Liz Cheney: The GOP is at a turning point. History is watching us

55,831 Views | 1080 Replies | Last: 2 yr ago by Oldbear83
Osodecentx
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Opinion: Liz Cheney: The GOP is at a turning point. History is watching us
May 5, 2021 at 4:05 p.m. CDT
Liz Cheney, a Republican, represents Wyoming's at-large congressional district in the U.S. House.
In public statements again this week, former president Donald Trump has repeated his claims that the 2020 election was a fraud and was stolen. 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.
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.

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) left no doubt in his public remarks. On the floor of the House on Jan. 13, McCarthy said: "The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding." Now, McCarthy has changed his story.
I am a conservative Republican, and the most conservative of conservative values is reverence for the rule of law. Each of us swears an oath before God to uphold our Constitution. The electoral college has spoken. More than 60 state and federal courts, including multiple Trump-appointed judges, have rejected the former president's arguments, and refused to overturn election results. That is the rule of law; that is our constitutional system for resolving claims of election fraud.
The question before us now is whether we will join Trump's crusade to delegitimize and undo the legal outcome of the 2020 election, with all the consequences that might have. I have worked overseas in nations where changes in leadership come only with violence, where democracy takes hold only until the next violent upheaval. America is exceptional because our constitutional system guards against that. At the heart of our republic is a commitment to the peaceful transfer of power among political rivals in accordance with law. President Ronald Reagan described this as our American "miracle."
While embracing or ignoring Trump's statements might seem attractive to some for fundraising and political purposes, that approach will do profound long-term damage to our party and our country. Trump has never expressed remorse or regret for the attack of Jan. 6 and now suggests that our elections, and our legal and constitutional system, cannot be trusted to do the will of the people. This is immensely harmful, especially as we now compete on the world stage against Communist China and its claims that democracy is a failed system.
For Republicans, the path forward is clear.
First, support the ongoing Justice Department criminal investigations of the Jan. 6 attack. Those investigations must be comprehensive and objective; neither the White House nor any member of Congress should interfere.
Second, we must support a parallel bipartisan review by a commission with subpoena power to seek and find facts; it will describe for all Americans what happened. This is critical to defeat the misinformation and nonsense circulating in the press and on social media. No currently serving member of Congress with an eye to the upcoming election cycle should participate. We should appoint former officials, members of the judiciary and other prominent Americans who can be objective, just as we did after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The commission should be focused on the Jan. 6 attacks. The Black Lives Matter and antifa violence of last summer was illegal and reprehensible, but it is a different problem with a different solution.
Finally, we Republicans need to stand for genuinely conservative principles, and steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality. In our hearts, we are devoted to the American miracle. We believe in the rule of law, in limited government, in a strong national defense, and in prosperity and opportunity brought by low taxes and fiscally conservative policies.
There is much at stake now, including the ridiculous wokeness of our political rivals, the irrational policies at the border and runaway spending that threatens a return to the catastrophic inflation of the 1970s. Reagan formed a broad coalition from across the political spectrum to return America to sanity, and we need to do the same now. We know how. But this will not happen if Republicans choose to abandon the rule of law and join Trump's crusade to undermine the foundation of our democracy and reverse the legal outcome of the last election.
History is watching. Our children are watching. We must be brave enough to defend the basic principles that underpin and protect our freedom and our democratic process. I am committed to doing that, no matter what the short-term political consequences might be.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/05/liz-cheney-republican-party-turning-point/
Canon
How long do you want to ignore this user?
She needs to go. She objected to personality and ignored the damage she was doing to policy.
Sam Lowry
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Osodecentx said:

Liz Cheney: The GOP is at a turning point. History is watching us
Amen.
TechDawgMc
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Canon said:

She needs to go. She objected to personality and ignored the damage she was doing to policy.
She objected to character, which is a different thing.
Osodecentx
How long do you want to ignore this user?
She is exactly right
Chamberman
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Quote:

She needs to go. She objected to personality and ignored the damage she was doing to policy.


Canon
How long do you want to ignore this user?
TechDawgMc said:

Canon said:

She needs to go. She objected to personality and ignored the damage she was doing to policy.
She objected to character, which is a different thing.


