With less than a month to go until the Wyoming Republican primary, more and more conservatives are turning their attention to the upcoming opportunity to rid ourselves of the atrocious Benedict Arnold-impersonating figure of Liz Cheney.
The vote will take place on August 16 in The Cowboy State and polls show Dick Cheney’s little girl trailing her Donald Trump-endorsed challenger, Harriet Hageman, by as much as 30 points in pursuit of a party nomination for her fourth term. The establishment media made little note of Cheney’s going back on her vow to not recruit Democrat crossover votes to possibly save her ruling class hide from an embarrassing primary defeat, but regardless, there likely aren’t enough liberals or Trump haters on the high plains to keep Liz at her current day job.
Cheney is perhaps the latest figurehead of a NeverTrump movement that sprouted in the earliest days of Donald Trump’s political career. At first, the adherents to the cause bragged that they were simply saving the GOP and conservatives from a phony circus sideshow takeover instituted by the longtime real estate developer, tabloid celebrity and reality TV star. Then, once Trump earned the Republican nomination the hard way – and went on to win the 2016 election – they shifted focus from him to nebulous concepts like “saving democracy” and “restoring the soul of the nation” and “let’s bring back unity and dignity to the office.”
Their incessant whining and complaining hasn’t gotten them very far. But as Cheney regularly demonstrates, they’re not about to give up. Like with everything else, conservatives must beat them at their own game.
“At a time when the woke assault on traditional values and the Democrats’ quest for untrammeled power to remake the country in the image of their neo-Marxist goals, Never Trumpism isn’t so much a reflection of distaste with an unorthodox politician but a complete betrayal of conservatism and the national interest.
“By seeking to be rewarded for her help for the Democrats from their voters, Cheney epitomizes both that betrayal as well as how profitable such a stand can potentially be. After she loses her primary, it is entirely likely that Cheney will continue to seek Democrat donations for a likely challenge to Trump — or other actual conservatives should he decide not to run for president in 2024 — while also likely becoming a talking head on CNN and MSNBC and thus keeping her career failing upward. But no one should be under the impression that that is anything more than an elaborate grift whose only end will be to satisfy her desire for attention and a financially secure platform from which to continue working against rather than for conservative policies and principles.”
I could hardly phrase it better myself. That’s a high compliment, don’t you think?
Tobin’s dead-on accurate depiction of Liz Cheney and her de facto leadership role in the greater (or lesser, depending on your angle of attack) NeverTrump movement brought to mind one recent example of how the anti-reform mindset has been semi-legitimized by the stodgy old GOP establishment, a gaggle of backwards-looking bluebloods who, like a child clutching his or her teddy bear at the kindergarten room door, refuse to relinquish the party’s neoconservative legacy.
It wasn’t widely reported, but Cheney spoke at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California a few weeks ago. The library’s grounds serve as the final resting place for Ronald and Nancy Reagan and also as a living reminder of a better time in America, well within the memories of the middle-aged and older in the country today.
I wasn’t nearly so offended by the poohbahs of the vaunted Reagan Library actually inviting Cheney to speak as I was by the fact they didn’t preface her address with a perfunctory disclaimer such as, “Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment was ‘Thou shalt not criticize a fellow Republican’” (note: they did mention the commandment when introducing her, but not in the proper context, in my opinion), or a standard preamble akin to, “Ronald Reagan was an ardent believer in freedom of speech and tolerance of all views and would have favored allowing a formerly honorable Republican like Liz Cheney to speak her mind, say her peace and then crawl back to the swamp where she belongs.”
Instead, granting Cheney an attractive billing and free license to spread her anti-last-Republican-president venom only deepened my overall impression that the Library’s higher-ups are controlled by a sad and dust-collecting bunch of Bush-era establishment Republicans who promote the status quo and a Republican party that could no longer compete with the much more aggressive Democrats on a national level in the 21st century.
