Liz Cheney just cited a sinister reason for her ouster from House GOP leadership
When one really thinks about it, the idea that the Republican Party would viciously turn on one of its senior leadership in the House of Representatives is gobsmackingly insane.
Here is a party that has lost control of both houses of Congress and the White House in the past two elections with Donald Trump as their putative leader, and they vilify not the man who drove their clown car into the ditch, but a woman who backed the Trump agenda in 93% of her votes and is the scion of one of the most powerful men in the previous GOP establishment, former Vice President Dick Cheney.
All because Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) refused to play along with the collective delusion that other members of her party have agreed to subsume their rational thought processes to in order stay on the good graces of their disgraced — but still influential with a mob of disaffected, socially restive rural White voters — figurehead.
Representative Cheney took to the airwaves just a few days after being ousted from her position as the number three leader of the House GOP to explain why she thinks she was rejected by her Republican colleagues to ABC‘s Jonathan Karl on the network’s This Week.
Karl began by noting that few of Cheney’s colleagues in her party came to her defense as the leadership vote unfolded this week and wondered why she had become so isolated in her principled rejection of Trump’s “big lie” that the election was somehow stolen from him by supposed voter fraud.
“Well, I think that it is very important to stand up for what’s right,” Rep. Cheney responded. “I know that there are many members who have expressed concern about their own security, and I think that that’s an imporant point to think about as well, that we now live in a country where members’ votes are affected because they’re worried about their security, they’re worried about threats on their lives.”
While the thought of politicians determining their positions because of the many death threats aimed their way makes one question the reluctance of Republican politicians to seriously consider altering their staunch opposition to strengthening federal gun regulations, Cheney was realistic enough to recognize that other factors were in play as well.
“There’s no question that at this moment the majority of the Republican Party is not where I am, but it’s my responsibility as an elected official, it’s my responsibility as a leader to lead and to tell the truth,” Cheney explained.
Rep. Liz Cheney tells @JonKarl that some GOP members are afraid to stand up for what’s right over safety concerns.
“We now live in a country where members' votes are affected because they're worried about their security…about threats on their lives.” https://t.co/FUcMvx8Wz2 pic.twitter.com/cr1mquPOIu
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 16, 2021
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The Wyoming lawmaker believes that part of that truth is the fact that only a relatively few GOP legislators actually believe the lies that Donald Trump has been promulgating about voter fraud costing him a victory in the 202 presidential election.
.@jonkarl: "How many of your colleagues actually believe that stuff—actually believe the election was stolen?"
Rep. Liz Cheney: "I think it's a relatively small number." https://t.co/FUcMvx8Wz2 pic.twitter.com/bNj96u2M6E
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 16, 2021
Congresswoman Cheney attributes at least part of the dysfunction in Washington DC on colleagues who are more interested in scoring points on social media than in engaging in the serious business of actually governing, something that is costing the GOP votes in her eyes.
On the Republican party having lost the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections, Rep. Liz Cheney tells @jonkarl the GOP should be "very concerned."
"We have to stop incentivizing unserious behavior among our elected officials." https://t.co/FUcMvx8Wz2 pic.twitter.com/8wvCXagovl
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 16, 2021
Rep. Cheney also indicated that she won’t be among the Republicans offering up a revisionist history of the violent January 6th insurrection at the Capitol.
.@jonkarl: "What does it say that some [GOP members] are able to erase the memory of what happened on January 6th?"
Rep. Liz Cheney: "It's indefensible… I won't be part of whitewashing what happened." https://t.co/FUcMvx8Wz2 pic.twitter.com/DROjpbUpQh
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 16, 2021
At least part of Cheney’s refusal to whitewash the details of the deadly invasion of her workplace is rooted in an image that remains seared in her brain from that day and still inspires incredulity in the former GOP leader.
“This cannot be happening in the United States of America.”
Rep. Liz Cheney recounts her experience on Jan. 6th to @JonKarl after seeing an image of a Confederate flag flying in the Capitol Rotunda while she was on the House floor. https://t.co/FUcMvx8Wz2 pic.twitter.com/GRH2JXxVsm
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 16, 2021
The reasons for Rep. Cheney’s refusal to join her lemming-like colleagues in falling off a cliff while placating the disgraced ex-president became clear in another Sunday morning talk show appearance with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.
Wallace wondered why Cheney didn’t simply stay quiet and ignore Donald Trump rather than becoming the very vocal face of internal opposition to the former president and alienting his MAGA hordes.
“Well, you know, I wish we could do that Chris but unfortunately, as I said over the course of the last several weeks, former President Trump continues to be a real danger,” Cheney insisted.
“What he’s doing and what he’s saying — his claims, his refusal to accept decisions by the courts. His claims continued as recently as yesterday that somehow this election was stolen,” she continued. “You know what he’s doing is he’s causing people to believe that they can’t count on our electoral process to actually convey the will of the people.”
“Those millions of people that you mentioned, who supported the President, have been misled. They’ve been betrayed,” Cheney added.
Rep. Cheney then went on to throw shade at the GOP leadership who ousted her as being “complicit” in perpetuating Trump’s evil con game.
“They are, and I’m not willing to do that,” Cheney told Wallace. “I think that there are some things that have to be bigger than party, they have to be bigger than partisanship. Our oaths to the Constitution is one of those,” Cheney said.
Calling the interncine warfare in her party the “opening salvo in what is a battle for the soul of the Republican Party, battle for the soul of our democracy,” Liz Cheney does not appear to be backing down or intending to withdraw from that battle.
If only more Republicans would be as mindful of their oaths of office as Congresswoman Cheney remains, then the Republican Party could perhaps manage to regain its legitimacy as a political force in this country without resorting to voter suppression and gerrymandering to maintain any power whatsoever.
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