No. She objected to personality. There isn't a single politician with character.
muddybrazos
How long do you want to ignore this user?
TechDawgMc said:

Canon said:

She needs to go. She objected to personality and ignored the damage she was doing to policy.
She objected to character, which is a different thing.
Her Dad is responsible for the deaths of literally a million people so she should pipe down with the call outs.
Proud 1992 Alum
How long do you want to ignore this user?
muddybrazos said:

TechDawgMc said:

Canon said:

She needs to go. She objected to personality and ignored the damage she was doing to policy.
She objected to character, which is a different thing.
Her Dad is responsible for the deaths of literally a million people so she should pipe down with the call outs.


"literally a million people" - really? Exaggerate much.
ABC BEAR
How long do you want to ignore this user?
muddybrazos said:

TechDawgMc said:

Canon said:

She needs to go. She objected to personality and ignored the damage she was doing to policy.
She objected to character, which is a different thing.
Her Dad is responsible for the deaths of literally a million people so she should pipe down with the call outs.
A million? There weren't that many people on those hunting trips.
Sam Lowry
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Cheney and her ilk are wrong on a lot of things, but they're 100% right on this. This is completely unacceptable for anyone who claims to love the Constitution and the rule of law.
ATL Bear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
If only the left had someone of courage in 2017 to explain how this Russian collusion narrative, investigation, and stolen election madness was insane. Instead of history watching them, it was rewritten to accommodate it.
Doc Holliday
How long do you want to ignore this user?
ATL Bear said:

If only the left had someone of courage in 2017 to explain how this Russian collusion narrative, investigation, and stolen election madness was insane. Instead of history watching them, it was rewritten to accommodate it.
If only people knew how bad it really is.
whiterock
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Sam Lowry said:

Cheney and her ilk are wrong on a lot of things, but they're 100% right on this. This is completely unacceptable for anyone who claims to love the Constitution and the rule of law.


Adopting the rhetoric of your opponent doesn't impress anyone. It just emboldens your opponent and undermines your credibility among your natural allies.


Sam Lowry
How long do you want to ignore this user?
whiterock said:

Sam Lowry said:

Cheney and her ilk are wrong on a lot of things, but they're 100% right on this. This is completely unacceptable for anyone who claims to love the Constitution and the rule of law.


Adopting the rhetoric of your opponent doesn't impress anyone. It just emboldens your opponent and undermines your credibility among your natural allies.



The rhetoric of constitutionalism was not always unique to the left. It's the abandonment of our own principles that undermines our credibility.

A former president should not be undermining an election six months after the fact, especially not without evidence. It is obscene.
Oldbear83
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Osodecentx said:

She is exactly right
She is a cancer of her own type.

Not at all what we need.
That which does not kill me, will try again and get nastier
ATL Bear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Sam Lowry said:

whiterock said:

Sam Lowry said:

Cheney and her ilk are wrong on a lot of things, but they're 100% right on this. This is completely unacceptable for anyone who claims to love the Constitution and the rule of law.


Adopting the rhetoric of your opponent doesn't impress anyone. It just emboldens your opponent and undermines your credibility among your natural allies.



The rhetoric of constitutionalism was not always unique to the left. It's the abandonment of our own principles that undermines our credibility.

A former president should not be undermining an election six months after the fact, especially not without evidence. It is obscene.
Maybe he'll put out a book about it sometime in October. That would be really crazy.
C. Jordan
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Canon said:

She needs to go. She objected to personality and ignored the damage she was doing to policy.
So are you saying inciting insurrection is a matter of personality, not policy?

Really? There is no real policy with Trump. There is only personality. Conservatives who really care about policy, like Cheney, know he's an utter failure at it.

I agree with Cheney on practically nothing, but admire her moral courage. While McCarthy and his ilk went groveling to Trump after he incited violent insurrection, she stood fast. Sadly, Republicans are going to punish her for telling the truth. It's so dangerous for one man to have such power over people like the Republican base. He's turned the party into a personality cult.

Trump is going to go down in history as one of our worst presidents and the most dangerous. His toadies in congress are going to go down as gutless cowards who tried to hold on to power by degrading democracy.
C. Jordan
How long do you want to ignore this user?
ATL Bear said:

If only the left had someone of courage in 2017 to explain how this Russian collusion narrative, investigation, and stolen election madness was insane. Instead of history watching them, it was rewritten to accommodate it.
Nice try at deflection.

