The Horrifying Truth Behind Liz Cheney's Ouster

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY)

Liz Cheney is not a figure that I think of when I think of "principled politicians."  Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, in fact got her start in politics in one of the most horrifying ways possible.  During a quixotic Senate bid against then-incumbent Mike Enzi, Cheney was attacked for her views on gay marriage.  Cheney's sister Mary is a lesbian, married to a woman, and this is likely where the attacks were stemming from.  However, Liz Cheney openly denounced gay marriage at the start of the campaign, to which her sister publicly stated that Liz Cheney wanted "to treat my family as second class citizens."  Proving the apple didn't fall far from the tree, the former vice president put out a terse statement basically backing Liz, the daughter with a future in politics, over Mary, but it showed the kind of person that Liz Cheney is.  She's ambitious, ruthless, and willing to literally destroy her relationship with her only sister in order to try to win a political point.  That she also ended up dropping out of this race, proved that she didn't entirely understand that in politics, you don't play your best card on the first hand, might have also been telling of her political future.

So color me surprised that the leading figure in the anti-Trump Republican Party ended up being Liz Cheney, the biggest (and last?) major figure in the party who wants to see a GOP that stands up to Donald Trump.  This past week, after continual, vocal denunciations of the former president and, in particular, the Big Lie perpetuated by the president that the 2020 election was rigged (and the terrorist attack against the Capitol that it caused on January 6th), there have been calls on Cheney to resign from her position in the House leadership, and at this point it appears inevitable that she will be replaced as House Republican Conference Chair, likely in favor of Trump loyalist Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY).  This presents a few questions.  First, what future does this hold for Liz Cheney.  Second, what future does this mean for the Republican Party.  And third, how can American democracy function with such a party as one of only two options?

The first is intriguing, at least for election nerds.  Cheney was, at least in 2020, definitely interested in running for the open US Senate seat now held by Cynthia Lummis.  Cheney's calculus in staying in the House was A) Lummis could successfully run to her right in Wyoming, though that was debatable as Lummis was out of power & Cheney had her father's campaign donor network to tap into and B) the House Republicans had a leadership vacuum, making her position in the House leadership a plausible pathway to the Speaker's gavel.  The second aspect of that calculus was precipitated on the party moving beyond Donald Trump, but it didn't (more on that in a second), and Cheney is now stuck in a situation where, at the age of only 54, she really has no long-term political future.  There is not another office in Wyoming she can pursue, and she has to face voters next year (were she a senator, not only would she be given more cover from Mitch McConnell, who has done something similar to Mitt Romney & Lisa Murkowski, but a six-year term would allow her to stay out of the limelight long enough to perhaps win again in 2026), but it seems unlikely she'll get through that race unless Republicans split the vote in the primary.  The point is that there really isn't a place for Cheney in the party-Cheney losing a leadership position would guarantee that, and it's questionable how long she'd want to be a backbencher without any real power.

Cheney could inflict damage in the short-term, it's worth noting.  Cheney currently is in House leadership, and that kind of hamstrings her ability to speak out against much of Kevin McCarthy's decisions.  Keep in mind that former President Trump doesn't really like Kevin McCarthy (he doesn't really like anyone other than himself, but he particularly doesn't seem to care for McCarthy).  Cheney is shrewd enough to know that while she might not be able to stay in power, she's also more-than-capable of sowing division in the GOP to the point where McCarthy's grasp on his caucus could also falter, perhaps by doing a series of high-profile interviews.  Due to her last name, she's not Jaime Herrera Beutler or Brian Fitzpatrick...she's not some total unknown; being a Cheney means she can, say, get a Time Magazine cover story or be the lead interview on nightly news in a way other people would not be able to achieve.  McCarthy may have rocked the boat prematurely here, as while the House Republicans are heavily favored to win next year, that hold (and his hold) isn't nearly as tight as it needs to be to be unshakeable.

But moving past Cheney, as the Republicans are about to do, her ouster says something really horrifying about the Republican Party: that they are not a party of ideas...or really that they're a party of only one idea, and it's not one that values democracy.  Liz Cheney is not being ousted because she's not conservative enough on a specific issue-she didn't suddenly become pro-choice or willing to back softer immigration reform.  Cheney is extraordinarily conservative (those who call on her to become a Democrat prove how unprepared modern American discourse has become for the current Republican Party)-she's more politically conservative on actual issues by almost any metric, in fact, than Elise Stefanik.  As a result, it's worth remembering that Cheney is being ousted because she refuses to lie, she refuses to say that the 2020 election was rigged, that Donald Trump won the 2020 election, and she refuses to be silenced about the January 6th insurrection (and how Trump's rhetoric & the Big Lie caused the terrorist attack).

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)

Think about that for a second.  Liz Cheney's sin is not political, but in not parroting a lie that, were it to have had actual, tangible action (i.e. Donald Trump had become president), would've ended American democracy.  Because regardless of your thoughts on the candidates, Donald Trump clearly lost the 2020 election-he received less votes in enough states to lose the electoral college (that's how American presidential elections work)-it was close, but it wasn't questionable.  There is no evidence of voter fraud (dozens of court cases prove that), and the election wasn't so close that we can't clearly determine that Joe Biden won.  Cheney doesn't like Joe Biden (though who knows what she ultimately did in a voting booth), but she acknowledges the basic tenet of American democracy-that the person the people chose gets to govern-and that is why she's being thrown out.

It's not a stretch, then, to assume that Cheney's ouster is a threat to democracy itself.  Cheney being removed doesn't mean anything in terms of traditional political ideology-it means that the Republican Party only respects elections if they win them.  It's not hard to imagine a scenario on January 6, 2025, where a Republican state legislature, like in Arizona or Georgia, simply refuses to certify the results & sends a second set of electors.  Kevin McCarthy has proven in the past few months that he would back the Republican regardless of the state's decision in this case, and with him the probable Speaker of the House come that date (unless HR-1 passes, it's difficult to see the Democrats holding the House beyond 2022), this would set up a scenario where an unelected Republican could become president through Republicans leveraging their control of Congress to stage a coup of the executive branch.  

This is the sort of thing that generally I shy away from saying, because it's so jaw-dropping that it surely must be hyperbole, but I don't know anymore.  Cheney's only sin, that she won't back the Big Lie, makes me assume that's not the case.  McCarthy's movement to not certify the results in 2020 makes me assume that's not the case as well.  The fact that the Republican Party had a clear, easy moment after January 6th to cut ties with Donald Trump and chose not to (it would have been an easy moment to draw a line in the sand), makes me assume that this is an inevitable crisis.  And it's a crisis that I don't think American democracy can handle.  Democracy cannot function in a two-party system where only one side believes in the right-of-the-people.  Democracy isn't really democracy when you have to vote for one party in order for it to stay a democracy.  Even if the Democratic Party can keep hold of one or both houses of Congress past 2022 (a steep climb, and 100% dependent on Joe Manchin & Kyrsten Sinema being willing to pass gerrymandering reform at the cost of the filibuster), it's hard to see a way for them to outlast Trumpism in the Republican Party, which now has proven it has a shelf beyond just the former president.  Liz Cheney's ouster could be seen by historians as the canary-in-the-coal-mine when it comes to American democracy's last stand.