“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him.”
Who would ever have thought Dick Cheney would say something that had such a ring of truth?
Then again, who would have thought Cheney’s daughter Liz would be a hero to Americans who aren’t residing on the far right of the political spectrum?
The former vice president cut an advertisement defending his daughter, who is less than two weeks from a primary election that quite possibly will end her time in Congress. Former president Trump and his minions have been working for months to get rid of Liz Cheney, mostly due to her refusal to stop saying the (former) emperor has no clothes.
So the MAGAts put up a candidate to challenge Cheney in the Republican primary, which in a state as one-sided as Wyoming is effectively the general election. Their candidate, Harriet Hageman, had a huge lead on Cheney a week ago.
It certainly isn’t that Hageman is such a wonderful candidate. To steal a line from Stephen King, with Donald Trump’s endorsement, the candidate could be “Kinko the Klown or a guy in an Uncle Sam suit on stilts or Hubert the Happy Homo” and still win the primary.
Well, maybe not Hubert.
It is Wyoning after all.
It really is all about Trump and his ego. Cheney held a great deal of power that benefitted Wyoming in Congress and was solidly conservative on every issue. Hageman is just another election denier who would join the ranks of GOP women with Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert.
So it may not matter, but the former vice president is standing up for his daughter.
There is a sort of irony in all this.
For the eight years he was vice president, many of us saw Dick Cheney as the prince of darkness. If there was one classic story that seemed to capture the essence of the man, it was when he was quail hunting with friends and accidentally shot an elderly friend in the face. Then the victim of the shooting apologized for ruining Cheney’s day.
When all this is over, win or lose, Dick Cheney can bury the hatchet.
He can invite Trump to go hunting.