It won't work.
J.B.Katz
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Thomas Friedman has an accurate prediction of the future if Republicans keep going down this path:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/04/opinion/gop-trump-2020-election.html

President Biden's early success in getting Americans vaccinated, pushing out stimulus checks and generally calming the surface of American life has been a blessing for the country. But it's also lulled many into thinking that Donald Trump's Big Lie that the election was stolen, which propelled the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, would surely fade away and everything would return to normal. It hasn't.

We are not OK. America's democracy is still in real danger. In fact, we are closer to a political civil war more than at any other time in our modern history. Today's seeming political calm is actually resting on a false bottom that we're at risk of crashing through at any moment.

Because, instead of Trump's Big Lie fading away, just the opposite is happening first slowly and now quickly.

Under Trump's command and control from Mar-a-Largo, and with the complicity of most of his party's leaders, that Big Lie that the greatest election in our history, when more Republicans and Democrats voted than ever before, in the midst of a pandemic, must have been rigged because Trump lost has metastasized. It's being embraced by a solid majority of elected Republicans and ordinary party members local, state and national.

"Denying the legitimacy of our last election is becoming a prerequisite for being elected as a Republican in 2022," observed Gautam Mukunda, host of Nasdaq's "World Reimagined" podcast and author of the book "Indispensable: When Leaders Really Mattered."

"This is creating a filter that over time will block out anyone willing to tell the truth about the election." It will leave us with "a Republican Party where you cannot rise without declaring that the sun sets in the East, a Republican Party where being willing to help steal an election is literally a job requirement."

This is not an exaggeration. Here is what Representative Anthony Gonzalez, one of the few Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, told The Hill about the campaign within the party to oust Representative Liz Cheney from her House G.O.P. leadership position, because of her refusal to go along with the Big Lie:

"If a prerequisite for leading our conference is continuing to lie to our voters, then Liz is not the best fit. Liz isn't going to lie to people. She's going to stand on principle."

Think about that for a second. To be a leader in today's G.O.P. you either have to play dumb or be dumb on the central issue facing our Republic: the integrity of our election. You have to accept everything that Trump has said about the election without a shred of evidence and ignore everything his own attorney general, F.B.I. director and election security director said based on the evidence that there was no substantive fraud.

What kind of deformed party will such a dynamic produce? A party so willing to be marinated in such a baldfaced lie will lie about anything, including who wins the next election and every one after that.

There is simply nothing more dangerous for a two-party democracy than to have one party declare that no election where it loses is legitimate, and, therefore, if it loses it will just lie about the results and change the rules.

That's exactly what's playing out now. And the more one G.O.P. lawmaker after another signs on to Trump's Big Lie, the more it gives the party license at the state level to promote voter suppression laws that ensure that it cannot lose ever again

Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and author of the book "How to Read the Constitution and Why," writing in The Hill on Monday, noted that "as of late March, state legislators have introduced 361 bills in 47 states this year that contain limitations around voting, a 43 percent increase from just a month earlier.

"The measures include things like enhanced power for poll 'monitors,' fewer voting drop-boxes, restrictions on voting by mail, penalties for election officials who fail to purge voters from the rolls, and enhanced power in politicians over election procedures."

Although G.O.P. supporters of these bills insist that they are about election integrity and security, Wehle added, "the lack of actual evidence of fraud and mismanagement in the American electoral system totally belies those cynical claims."

This is the equivalent of lighting a fuse to a bomb planted beneath the foundations of our democracy.

Imagine if all or many of these measures are passed and in 2022 and 2024 Republicans manage to retake the House, Senate and White House with, say, only 42 percent of the popular vote, effectively establishing minority rule. Do you know what will happen? Let me tell you what will happen. Disenfranchised Democratic voters will not sit idly by. They may refuse to pay their taxes. Many will take to the streets. Some might become violent, and our whole political system could become paralyzed and start to unravel.

Yet, this is precisely the path that Trump's G.O.P. is setting us on.

Personally, I have reservations about where the left of the Democratic Party is pulling Biden on some economic, immigration, foreign policy and education issues. But Biden and his party are putting forth real ideas to try to address the real challenges that an increasingly diverse 21st-century America needs to address to become a more perfect union. The best tool for keeping the Democratic Party close to the center-left on more issues is a healthy Republican Party that hews to the center-right.

