Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who was recently ousted as the third-ranking House Republican, has not learned anything since her recent ouster. Rather than toning down her rhetoric against the former president, Cheney doubled down and stayed on the attack. Clearly, Cheney is free to say what she wants, although a right to say something doesn’t necessarily make it smart to say it. While Cheney’s most recent comments were meant to hurt the former president, they were actually shortsighted and (inadvertently) served to bolster his point. In that vein, Cheney’s most recent comments only served to further alienate her from the Republican Party and from the millions of Americans who support President Trump.
As recently reported by Fox News, Cheney stated that the 74-plus million people who voted for President Trump were “misled” and “betrayed.” According to Cheney:
Those millions of people that you mention who supported the president have been misled. They’ve been betrayed. And certainly, as we see his continued action to attack our democracy, his continued refusal to accept the results of the last election, you see that ongoing danger.
He’s causing people to believe that they can’t count on our electoral process to convey the will of the people. We have to be a nation of laws.
I cannot imagine a more important issue than whether or not the Republican Party is going to be a party that embraces and defends the rule of law and Constitution. I think that what we have seen over the course of the last couple of weeks is really the opening salvo in what is a battle for the soul of the Republican Party, a battle for the soul of our democracy. I intend to play a very big role in that.
First, Cheney doesn’t speak for the millions of Americans who voted for the president in 2020. Many of them truly believe that the election was stolen from President Trump and that their votes were invalidated or nullified in 2020. Therefore, Cheney’s blanket and conclusory comments do nothing to alleviate their deep-rooted concerns and further alienate her from millions of American voters and the Republican Party as a whole.
More importantly, the accusations that Cheney lodges against the president are illogical in that the concerns that she raises are exactly why the former president, his supporters, various members of Congress, and other Republicans are committed to finding out whether any fraud or impropriety occurred in the 2020 election. In other words, Cheney is attacking the president for pursuing measures that are meant to defend the very things that she seeks to protect.
For example, Cheney accuses Trump of attacking America’s democracy and causing Americans to doubt the electoral process. This is simply incorrect and is shortsighted. First, given what transpired in the 2020 election, many Americans (especially Republicans) already doubt the integrity of the electoral process and/or the results of the 2020 election. Second, from the inception, all that Trump and his supporters have ever sought is transparency and compliance with the applicable laws, whether they involved changes to various state election laws (and changes to whom may legally make those changes), the roles of the state legislatures, the right to observe when ballots were counted, laws regarding absentee ballots and mail-in voting, ballot harvesting, drop boxes, signature verification, etc. Stated differently, and contrary to Cheney’s comments, Trump, his supporters, and many Republicans in Congress have always sought transparency in the nation’s elections.
Toward that end, Trump, his supporters, and various Republicans are seeking to improve our election process, to ensure (to the extent possible) that the will of the people is accurately represented, to prevent fraud and other methods of improper conduct in our elections, and to ensure that our nation’s laws are complied with and properly enforced. Cheney’s attacks against the president are shortsighted in that they appear to focus entirely on the 2020 elections. At this point, nobody is attempting to reverse the results of the 2020 election, which were unfortunately certified. Rather, there is a concerted effort to discover what acts of impropriety and/or fraud occurred during the 2020 election so that steps can be taken to prevent such conduct in future elections. The aim is one of transparency, not reversal of the 2020 election, no matter how tainted.
Cheney’s blanket attacks against the former president are a direct assault on the millions of Americans who supported and voted for him. By asserting that Trump voters have been “misled” and “betrayed,” Cheney is entirely discrediting and dismissing the legitimate and honestly-held beliefs shared by millions of Americans who voted for President Trump. She is also directly attacking the credibility and honesty of the former president, who is undoubtedly the leader of the Republican Party. Most importantly, Cheney’s attacks against the former president appear to suggest that everything was “kosher” during the 2020 election.
There is simply no way that Trump, his supporters, or any Republican should accept that. If they do, and if future elections are allowed to proceed in the same manner, Republicans will find it very difficult to make significant gains in 2022 and beyond.
