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LIZ CHENEY, still a congresswoman from Wyoming, starred in one of the most humiliating political flops of the year. Despite being the most famous politician in the state she represents and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, trying to boost her candidacy with a scandalous anti-Trump ad, the prominent Never-Trumper fell dismally to candidate Harriet Hageman in the congressional primary.
Not even the most sincere praise from the liberal press could stop the debacle for Cheney, who, in sports parlance, lost by a landslide, seeing her opponent take advantage of 37 points over her.
For Cheney, the defeat is especially humiliating because Hageman was endorsed by former President Trump, which highlights the political disaster of the congresswoman from Wyoming, who has tried to catapult her political career by selling herself as the nemesis of Trumpism. However, the reality is that Liz Cheney is light years away from being a threat to one of this century’s most popular political movements.
A failed candidacy in timing and approach
Following her line against Trump, Cheney wanted to radicalize further her stance against the former president by going out of tone and seeking a disruptive conflict.
Her father, for example, stood defiantly on camera in a black hat and vest to call Trump a “coward” for allegedly “lying” to his voters and trying to “steal” the 2020 election. Notably, he said, “in our nation’s 246-year history, t,here has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our Republic than Donald Trump.”
“In our nation’s 246 year history there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our Republic than Donald Trump.” Dick Cheney pic.twitter.com/erBPBNy8ah
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) August 4, 2022
That ad came on August 6. Two days later, the FBI raided the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home out of the blue, causing a national political uproar and prompting an immediate conservative backlash in support of Trump.
The support for the former president within the conservative world, following an unprecedented raid that still has no official explanation, was almost unanimous. However, Cheney distanced himself from her party and, in fact, publicly attacked it: “I have been ashamed to hear members of my party attacking the integrity of the FBI agents involved with the recent Mar-a-Lago search. These are sickening comments that put the lives of patriotic public servants at risk.”
But the media and social thermometer were not in sync with Liz Cheney’s words. The FBI raid, approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland, is profoundly unpopular and controversial not only among Trump voters but among “moderate” conservatives who had lost enthusiasm for the former president.
The break-in is so controversial that even prominent liberal politicians, such as Andrew Cuomo, publicly called on law enforcement and justice agencies to show clear evidence explaining why they broke into Mar-a-Lago. So far, there is no official explanation to answer all the questions floating in the air. Cheney decided to side with the criticized agencies only because his political enemy was in the other corner.
Liz Cheney, the Republican congresswoman who lost her seat in Congress after declaring war on Trump. (EFE)
Thus, conservative pundits like Ben Shapiro, editor emeritus of the Daily Wire, say that Liz Cheney’s downfall is not only because she crusades against Trumpism, but because she acted as a Democratic satellite and a kindred element to all that the Republican base despises: the unpatriotic politicians, the mainstream media that is dedicated to treating them as fascists and extremists, and the constant attack on dissent against the establishment.
According to Shapiro, the GOP base was not angry at the representative. “It is not because Liz Cheney is an opponent of Donald Trump. The reason they are angry at Liz Cheney is because she was effectively acting as a useful idiot for the Democratic Party and the media.”
.@benshapiro explains why Republicans don't like Liz Cheney: "It is not because Liz Cheney is an opponent of Donald Trump. The reason they are angry at Liz Cheney is because she was effectively acting as a useful idiot for the Democratic Party and the media…" pic.twitter.com/jZ5SjbEFUj
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) August 17, 2022
What Shapiro says is easily verifiable, since Liz Cheney practically begged for votes from Democratic voters to defeat Hageman, asking registered blue party voters to switch parties to stop the Trumpist candidate. A striking strategy, to say the least and one that definitely did not benefit at all to boost her career.
From begging for Democratic votes to comparing herself to Abraham Lincoln
In her concession speech after her resounding defeat, Liz Cheney finally appealed for excuses, explaining that to win the primary, she would have had to embrace Trump’s slogans about the 2020 election.
“I could easily have done the same again, the path was clear, but it would have required that I go along with President Trump’s lie about the 2020 election,” Cheney said. “It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic.
Her words were highlighted, again, by the liberal press. The Washington Post, particularly, extolled them.
“She won her 2020 primary with 73 percent of the vote, she was already the No. 3 ranking House GOP leader, and she was well on her way to becoming the first female Republican speaker. All the Wyoming Republican had to do was keep quiet, as almost all her male GOP colleagues had decided to do,” a WaPo article says.
However, her statements are, at best, an exaggeration. At worst, a lie. Several Republican politicians, allies and non-allies of Trump, have triumphed in the past two years without joining the former president in his electoral fraud fight.
Cheney, in fact, could have positioned herself as a distinct moderate politician within the GOP. But she preferred to be the congressional version of the disgraced Lincoln Project and receive the constant praise of the liberal press and analysts who try to position her as an important Republican leader.
Apparently, Liz Cheney believed in those desperate praises from the press because after falling by 37 percentage points, the congresswoman dared to compare herself to Abraham Lincoln and, furthermore, suggest that she would run for the 2024 elections to stop Donald Trump.
“Abraham Lincoln was defeated in elections for the Senate and House before he won the most important election of all,” Cheney said after her defeat, suggesting that she could follow the path of one of the most important figures in American history and become president.
Liz Cheney gave an interview to Today host Savannah Guthrie and told her seriously that she was thinking about running for president in 2024. “I will be doing whatever it takes to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office,” Cheney said.
“That’s a decision that I’m going to make in the coming months,” she added. “I’m not going to make any announcements here this morning, but it is something that I’m thinking about and I’ll make a decision in the coming weeks.”
Liz Cheney joined the embarrassing list of Republican congress members who lost their seat after voting for impeachment against Trump —losing an election by a landslide, clearly and seeing her party turn its back on her completely This is what a debacle looks like in the world of politics.
Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón is a journalist at El American specializing in the areas of American politics and media analysis // Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón es periodista de El American especializado en las áreas de política americana y análisis de medios de comunicación.
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