But She Get’s Her Moment in the Sun Taking on the Orange Jesus –

Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney, Vice Chair of the House Select Committee investigating Trump’s insurrection: NAJ screen shot

The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Allow me to be facetious for a couple of minutes to set this up. Back in the good old days before 24-hour cable news and the internet, Congress would be in recess for Christmas about now, not huddled in prayer meetings in D.C. plotting to turn the United States of America into a Antichrist dictatorship.

Newspaper writers would be working on their year-in-review stories. Local television news reporters would be reading letters to Santa and trying to keep the public tuning in to the news, tracking the jolly old elf’s reindeer sleigh across the sky as if it was a real thing, helping parents try to keep their young kids believing in Santa Klaus at least until Christmas Day.

Not anymore.

I’m not sure exactly when the bell tolled and took away our since of wonder. But there seems to be little doubt that we have suffered the end of all innocence.

No one believes in Santa Klaus anymore, and now everybody is guilty of something, if nothing more than a heightened sense of selfishness. Don’t worry it’s not your fault. Blame it on Trump and Facebook.

I guess this world for humans has always been “dog eat dog,” as the old cliché goes. But now it seems we are all on our own for real. It’s social Darwinism unbound, survival of the fittest, and patriarchal government regulations be damned.

Maybe Don Henley and Bruce Hornsby saw something coming, back in 1989?

O’ beautiful, for spacious skies
Now those skies are threatening
They’re beating plowshares into swords
For this tired old man that we elected king
Armchair warriors often fail
And we’ve been poisoned by these fairy tales…

Clearly Liz Cheney lost her innocence on Jan. 6, 2021. Up until that day, she spent her entire pampered life living by the neocon talking points pioneered by her father Dick, who we used to call Darth Vader in the early days of web publishing, along with Karl Rove and Lee Atwater.

Cheney is making the rounds of talk shows promoting her book “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning,” which an LA Times reviewer says “falls short of being a classic memoir — or for that matter an engaging read. Its emotional tone rarely veers beyond strident anger and self-righteousness, however well-earned.”

Can Liz Cheney defeat ‘Orange Jesus’?

It is said to be “a mostly straightforward, occasionally repetitive, literarily undistinguished account of (the Jan. 6) investigation as well as its antecedents and aftermath.”

“It oozes contempt toward Cheney’s former colleagues, whom she calls ‘enablers and collaborators’,” the review continues. A particular target of her ire (no surprise here) is former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, whom Cheney describes as “craven,” “unprincipled,” cowardly and deceitful.

“Kevin McCarthy lacked the courage and the honor to abide by his oath to the Constitution,” she writes.

Of course McCarthy announced his retirement from Congress this week after being ousted as House Speaker by the Dixie Caucus led by the likes of Q pedophile Matt Gaetz of Florida.

The book lays out the various schemes by Trump — “the most dangerous man ever to inhabit the Oval Office” — to overturn the 2020 election. It reveals Cheney’s own behind-the-scenes attempts to dissuade her colleagues from assisting him as well as her early support for articles of impeachment. And it summarizes the Jan. 6 committee’s efforts to illuminate what Cheney terms, borrowing the title of Philip Roth’s counterfactual novel, “the plot against America.”

Cheney launched her media blitz on CBS Sunday Morning, saying voters have become increasingly numb to politicians warning of looming dangers to democracy. The book lays out the case for the threats to the Constitution posed by Donald Trump should he regain the White House and how the leading Republican candidate’s own words reveal his plans for a second term, and why she believes blocking Trump and preventing a Republican House majority in the next election is “the cause of our time.”

Cheney says that if Donald Trump is elected president of the United States again it will mean the end of the republic, and expresses alarm at how comfortable her party has become with the man and his lies.

In the interview and the book she outs Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and issues a dire warning.

“One of the things that we see happening today is a sort of a sleepwalking into dictatorship in the United States,” she says unequivocally, even admitting that Trump uses tactics of fascism to try to gain power like tyrants and dictators he admires in other countries.

