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Liz Cheney May Have Lost the Battle, But She May Win the War [1]

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Date: 2022-09-25

Outgoing Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) told the The Texas Tribune that she will “make sure” that Donald Trump is not the 2024 GOP nominee, and if he is, she “won’t be a Republican”. Historically, Cheney’s voting record has been very Republican , and during Trump’s presidency, she voted with him 93% of the time . Cheney’s evolution is not an embrace of Democratic policy, but it is a reflection of how seismic Trump’s decision to deny the results of the 2020 election was. It is that decision that has proved too much for Cheney. It’s also a decision that may ultimately cost Trump the GOP nomination.

Cheney is not some kind of liberal heroine, as her voting record shows. She has spent most of her congressional career on the wrong side of history. However, what she is doing is, nonetheless, heroic: she could have continued as before, and gone along with Trump in denying the election, or never seeming to come out to condemn it. But on this issue, she has put the Constitution before party, knowing -and she will have known- that in doing so, she was killing her chances at re-election. There is no Cheney-style block of voters out there. She knows she can’t walk into the Democratic party and find an audience, and she knows that Republicans have chosen loyalty to Trump over loyalty to the Constitution. Cheney may imagine she has a future, but she must know that her political future is over. She is an object lesson for Republicans: do not cross Trump.

She may, however, get her wish: Trump is very much a one-trick pony these days, with a constant obsession over the election. Elections about the future, they are a contest of visions, no matter how bad. When he ran for office, he had a message that energized white, working class voters who felt adrift from the system, weaponizing race and culture wars to drive home his message. In office, he became a very traditional Republican, and out of office, his normalization has gone into overdrive: his policies are mainstream Republican, gone are the attacks on the establishment, globalism, and what-not, and in its place is his waking nightmare of having lost in front of the whole world. He can’t stand it, it’s all he thinks about, and it’s losing him voters. Ron DeSantis remains second to Trump within the party, but his strength is such that he could actually beat Trump in the primaries.

Punishment for Trump and the GOP may arrive even sooner: since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade, and Trump re-entered the political fray, Republican numbers have collapsed in the polls. Republicans have gone from shoe-ins for control of Congress, to trailing Democrats. Trump has a big part to play there: the more voters listen, the more they realize that all Trump cares about is the myth of the stolen election, and his bruised ego. Cheney, and her work on the Jan. 6 committee, had a big role in reminding voters how nuts Trump’s denialism is, even to his own supporters.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/25/2125155/-Liz-Cheney-May-Have-Lost-the-Battle-But-She-May-Win-the-War

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