Embattled Republican House Caucus Chairwoman Liz Cheney is determined to not give in to far right extremism, even if it costs her her job in GOP Leadership.
At issue: Cheney, a hard core conservative who voted with President Donald Trump 92.9% of the time, is now fighting for her political life because she refuses to lie about the 2020 election and say the Trump won.
That’s literally the reason House Republicans are about to vote her out of leadership, for telling the truth. If there’s one message Republicans are sending, it’s that governing, policy, and improving the lives of the American people are distractions: all they care about is power.
Cheney, whose views are likely abhorrent to many Democrats, is setting the bar for what it should mean to be a member of Congress – when it comes to the very basic expectations we all should have of our elected leaders. Or, as Cheney herself just called it, “the basic principles that underpin and protect our freedom and our democratic process,” in a just-published Washington Post op-ed.
“In public statements again this week, former president Donald Trump has repeated his claims that the 2020 election was a fraud and was stolen,” Cheney begins. “His message: I am still the rightful president, and President Biden is illegitimate. Trump repeats these words now with full knowledge that exactly this type of language provoked violence on Jan. 6. And, as the Justice Department and multiple federal judges have suggested, there is good reason to believe that Trump’s language can provoke violence again. Trump is seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work — confidence in the result of elections and the rule of law. No other American president has ever done this.”
Cheney is correct, and while she does not mention it, this was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s great goal when he attacked the U.S. election of 2016.
“The Republican Party is at a turning point, and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution. In the immediate wake of the violence of Jan. 6, almost all of us knew the gravity and the cause of what had just happened — we had witnessed it firsthand,” she added.