 The Washington Post had some of the funniest reactions to Liz Cheney's completely one-sided, historic loss in the Wyoming primary on Tuesday.
Ahead of the vote, they published a column from senior critic-at-large Robin Givhan hailing "The winning defiance of Liz Cheney."
It's hard to believe this is not satire:
When you study the speaking style of Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) — the unwavering tone of voice even as she’s delivering dire warnings about the precariousness of American democracy, the slight forward tilt of her head as she fixes a listener with her gaze, the unhurried cadence in her admonishment of election deniers, even the set of her jaw — it’s impossible not to see her father Dick Cheney. The former vice president’s mannerisms and style are forever present in his daughter.
On Tuesday, she went to her polling place in Jackson Hole, Wyo., with her father, he a stooped man in a blue oxford shirt with a breast-pocket full of pens, she an unbowed legislator in her blue checked shirt, dungarees and espadrilles. She was dressed in a manner that signifies regular folk, but of course, there’s nothing common about being part of a political dynasty. And there’s nothing average about Jackson Hole, which is in Teton County, which has one of the highest concentrations of wealth in the country. She is exceptional and privileged. But she is a politician, too. Cheney stood in line along with other voters. She chatted and smiled. She faced the cameras and the microphones. She breathed out of her nose and used her mouth to say words.Politicians dress to enhance their narrative and the one that Cheney has been weaving — and continues to tell — is about America at risk and the need for all of us to do something to save it. And so there she was on her fateful primary day dressed like an all-American Every Woman who was dutifully squeezing in a vote between grocery shopping and a video call with the office.
Cheney has been a marvel of defiance as she has refuted the new orthodoxy of the Republican Party, recast patriotism as a feminine virtue rather than an act of machismo, made brutal honesty into a healing salve and blind optimism into a kind of poison. She has a way of delivering sobering news that telegraphs urgency rather than panic. She also has a way of delivering good news and making it sound like a prologue to the apocalypse.
[...] She ran for reelection in her state's primary fully realizing that she was likely to lose and winning isn't everything. That surely counts as a personal victory. WaPo's congressional bureau chief Paul Kane declared Cheney the leader of the "anti-Trump movement."
Liz Cheney, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Bill Kristol, Anne Applebaum -- these are now the left's leaders.
From WaPo:
Rep. Liz Cheney had it all two years ago.
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, like almost all her male GOP colleagues had decided to do.
“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 told a crowd of about 100 supporters gathered in a valley inside the Teton Mountain range. “It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic.
“That was a path I could not and would not take.”
Cheney used her defiant concession speech Tuesday night, after losing badly in the GOP primary to Trump’s handpicked candidate, to kickoff a sustained campaign against the ex-president and his allies. She surrendered her rising-star status in Congress in a sacrificial manner toward a higher calling to take on the most powerful figure in her increasingly conspiratorial political party.
Cynics back in Washington discounted this race long ago as lacking importance, given that it was trading one deeply conservative Republican for another. Cheney, after all, voted with Trump and the GOP leaders she now decries more than 90 percent of time.
But congressional historians say that’s missing the point: What Cheney has done, in sacrificing her seat and yet fighting to the finish without wavering, is just not common in this era.
“I cannot recall anyone who compares to Liz Cheney’s ‘full force’ confrontation with Trump and company, especially post-World War II,” Donald R. Wolfensberger, a scholar at the Wilson Institute, said Tuesday. I guess she felt confident knowing she had $44 million in the bank to coast on.
Her story is not unique as three other anti-Trump Republicans who voted for his impeachment were also just ousted by their constituents and four others are retiring.
She's likely going to be rewarded handsomely for her service to the regime with book deals and a job at CNN.
WaPo's editorial board published their own column on Tuesday titled, "The country needs more Liz Cheneys."
From WaPo:
“If the cost of standing up for the Constitution is losing the House seat,” Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) recently told the New York Times, “then that’s a price I’m willing to pay.” On Tuesday, her state’s voters came to collect.
Ms. Cheney’s defeat in Wyoming’s GOP congressional primary was predictable — and yet no less dispiriting. Polls had her trailing the eventual victor, Harriet Hageman, by a substantial margin. But no numerical analysis was necessary to see how far out of step Ms. Cheney had become with a Republican Party over which former president Donald Trump still holds so much power, even after his role in one of the nation’s darkest days: Jan. 6, 2021.
Where many Republicans (including her opponent) say the 2020 presidential election was rigged, Ms. Cheney refuses to participate in election denialism. Where nearly all of her House colleagues refused to join Democrats in their efforts to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection, Ms. Cheney has played a central role on the select committee seeking to hold to account those responsible.
[...] The difference between her and the House Republican leadership from which she was ousted is that she recognizes that ideology and party loyalty should not matter when facing a fundamental threat to democracy.
Now, as politicians seed doubt in the outcome of votes before they even happen and spew reckless rhetoric that endangers elected officials and everyday government employees, the nation needs a broad coalition united in defense of bedrock values such as free-and-fair elections and the peaceful transition of power. The country needs, regardless of their positions on tax hikes or deregulation or free trade, more Liz Cheneys in government. Now, it will have one less. "Democracy" in this case means rule by the unelected deep state and globalist megadonors and the "fundamental threat" to the system is voters actually getting candidates who represent their own interests into office.
Fortunately, the millions of dollars Cheney raised from wealthy and powerful donors for selling out her constituents wasn't enough for her to buy her way back into Congress.
Good riddance to bad rubbish!
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