Liz Cheney: The U.S. is ‘Sleepwalking into Dictatorship’ by Supporting Trump

In her other media appearances, Cheney never hints of an independent presidential run, although some analysts have hinted that may be in the offing. But in an interview with the Washington Post, she admitted she is weighing whether to mount her own third-party candidacy for the White House, as she vows to do “whatever it takes” to prevent the former president from returning to office.

Liz Cheney, outspoken Trump critic, weighs third-party presidential run

“Several years ago, I would not have contemplated a third-party run,” Cheney said. But, she said, “I happen to think democracy is at risk at home, obviously, as a result of Donald Trump’s continued grip on the Republican Party, and I think democracy is at risk internationally as well.”

While promoting her new book the former Wyoming congresswoman — who was defeated by a Trump loyalist last year — is warning that Trump could transform America’s democracy into a dictatorship if he is reelected; anticipating, she said, that he would attempt to stay longer than his term.

A Washington Post think tank columnist suggested this week that a Trump dictatorship is “inevitable.”

I call bullshit on that.

Is a Trump Dictatorship Inevitable?

In the Cheney story, the post hints that “given her appeal to independents, former Republicans and some Democrats, many Trump critics in both parties have noted that a presidential run by Cheney could undercut her stated goal of defeating Trump, because it could draw some votes away from President Biden.”

Cheney said she would take that into considerations in her analysis of whether to run, and “she underscored that she would not do anything that would help Trump return to the White House.”

Cheney, whose father is former vice president Dick Cheney, said she will make a final decision in the next few months.

“We face threats that could be existential to the United States, and we need a candidate who is going to be able to deal with and address and confront all of those challenges,” Cheney said. “That will all be part of my calculation as we go into the early months of 2024.”

In the absence of any polling data to see how she might perform against Trump, Biden or anybody else running as an independent, it is hard to say what impact an independent candidacy would have. The same is true for Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who has dropped a trial balloon in that direction as well.

Maybe they could hook up and form a Dream Ticket and get America past the tired, outdated two-party system?

Don’t hold your breath.

I’ve seen Democrats on Facebook indicate they would vote for Cheney. She is seen as a courageous hero for taking an honest stance and standing up to Trump. But I suspect she could also pull financial support and campaign help from the Bush-Cheney Republicans, some Chamber of Commerce Republicans and conservative women. If she did it, and the final matchup ends up being a rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden, she might pull as many votes from Trump as she does from Biden. But probably not enough to make a difference either way.

Let me remind Democrats of a few things about Cheney’s career.

She won her first public office representing Wyoming’s at-large congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives on Trump’s coattails in 2016, and served as chair of the House Republican Conference — the third-highest position in the House Republican leadership — from 2019 to 2021.

After losing reelection to her seat to a loyal Trump Republican, she took a post as a professor of practice at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

She is the elder daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney and second lady Lynne Cheney. During the administration of George W. Bush, thanks to the pull of her daddy he held several positions in the State Department, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and Coordinator for Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiatives. She promoted regime change in Iran while chairing the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group with Elliott Abrams.

In 2009, Cheney and Bill Kristol founded Keep America Safe, a nonprofit organization concerned with national security issues that supported the Bush–Cheney administration’s positions. She was a candidate for the 2014 election to the U.S. Senate in Wyoming, challenging three-term incumbent Mike Enzi before withdrawing from the race.

Regarded as a leading ideological conservative in the Bush–Cheney tradition and a representative of the Republican establishment, Cheney is known for her pro-business stance, focus on national security, support for the U.S. military, and hawkish foreign policy views. She was once considered one of the leaders of the Republican Party’s neoconservative wing, and was critical of the foreign policy of the Trump administration while consistently voting in favor of Trump’s overall agenda.

Cheney supported the second impeachment of Trump for his role in the 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol. Because of her stance on the Capitol riot, her impeachment vote, and her opposition to Trump’s false stolen-election narrative, pro-Trump Freedom Caucus members of the House Republican Conference twice attempted to remove her from party leadership. With House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy supporting her removal, Cheney was removed from her position in May 2021.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed Cheney to the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, and she was made vice chair of the committee. As a consequence of her service on the Select Committee, Cheney’s membership in the Wyoming Republican Party was revoked in November 2021. She was censured by the Republican National Committee (RNC) in February 2022.

