off. Dare to admit Trump actually lost the election by 7 million votes (which he did) and you’ve suddenly got Donald Sutherland pointing and screaming at you.
This is also what happens when a party becomes not a political entity of like-minded people, formed with the goal of governing, but a personality cult huddled around one god-like (or maybe, ‘god-claiming) person from whom all favor flows. To speak against that person, to poke that bear, gets you the fate of most who do venture their hand into the den; you get eaten.
Trump has consumed the GOP, well, since he’s lazy as hell, they consumed themselves for him, re-making the party from the ground up in gold plate, velvet curtains, and long red ties. They had their chance to walk, and almost did so after Trump incited the riot on January 6th, even McCarthy briefly grew a spine and blamed the President for his actions… and then went to Mar-a-Largo to kiss his ass and tell him how sweet it tasted. He was quickly followed by Cruz (who never misses a chance at humiliating himself, seems to enjoy it in fact), Lindsey Graham, (who literally has no shame, probably born without it) and others who have made the journey in spirit if not action.
"We cannot be dragged backward by the dangerous lies of a former president." Cheney said.
Sure we can. It’s happening right now, aided and abetted by the entire Republican party. The GOP is already there. They took that one little step, that toe-in-the-water after 1/6, shivered and went back in the Trump cave, never to venture out again. “Dragged”? Hell, they’ll happily march in lockstep by Trump. They like it, they want it, and have for decades. Trump, and everyone who has eyes and a keyboard (hello!) has said this; Trump did not spring up suddenly and unexpectedly, and this is true. The GOP arrived at Trump. Trump had his arms opened wide, and welcomed them… home. You can finger-trace the curve from the John Birchers in the 50s, to Goldwater in the 60s, though the Nixon ‘Southern Strategy’ in the late 60s-70s, to Reagan (a darling of the far-right from his time as governor of California) and his embrace into the GOP of far-right Christianity, to the demagoguery of Newt Gingrich and the rise of far right media in the 70-80s, all of these elements joining together with Fox News and Rupert Murdoch in the 90s to drive the right’s narrative ever farther and farther right to end at the warm embrace of… Trump.
End of the line. Everyone out.
Trump became the vessel for all the worst of the GOP; all the bile and hate and grievance and paranoia had found an umbrella to shelter under, a home to put their feet up, relax and plan/plot. They had seen each other across a crowded room and it was love at first sight.
Yeah. Ick.
Do not cry for Liz Cheney, I know I won’t. She is a person who supported torture, and threw her own lesbian sister under the bus to advance her career. She is an extremist in her own right, and is now enveloped by the hate her party has been nurturing for decades. The burning to the ground of the GOP has been coming for decades and it’s not over yet. Just as the Reagan/Gingrich movement purged anyone thought of as ‘liberal’ from the party, they will now also be purged for the sin of blasphemy, the sin of pointing out the nakedness of their own emperor. The purge is had been going on in the states for the past couple months, Cheney is just the most public national example of it.
No, Liz will be fine. She might lose her seat in the next election, but she will be seen as a martyr to the cause, and have many high paying speaking gigs and consultancies with the old guard Republicans (the true GOP) to tide her over before her inevitable run for president as the ‘Sane Republican” ™. She’s good.
The problem isn’t her, the problem is the GOP, once again, straining to reshape reality to a more comfortable (for them) environment for them to thrive. They’re trying to terraform democracy by getting rid of the ‘democracy’ part and forcing the country to accept it, basically trying to ‘Cheney’ the entire country until the only votes that count will be theirs, the only laws they obey will be the ones they pass and force on the rest of us, backed by the judges they appointed.
Don’t cry for Liz, she helped make this bed, She’s snug.
Cry for democracy.