Elizabeth Lynne Cheney, the republican congresswoman from Wyoming and third ranking GOP house member looks to be headed toward a political train wreck on Wednesday of this week. That's when her fellow republicans will vote to replace her as their conference chair..
This isn't the first time GOP House members have tried to give, Ms. Cheney the boot. Earlier this year, in February, the far right wing attempted the same thing, but failed in a 145-61 vote. The difference between then and now being republicans were so stunned by her vote to impeach former President Donald Trump they apparently felt her action was some sort of horrible aberration--you know, like a minor stroke.
Of course, no one has ever accused the republicans of being the most astute medical diagnosticians so after Cheney refused to shut up about their cult leader they turned on her with a vengeance. The word traitor is flying about and probably in some corners, so is the term heretic. The day after tomorrow House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, who supported her nearly three months ago, has already announced he will be voting for New York republican and Trump purist, Elise Stefanik.
There is precedent for this sort of thing. In the waning days of Herr Hitler's Reich, his hard core became more virulent than they had been even when things were going well. Defeatists and purveyors of the truth were shot in the streets as a warning to others whose faith might be wavering. Although Ms. Cheney won't be put up against a wall, at least not yet, there is no doubt her days as a GOP mover and shaker are done.
Not that we should sympathize with her too deeply. After all, she helped plan and sell the Bush/Dick Cheney misadventure in Iraq. .She also sold her sister down the drain on the issue of gay marriage during an ill conceived run for the U.S. Senate in 2013. It was a campaign so crippled from the beginning she was forced to drop out for, "family health issues," before a single vote was cast.
So, Liz Cheney is quite familiar with political back stabbing. It is a great and treasured tradition in her family. So much so no one, but rank amateurs are surprised her old man hasn't said a word in public to support her.
In the end Representative Cheney's drumming from the corps tells us more about the current state of the republican party than it does her. When Trump was in office she voted exactly how he wanted her to over 93% of the time. It was only after she pointed out the truth, that the son of a bitch had tried to overthrow the government and was lying about the results of the 2020 election that The Almighty Base turned on her.
It is doubtful Donald Trump will run for the White House in 2024, but he and millions of his followers want to make sure a political and cultural clone of him does. It is, in truth, the politics of diminishing returns. The more success Joe Biden and democrats have the harder it will be to convince independents and those whose lives are impacted positively by their policies to fall for the Trumpian bullshit again.
Ultimately that is what Liz Cheney knows and what she is desperately trying to head off. Right now at least, it isn't working.
Indeed, the loyalists are increasingly frantic because the Allies are on the move. They feel it all slipping away and they've gone mad with dread and hate. And anyone who even hints Trump and they are wrong must be dealt with.
It is, in the current scheme of things, their only solution as the right wing Gotterdammerung nears.
sic vita est
5-10-21
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