We don't have that. We have, instead, a G.O.P. trying to cling to power by leveraging a Big Lie into voter suppression laws that leverage the party back to power by appealing solely to a largely white 20th-century America. Trump's G.O.P. is making no effort to offer conservative alternatives to the issues of the day. Its whole focus is on how to win without doing that.

Which is why it is incumbent on every American to support in every way possible the few principled Republican legislators fighting this trend from the inside like Liz Cheney, Representative Adam Kinzinger and Senator Mitt Romney.

What I learned covering the struggle for the future of the Arab-Muslim world post-9/11 is that the war of ideas inside is everything. Sure, it is important for outsiders to condemn bad behavior, but their voices have limited impact. Real change happens only when the war of ideas is won by insiders, working from the roots upward.

On Monday, CNN quoted Cheney as telling Republican donors and scholars at a retreat for the American Enterprise Institute in Sea Island, Ga.: "We can't embrace the notion the election is stolen. It's a poison in the bloodstream of our democracy. We can't whitewash what happened on Jan. 6 or perpetuate Trump's Big Lie. It is a threat to democracy. What he did on Jan. 6 is a line that cannot be crossed." A "peaceful transfer of power must be defended."

She could not be more right. And without a war of ideas inside the party, one that is won by principled Republicans, we run the real risk of a political civil war in America over the next election.

Things are not OK.

Unless more principled Republicans stand up for the truth about our last election, we're going to see exactly how a democracy dies.
Baylor3216
How long do you want to ignore this user?
"History is watching us"

Oh noooooooos. Lmao. Gtfo with that nonsense
Forest Bueller
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Politicians gonna politic.

There is virtually no straight up national level politician.

They are self enriching scum besides a few exceptions.
contrario
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Whatever democrats accuse republicans of doing, they actually do it much more effectively. That is what is terrifying about what Trump has been accused of doing, the Democrats will accomplish what Trump tried to do in a much more effective manner.
ATL Bear
How long do you want to ignore this user?
C. Jordan said:

ATL Bear said:

If only the left had someone of courage in 2017 to explain how this Russian collusion narrative, investigation, and stolen election madness was insane. Instead of history watching them, it was rewritten to accommodate it.
Nice try at deflection.

It won't work.
Because you never see the breadth of your own sins because you're consumed with the sins of others. People don't see how close we came to actually removing a duly elected President under false pretenses and illegal FISA spying on US citizens.
Canon
How long do you want to ignore this user?
C. Jordan said:

Canon said:

She needs to go. She objected to personality and ignored the damage she was doing to policy.
So are you saying inciting insurrection is a matter of personality, not policy?

Really? There is no real policy with Trump. There is only personality. Conservatives who really care about policy, like Cheney, know he's an utter failure at it.

I agree with Cheney on practically nothing, but admire her moral courage. While McCarthy and his ilk went groveling to Trump after he incited violent insurrection, she stood fast. Sadly, Republicans are going to punish her for telling the truth. It's so dangerous for one man to have such power over people like the Republican base. He's turned the party into a personality cult.

Trump is going to go down in history as one of our worst presidents and the most dangerous. His toadies in congress are going to go down as gutless cowards who tried to hold on to power by degrading democracy.


1. It wasn't an "insurrection". Suggesting it was is absurd.
2. Trump incited nothing.
3. If you can't recognize the excellent policy under the last administration, you are the problem. It's only about personality for you and you are projecting.
4. If Cheney and other never Trumpers cared about policy, they would exhibit that by placing policy concerns higher than personal spats. They don't.

Thanks to the likes of Cheney, we have the farthest left policy machine in place our country has seen since FDR, only this one is just getting started.
Booray
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Forest Bueller said:

Politicians gonna politic.

There is virtually no straight up national level politician.

They are self enriching scum besides a few exceptions.


Liz Cheney is one of the few exceptions apparently. There is no way she is doing this to enhance her power or enrich herself. This is purely a stand on principal.

Yet many who say "we just want politicians to be straight with us" and "they are all out for themselves" vilify this politician for being straight with us and taking a stand against her personal interest.