The Reagan Library is an impressive place. I’ve personally patronized it a half dozen or so times and came away from each visit with a greater appreciation for what Reagan achieved all those years ago when I was a semi-impressionable teenager lumped in with a conglomeration of schoolmates who bagged on The Gipper as being old and out of touch. I vividly recall, for example, a threesome of girls in the hallway near my locker laughing when the president was shot a few months into his first term. Classy.
Those morons believed every tidbit of gossip the establishment media said about Reagan and didn’t even bother using their noodles to see all the great things he was undertaking all around them. To me, the 80’s were the heyday of modern American civilization, and I am proud to have been a witness to them.
Speaking of teenage years, today’s NeverTrumpers are seemingly little better than jealous high school girls hating on the sweet but plain girlfriend of the star athlete, with their common refrain being, “What does he see in her?” The Trump bashers particularly target his devoted followers for their willingness to stick with the often-controversial outsider despite their best efforts to expose the man as a volatile insurrection-fostering criminal. Don’t be surprised if you hear them start crying, “What do they see in him?”
The point of all of this being, if conservatives continue flocking to the Reagan library thirty-three years after his presidency ended and nearly two decades after his passing, just imagine the throngs of grateful Americans who will frequent the Donald J. Trump presidential library in future times. I’m not maintaining that Trump will be more popular than Reagan is – or was – but the 45th president’s backers are dedicated like none other. They see Trump as standing athwart leftist history and using colorful language to tell Democrats and liberals to stick their country-ruining rhetoric and policies where the proverbial sun don’t shine.
These are the “forgotten” people who view Liz Cheney and her ilk as the most egregious of traitors, and definitely the type of establishment-defending malcontent who doesn’t merit an invite to one of conservatism’s greatest shrines. On the contrary, Liz Cheney -- using her forked tongue and breathing venom into one of the library’s microphones -- is deeply, deeply insulting. The Library’s keepers would be wise to hold a ceremony where they toss the Liz-tainted lectern and sound system into the garbage so as to salvage some modicum of respect for the institution.
The same goes for other NeverTrumpers, famous and otherwise, many of whom were clapping along to Liz’s every platitude at her Reagan Library address. They don’t just speak out against Trump himself, they gather with the enemies of The Constitution and American exceptionalism to promote the antithesis of our nation’s political ideals. It could be said that a vote against Trump in 2020 was a vote for tearing down our country. If you don’t believe it, look at what Joe Biden has done to the United States in his year and a half in the White House. By my calculation he’s got another two-and-a-half years’ worth to blow the ashes of the burned-out state off the porch of the executive mansion, though an ambitious Republican-controlled Congress could help squelch the flames starting next January.
Thanks to the wise voters of Wyoming, chances are Liz Cheney won’t be among them, but as Tobin suggested, she won’t be going away entirely, either.
Here’s thinking some Trump-hating leftist billionaire with too much money to spend in a hundred lifetimes will sprinkle his or her assets to enough newly created political organizations to fund a Liz Cheney presidential campaign. I doubt they’ll be dumb enough to try to beat Trump in the GOP primaries, so Cheney’s will almost certainly be an “independent” candidacy, including efforts to get her name on the ballot in all fifty states. The mission will begin on August 17, the day after Liz is symbolically drummed out of Republican camp as a deserter.
Or perhaps traitor Liz will follow the example of Hillary Clinton and forum-shop for a friendly new state to run for office. Who can forget that HRC and Big Bubba Bill bought an address in New York so as to satisfy the statutory residency requirement to run for Congress? Liberal New Yorkers were stupid enough to vote for her, too.
Does such a locale exist for ol’ crooked Liz? Who knows, if Utah adopted the flip-flopping Trump hater Mitt Romney, maybe there’s a place for Cheney in the Beehive State as well. Or how about Vermont? Isn’t Patrick Leahy retiring? Could Liz get on the ballot as an independent, like Bernie Sanders?
#NeverTrumpers and their friends in the Democrat party and establishment media keep Liz Cheney’s career alive simply because they figure the soon-to-be ex-congresswoman will carry their torch forward without asking much in return. We can only hope Liz’s days as a Nancy Pelosi prop are numbered. As for what happens to Liz after that, we’ll have to wait and see.
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