If Rep. Liz Cheney were trying to prove she’s the worst GOP politician in decades, what would she be doing differently?
She is in danger of being swept out by Harriet Hageman in her Wyoming primary. After the 2020 election, Nancy Pelosi was elected House Speaker to head the January 6th Committee. What has followed is an exercise in partisan insanity, with proclamations of a “seven-step plan” by Trump to overthrow the government being met with no evidence at all. Cheney teases bombshells, which she says are so vital that it is impossible for her to wait until after the mid-terms to release them.
Despite her behavior, there have been some on the right, including those that aren’t necessarily anti-Trump, who have defended Cheney, suggesting that she’s simply operating on principle – even if they disagree with her. That excuse went out the window on Sunday after it was revealed by The New York Times that she also couldn’t support Gov. Ron DeSantis would be the GOP’s presidential nominee in 2024.
It is obvious that Liz Cheney would not vote for Donald Trump in 2024. Now, she claims that she wouldn’t support Ron DeSantis either. From @jmartNYT: https://t.co/uuY5wCT9oG pic.twitter.com/Y6oRWoIFb4
— Byron York (@ByronYork) August 7, 2022
It’s almost as if Cheney isn’t principled at all but is instead just a disgruntled Democrat clout chasing to get a CNN gig. One could not have foreseen that. This should put an end to any doubts about Wyoming’s representative. Cheney is a hack who knows she’s done as a politician and is currently looking to run a sure-to-fail grift of a presidential campaign in 2024. Larry Hogan can make sure she keeps those Never Trump donor dollars flowing by alienating everyone.
Her reasoning also doesn’t even make sense. Putting aside whether one likes or dislikes Trump, how has DeSantis “lined himself up almost entirely with Donald Trump?” The Florida governor almost never speaks of the former president, and if anything, DeSantis has paved his own path, from COVID-19 to cultural issues to fighting the bureaucracy in his state.
What this really comes down to is not that DeSantis is too close to Trump, but rather that DeSantis is incredibly effective, and there’s nothing an establishment shill like Cheney despises more than a Republican who gets things done. For her, if it’s not a foreign war, it’s not worth doing. Instead of ranting about “the war on terror,” DeSantis has focused on his state and has engaged in battles other Republicans, including Cheney, have been terrified to fight throughout their careers.
Then there’s the fact that DeSantis has been honest enough to call out the January 6th committee for being a partisan dumpster fire of over-promising and under-delivering, and we just can’t have that. Cheney sees January 6th as Thelitmus test. If a Republican isn’t completely obsessed with what happened that day, proclaiming it the most dangerous attack on “democracy” in American history, they aren’t worthy of her support. That really narrows the list down, as you’d imagine.
It was more than Trump for Cheney. Rather, it was about the sea-change in the GOP that kicked the neoconservative wing out of the sphere of influence, a process that began after Mitt Romney’s defeat in 2012. Bush-ism died, and she’s never gotten over it. Fortunately, there will be no resurrection, and if DeSantis is the nominee in 2024, I’m going to guess he couldn’t care less whether Cheney supports him or not.
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