Donald Trump is keeping up his intense opposition to Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the current vice chair of the House committee investigating the Capitol riot, where evidence against him is mounting.
“Dems don’t like Guns, Life or Liz. Cheney wouldn’t even help on the pardon of Scooter Libby—who saved Bush and her father—but I did the pardon anyway!” Trump ranted on his alternative social media platform known as Truth Social this Friday. He linked to an article from the far-right website known as Breitbart that, among other things, threw metaphorical cold water on the Cheney campaign strategy of asking Wyoming Democrats to participate in the upcoming GOP Congressional primary and vote for her. The article relies in part on an article from CNN that notes there aren’t an overwhelming number of Democrats in Wyoming, where Trump won by over 43 percent in the 2020 election. The Breitbart article also claims that “Cheney is in hot water after opposing America First policies,” but she actually consistently backed the Trump policy agenda, because she’s an ardent conservative.
Cheney simply won’t go along with someone like Trump trying to basically upend the foundation of American democracy. Such a thing might in some contexts sound based in the realm of theory, but it could have very serious real-world consequences. If Trump was able to secure another term in office despite his documented election loss, who’s to say what he’d have done? Using the powers of the federal government to crush his opponents to an extent greater than already seen would’ve no doubt been a priority. Meanwhile, available polling data suggests Cheney may lose the ongoing Republican primary for her seat to Harriet Hageman, who has Trump’s endorsement, although there’s still significant time left, and things could change. During a recent debate among contenders in the Wyoming GOP primary field, Cheney made a compelling case.
“If we embrace the lies of Donald Trump, if we tell the people of Wyoming something that is not true, we will soon find ourselves without the structure and the basis and the framework of our constitutional republic,” Cheney remarked. “If we don’t abide by the Constitution when it is politically inconvenient, then we will not have the Constitution as our shield when we need to defend our First Amendment rights and our Second Amendment rights.”
The conception of Second Amendment rights held by Cheney and those in the Democratic Party is no doubt significantly different, but at least there’s a common foundation of trying to reference the Constitution — a low bar, but one that Trump and goons of his often flat-out fail to meet. Then-Trump lawyer John Eastman admitted a plan he formulated by which then-VP Mike Pence could supposedly block Biden’s win was illegal, and he admitted the Supreme Court wouldn’t uphold it. Things on that latter front could change if Justices simply change their minds as extremist political movements grow. They already overturned Roe; what is next?