On August 16, 2022, Cheney lost renomination in Wyoming’s Republican primary to Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman in a landslide, garnering just 28.9% of the vote. Cheney has said that she intends to be “the leader, one of the leaders, in a fight to help to restore” the Republican Party, and that she may be interested in a presidential run.

In her tenure in the House, she co-sponsored legislation that would end protection for grey wolves under the Endangered Species Act.

In May 2019, Cheney said that Peter Strzok and another FBI agent who sent personal text messages in which they disparaged various politicians (including Trump) sounded as if they were planning a “coup” and may be guilty of “treason.”

In June 2019, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez compared the holding centers for illegal immigrants at the Mexico–United States border to “concentration camps”. Cheney criticized her words, saying they showed “disrespect” for Holocaust victims.

Speaking as chairwoman at a House Republican Conference in August 2019, Cheney said that the successful litigation (Crow Tribe et al v. Zinke) by Native tribes and environmentalists to return the grizzly bear in Greater Yellowstone to the Endangered Species Act “was not based on science or facts” but motivated by plaintiffs’ “intent on destroying our Western way of life.” Her statements drew comments from indigenous tribal nations and environmentalists. Tribal nations hold the grizzly sacred, and environmentalists have voiced concerns about trophy hunts, livestock and logging interests, and the gas, coal, and oil extraction industries.

Cheney condemned the Turkish invasion of the Kurdish areas in Syria, which was made possible by Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. military forces that served as a buffer between Turkey and the Kurdish areas in Syria, saying, “The U.S. is abandoning our ally the Kurds, who fought ISIS on the ground and helped protect the U.S. homeland. This decision aids America’s adversaries, Russia, Iran, and Turkey, and paves the way for a resurgence of ISIS.”

Cheney partly blamed the Democratic Party and the impeachment inquiry into Trump for Turkey’s actions, saying, “It was not an accident that the Turks chose this moment to roll across the border.”

A spokesperson for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Cheney’s claim about the impact of U.S. presidential impeachment proceedings on the invasion “delusional”.

At a House Republican Conference in July 2020, some Republicans, including Jim Jordan of Ohio and Andy Biggs of Arizona, criticized Cheney for defending Dr. Fauci amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and for previously endorsing Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie’s primary opponent.

In September 2020, Cheney asked the Justice Department to investigate environmental groups such as the NRDC, Sea Change, and the Sierra Club, saying that “robust political and judicial activism – combined with the fact that these groups often espouse views that align with those of our adversaries – makes it all the more critical that the Department is aware of any potential foreign influence within or targeting these groups. I urge the Department to investigate Chinese and Russian attempts to influence environmental and energy policy in the United States.”

From 2017 to 2021, Cheney voted in line with Trump’s position around 93 percent of the time, supporting him more consistently in House votes than many House Republican members, even his former chief of staff Mark Meadows. In 2019, according to the New York Times, Cheney publicly feuded with Rand Paul over who was “Trumpier”.

Although Cheney voted against impeaching Trump during Trump’s first impeachment, on January 12, 2021, following the January 6 United States Capitol attack during the certification process for President-elect Joe Biden, Cheney said during Trump’s second impeachment that she would vote to impeach Trump for his role in inciting the attack. At a rally just before the attack, Trump told the mob of insurrectionists to “get rid of” Cheney, and the mob then attacked the Capitol while chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” and trying to find lawmakers.

Cheney said that Trump “lit the flame” of the riot and did nothing to stop it. Saying, “there has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath”, she supported impeachment. Nine other Republicans joined her in doing so on January 13.

“The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” she said. “Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”

Wikipedia: Liz Cheney

So Democrats should not be so quick to think a vote for Cheney is wise. She is having her day in the sun, or her 15 minutes of fame. But sorry, she will not be the next president of the United States. I hope she is not getting her hopes up too high.

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