Liz Cheney's defeat in Wyoming demonstrates the influential grip of Republican power that Donald Trump still possesses
An arch-critic of the former president, Cheney defended her principles to the final hurdle. But in Trump's GOP, there's simply no room for them any longer.
In last week’s column, I described how damaging it would be for the Republican Party to choose Donald Trump as its presidential nominee in 2024. Just like political events on this side of the Atlantic, I’ve come to treat American politics with the utmost caution, in particular because, just like in Britain, literally anything can happen. The events of January 6, 2021 - where Trump supporters inflicted pure chaos and bedlam on the US Capitol, as Electoral College votes were being counted inside - served as a potent reminder that Donald Trump’s presidency was never, not at all, going to lead or depart with caution and dignity. The House investigation into the events on January 6 is still ongoing, but Mr Trump has made more enemies than ever - yes, obviously he had the ability to make more!
Not Mike Pence, Trump’s Vice President, and the pair’s sour falling out, but step forward, Liz Cheney.
Cheney’s defeat on Tuesday evening against Harriet Hageman, the Trump-backed attorney, came as no surprise. Hageman has repeated the former president’s mantra that ‘the election was stolen’. But the state is no new face to the GOP: after all, of the 33 presidential elections since 1892, Wyoming has voted Republican on 25 occasions and Democrat on 8; and the last time the state voted Democrat came in 1964. Wyoming was Donald Trump’s strongest victory in the 2020 election, securing nearly 70% of the vote here while racking up over 193,000 votes against Joe Biden’s low 73,000. So on Tuesday, Hageman’s victory against Cheney, therefore, came as no abnormality.
Cheney was appointed as Vice Chair of the January 6 investigation committee last year. At the time of the attack, Cheney declared: “there has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath”. Cheney was even prepared to impeach Trump on January 13, joined also by nine other Republicans in the House. But with new supporters of Cheney - maybe those on the Left or more moderate anti-Trump conservatives - came myriad other foes.
Cheney, prior to the January 6 events, was a keen supporter of Trump, voting the same way as the former president around 93% of the time since her congressional career began in 2017. Trump’s supporters, as well as those on the populist conservative Right across America, have thrashed out the argument over recent weeks and months that Cheney always ‘had it in’ for Trump, as the saying goes. But this, to put it bluntly, is utter rubbish, as her voting record so clearly exemplifies.
But, as time progresses throughout a political period, things cumulate and eventuality kicks in: for Cheney, the eventuality was that Donald Trump’s presidency had become a political and constitutional fiasco, intensified by the January 6 affairs and Trump’s refusal to accept Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
For those on the Right, principles are supposed to be nurtured, but Donald Trump trashes any form of traditional GOP principle or value - whether that be democracy, tolerance or decency, the Republican Party adhered to these values. You may not have agreed with them, but nevertheless recognised that these ideas were within the ‘political norm’. Never mind trashing these utmost profound values; Mr Trump has driven the GOP off a cliff edge.
It is why, even after two years since his election defeat, the Republican Party still possesses its Trump swagger. Of denouncing senior colleagues whose dedication to the party is unbreakable. The GOP no longer presents itself as the defender of centre-right mainstream politics, but possesses a nationalistic, populist swagger forevermore.
Politics is ultimately about principle, value and standing up for what you believe in. And politics is based on citizenship, opinion, direction and power. But, if a nation such as the United States and a former president of it fails to uphold those most basic principles, how precisely can we allow him to rule?
I’d sympathise greatly with the ‘The election was a fraud’ brigade if the result was so minuscule. Yet, I don’t count a defeat by seven million votes as ‘miniscule’; it’s an unequivocal victory and that’s precisely what it was for Joe Biden in November 2020. If Joe Biden had questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election outcome [if a Trump victory had been evident], Trump supporters and many across the GOP would preach about ‘these bloody Democrats who hate democracy’ and how ridiculous it would be for Biden to refuse to accept Trump’s clear victory. Trump would be ferociously typing on social media (in capital letters, to be clear) about how wrong and typical it was for the Democrats to abandon such important principles. So why then isn’t it the same for the former president?
Ultimately, Liz Cheney sufficed her political career in order to stand up to Donald Trump. “I have said since 6 January that I will do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again near the Oval Office, and I mean it”, Cheney proclaimed on Tuesday evening. Wyoming was always going to be a difficult state for Cheney to convince, with regards to dismissing and not listening to Donald Trump, particularly due to the election results both in 2016 and 2020. But, now in defeat as in Congress, Liz Cheney seems willing to continue her ever-so-demanding task of standing up to the former president and his GOP power strangle. Her mantra now, it seems, is: ‘Watch this space!’