The lesson, as always, is we get the government we deserve.
HuMcK
How long do you want to ignore this user?
ATL Bear said:

C. Jordan said:

ATL Bear said:

If only the left had someone of courage in 2017 to explain how this Russian collusion narrative, investigation, and stolen election madness was insane. Instead of history watching them, it was rewritten to accommodate it.
Nice try at deflection.

It won't work.
Because you never see the breadth of your own sins because you're consumed with the sins of others. People don't see how close we came to actually removing a duly elected President under false pretenses and illegal FISA spying on US citizens.

All this bullsht even after knowing Trump's campaign manager had an active relationship with a literal Russian spy while Russia covertly supported Trump's election...imagine the level of brainwashing it takes to still think that was a hoax narrative.

Manafort met with a Russian spy to literally discuss campaign strategy and exchange info that would help them interfere, which they enthusiatically did. Nothing you say will ever change those objective facts. "False pretenses" lol.
Osodecentx
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Booray said:

Forest Bueller said:

Politicians gonna politic.

There is virtually no straight up national level politician.

They are self enriching scum besides a few exceptions.


Liz Cheney is one of the few exceptions apparently. There is no way she is doing this to enhance her power or enrich herself. This is purely a stand on principal.

Yet many who say "we just want politicians to be straight with us" and "they are all out for themselves" vilify this politician for being straight with us and taking a stand against her personal interest.

The lesson, as always, is we get the government we deserve.
Correct in every respect.
HuMcK
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Liz Cheney has taken more heat from GOP leadership (and voters) than a monumental scumbag like Matt Gaetz. The party is rotten, a home for reality tv conmen and corruption, but not for truth-telling.
Oldbear83
How long do you want to ignore this user?
"This is purely a stand on principal."

Nope, pure spite.
That which does not kill me, will try again and get nastier
Porteroso
How long do you want to ignore this user?
I'm shocked a Republican is saying this. Standing on principle is something I thought the GOP abandoned long ago. Valuing America might not be popular on either side, but at least here is 1 politician who does.
Osodecentx
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Porteroso said:

I'm shocked a Republican is saying this. Standing on principle is something I thought the GOP abandoned long ago. Valuing America might not be popular on either side, but at least here is 1 politician who does.
And we will cast her out for calling out Trump
Guy Noir
How long do you want to ignore this user?
I think we as a country would do well to ask our politicians to vote each issue on its merits alone. Many of the people vote strictly party lines. The facts are that the protestors on Jan 6 crossed a line that should not have been crossed. They did this with encouragement from President Trump. This was a serious threat to the peaceful transfer of power between elections. I normally vote Republican and I support the impeachment vote by Liz Cheney.

Along with that issue I believe it is important to make an effort to confirm integrity in elections and the voting in future elections. The "voter suppression" claims are without substance when you consider the amount of mail-in ballots and early voting options being given to voters. A picture id and a confirmation of citizenship is not unreasonable.
Canon
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Osodecentx said:

Porteroso said:

I'm shocked a Republican is saying this. Standing on principle is something I thought the GOP abandoned long ago. Valuing America might not be popular on either side, but at least here is 1 politician who does.
And we will cast her out for calling out Trump


If she's cast out, it will be for putting personality above policy, largely in a bid to stem the loss of power establishment republicans, like her, Romney, etc., were experiencing. She sided with Democrats to take down her internal political party opponents by casting them as immoral....which is like a cobra chastising a rattle snake for being poisonous.

The key takeaway is that she sided with Democrats. She sided with a truly antiAmerican party to try and shore up her power. She needs to go.
Doc Holliday
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Booray said:

Forest Bueller said:

Politicians gonna politic.

There is virtually no straight up national level politician.

They are self enriching scum besides a few exceptions.


Liz Cheney is one of the few exceptions apparently. There is no way she is doing this to enhance her power or enrich herself. This is purely a stand on principal.

Yet many who say "we just want politicians to be straight with us" and "they are all out for themselves" vilify this politician for being straight with us and taking a stand against her personal interest.

The lesson, as always, is we get the government we deserve.
I see you're a man of words, not actions.

She will support forever wars and selling out to the highest bidder despite telling you she won't.
 
×
subscribe Verify your student status
See Subscription Benefits
Trial only available to users who have never subscribed or participated in a previous trial.