Beaten by a landslide of over 40% in her Aug. 15 Wyoming primary, Rep. Liz Cheney hinted in her concession speech that she would not leave the politics. Cheney thinks her abysmal defeat helps her chances in to run for president in 2024. Cheney told her depressed following that she would continue to work with the Jan. 6 House Select Committee to get Trump convicted of planning and orchestrating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Painting herself as a profile in courage going after former President Donald Trump, Cheney actually betrayed he constituents to launch a one-sided attack on former President Donald Trump. Cheney could never explain why her entire political life was consumed with destroying Trump’s political career. She thinks it’s her patriotic duty to keep Trump from running for president again, working in overdrive to keep him away from the White House. .
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Ut.), who ran as the GOP nominee against former President Barack Obama in 2012, found out its no easy feat running for president. While Romney despises Trump, he still recognizes the sway Trump has over the GOP. Cheney has no sway other than her self-righteous mission to destroy Trump politically. Romney recognizes that Trump as a force to be reckoned with in the Republican Party, not because he has any organizational pull but because he relates to ordinary blue collar white citizens, a lost constituency in today’s GOP. Romney despises Trump, did everything possible with other never-Trumpers to prevent him from becoming president. Romney figured out that Trump was a masterful retail politician, capable to winning over big crowds with his attacks on the media and the GOP political establishment. Trump won against all odds in the 2016 election going against former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Cheney was a non-entity when she came into the House Jan.3, 2017, right before Trump was inaugurated Jan. 20, 2017. What she knew about Trump was that her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, despised him for his stated opposition to the Iraq War. Trump confronted the conventional wisdom in the GOP that former President George W. Bush did the right thing invading Iraq March 20, 2003. Trump’s 2016 shattered all the GOP complicity in the Iraq War, costing the U.S. trillions in tax dollars and 4,431 U.S. lives. Trump confronted the Bush family for defending the Iraq War, making an enemy out of Dick Cheney, and, of course, his daughter. Liz can’t exactly say why she despised Trump’s presidency since it brought the country economic growth at home and solid foreign relations, especially with American’s enemies, Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.
No, for Cheney she drank all the Democrat Cool-Aid that Trump planned and orchestrated the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection to stop certification of the 2020 Electoral vote. Instead of letting the House Select Committee play out, Cheney took a co-leadership role in conducting the hearings heavily biased against Trump. Once Cheney lost her post in the GOP leadership post May 12, 2021, she sought any leadership position available with the largely Democrat Jan. 6 House Select Committee infuriating not only Trump supporters but the vast majority of the Party. Cheney was no patriot or hero, she allowed her obsession with Trump to get the better or her, actually destroy her political career. At the end of the day, Cheney, not Trump, destroyed he political career, tone deaf to any sense of Party loyalty, while he continued her vendetta against Trump for some unknown reason.
How could any Republican, seeing the damage inflicted on the economy and foreign policy by 79-year-old President Joe Biden, not recognize that life under Trump was far better than under Biden. Democrats and the media conspired to trash Trump for the Covid-19 global pandemic, as if Trump had anything to do with Communist China infecting the U.S. population. Cheney adopted all the Democrats political hacks like Washington Post report Bob Woodward, who’s 2020 book, “Rage,” blamed Trump for not doing enough to stop the global pandemic. With Woodward’s help, Trump was butchered in the press for the Covid-19 pandemic, especially from the economic fallout from shutting down the economy on the orders of Dr. Anthony Fauci, and other members of the White House Covid-19 team. Catastrophic damage was done to the economy, something Democrats exploited in 2020 election.
Romney thinks Cheney should take some time to think about her future largely in the Democrat Party, since she’s burned all her bridges in the GOP. Cheney for some unknown reason decided to take on Trump, one of the most irrational political choices in U.S. history. Romney recognizes that Cheney doesn’t have a prayer in running as a GOP candidate, after losing her primary to neophyte Harriet Hageman by 40%. Wyoming’s vote against Cheney was a long-overdue, watching her disgrace the state’s GOP for some time without any way of paying her back. “I don’t think someone who is seen outside the Trump circle would have any realistic chance of becoming the nominee in 2024, barring something I can’t foresee at this stage,” Romney said about Cheney’s prospects in 2024. Cheney wrecked her political career because her irrational obsession with Trump consumed her politics.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
