Liz Cheney indisputably lost the battle last night but that doesn’t mean she won’t win the war. Donald Trump, in true form, took her loss as a “referendum” on how “the people” feel about the January 6 committee. Even for Trump, this is a laughable stance to take. That fact is that around 170,000 people voted in the Wyoming primary, or approximately 0.05 percent of the country.
That’s half of one percent of the population of the country, but in Trump’s mind, Wyoming is the great roaring mouthpiece of “The People,” demanding the immediate “DISSOLUTION” of the J6 Committee. Oh, please. Even in politics, Democratic politics in any event, there are two states which are not even worth the bother to spend campaign money in, Idaho and Wyoming. They have too few electoral votes to chase and they’re doggedly red states. They’re small potatoes, in Idaho’s case, literally. But Trump has conflated last night’s primary into a yuuge mandate. Wyoming has spoken, and the rest of us are supposed to shake in our sandals and rush to do Wyoming’s bidding.
Any crowd in Wyoming is going to be, perforce, a “tiny” crowd, unless the whole state shows up in one place and that won’t happen, the distances are too great. Believe me, you can drive hours on a road in Wyoming and not see another car.
Be that as it may, Trump’s lashing out only ratifies what everybody already knows and that is, that Trump is threatened by Liz Cheney, from his hairspray down to his shoe lifts. She has used his own medium, television, to beat him and she will only continue to do so. If anything, last night strengthened Cheney’s resolve and honed her purpose.
This is a good analysis of what Cheney’s “defeat” actually means. It runs six and a half minutes, please take the time if you haven’t seen this already.
Cheney was ousted by Wyoming primary voters, and she properly conceded defeat in that democratic election. No doubt those voters had many different reasons for their opposition to her.
But we shouldn’t be under any illusions why Trump wanted her gone.
The House Jan. 6 select committee has revealed that the plot launched by Trump and his co-conspirators was premeditated, coordinated, involved getting numerous institutional and governmental actors to commit potential crimes, and aimed to destroy American democracy at its foundations.
Trump may face criminal prosecution in part as a result of the committee’s relentless burrowing. Even if he does not, the committee has graphically demonstrated with unexpected force Trump’s lawlessness and his full intention to subvert our institutions and political system.
Cheney, as the committee’s vice chair, is of course playing a major role in that achievement. So Trump’s targeting of her is not primarily because she “crossed” him. Nor is it about “revenge” or “score-settling” or “enforcing loyalty” or any other of a hundred formulations that depict this as a personal feud or intraparty battle.
Rather, it’s about disabling mechanisms of accountability that threaten to fully expose Trump’s wrongdoing. And it’s about stocking the GOP full of loyalists who will execute his scheme where others refused to last time. (Cheney’s primary opponent likely fits that bill.)
Those two goals are tightly linked. As Josh Marshall argues at Talking Points Memo, the most insidious threat Trump poses comes if he secures what amounts to a grant of “perpetual immunity” for past and future crimes against democracy (and possibly for criminal acts as well). That threatens our political system’s long-term stability.
In short, Trump’s effort to defeat Cheney should be seen as part of an ongoing project. Similarly, Trump has worked to replace other Republicans hostile to that project with dozens of eager participants in it. Many of them have now come within striking distance of control over election machinery across the country.
Trump is always crying “witch hunt!” because that’s what he’s about, the systematic hunting down of anybody who dissents with his childish black and white views on politics.
Last night may not have been the crushing blow to Liz Cheney that Trump hoped it would be. It absolutely is not the mathematically laughable voice of “the people” in a “referendum” demanding immediate “DISSOLUTION” of the J6 Committee. No, as a matter of fact, Cheney may have just become stronger. She has proven that she was willing to give up her seat in Congress for principles higher than herself and in putting country over both party and self-interest, she is coming up smelling like a rose.
Whether that will evolve into an eventual presidential run, we shall see. She may be back in Congress in the lower chamber at some point, or maybe she would run for the Senate? We do not know. All that we do know is that by no yardstick is Liz Cheney out of the game. And that’s what drives Trump nuts.
Love your take on Liz Cheney, she is truly a force to be taken seriously. tRump is a LOSER.
I honestly hope she runs for POTUS…I’m a Democrat and I’d vote for her in a heartbeat! (Don’t tell my husband) 🙂
I wouldn’t vote for her…but I’d love her to run as an independent to peel back some votes from trump or trump 2.0 (DeathSantis) to ensure the D wins in 2024. 😀
Then you must love destroying womens rights, destroying families at the border, trying to destroy NATO, tax cuts for the top 1%, saying nazis are nice people & hitler did some good stuff, looking the other way on two impeachments which were proven, putting 3 illegitimate supreme court justices on the court to stand with autocrats…grifting millions from the taxpayers, telling over 40,000 lies,& killing over a million citizens by hiding the truth about the virus, & doing everything to lie about it. She voted with Trump 93% of the time. Either you are a member of Maga, or something is wrong with your critical thinking. I’d vote for myself first before I joined that crowd.
ahole supreme
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If only 170 K people in WY voted, it does not sound like a majority of Wyoming want the J6 committee dissolved. While that hot mess Hageman won that primary, she did not get all 170 K votes. Furthermore, there are over 500 K people in WY-170 K is not even close to half of the population.
and WTF is it with former guy and crowd size? After a while he just starts to sound like bozo the clown after a weekend bender in the sewer system of New York.
Lol I’m glad she lost I can’t stand her and a lot of folks feel that way bye bye!!
I’m sure. And, like cockroaches scurrying away when the lights come on, I’m sure there are plenty of people who don’t like the light that Cheney’s been shining in their direction.
We know. You love the child killing nazi liar. You do know what group you belong to. Traitors. The Germans loved Hitler until he destroyed their country & got millions of them killed.
Did anyone else think of this moment (and when Ben sees Luke will escape lowering his light saber and smiling as he accepts death) from Star Wars? It’s almost like Cheney decided (long ago) that she was not only willing to lose her seat in a primary, but that she realized she and her ole dad could cook up a longer-term plan for a phoenix type rebirth that will make her Trump and MAGA land’s worst nightmare. (We’ll have to wait and see about whether they were right)
Liz may be out, but she’s not down. Trump is being snubbed by a whole bunch of the Republican honchos, so she’ll just bide her time. The worm seems to be turning….
Thank you for your argument, Ursula. However, your math is off in favor of Trump. In the first paragraph, you said that 170,000 people voted in the Wyoming (Republican) primary. You then said that this represents 0.05 percent of the country’s population. The error came in the second paragraph, when you said that this 0.05 percent is half of one percent of the population. Half of one percent (1.0 percent) is 0.5 percent, and 0.05 percent is 1/20 of one percent. 20 times 0.05 equals 1.0. And the 0.05 percent is only 10 percent as high as the half of one percent that you presented in the second paragraph, so the WY Republican share of the country’s population was only 10 percent as high as you said it was, which makes the support for Trump only 10 percent of what you suggested it was. (Sorry for all the numbers.)