First, this background on the GOP tossing Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) from
her #3 House leadership role. What Republicans did on May 12, 2021, as they
voted to boot her out was to get rid of someone whose only crime was to tell
the truth. She said in essence that the 2020 election was won fair and square
by President Joe Biden, and that Trump's continued insistence to the contrary
runs counter to both facts and the Constitution, and with this long-lasting
line from her on the nearly empty House floor speech:
“Remaining silent and
ignoring the lie emboldens the liar.”
In so doing
Cheney implied that the GOP has cemented Trump’s “Big Lie” with their
unwillingness to speak the truth about the election that Trump constantly and ridiculously
claims was “rigged and fraud and stolen from him, and that he did not lose.”
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Now this update from a very excellent article by
David Leonhardt in
the NY Times with this very eye-grabbing headline:
“Why Liz Cheney Matters”
Her ouster is a sign of the Republican Party’s growing discomfort with democracy.
In a
defiant speech from the House floor before her ouster, Cheney said: “I will not sit back and watch in silence
while others lead our party down a path that abandons the rule of law.”
It’s worth stepping back for a minute to think about what
has happened since the November 3, 2020
After losing an election, many Republican leaders spread “the Big Lie” that their opponent had cheated. On its own, this lie resembled the historical tactics of authoritarians, who often try to delegitimize any political party but their own. The similarity became starker when multiple elected Republicans either encouraged or excused a mob that violently attacked the U.S. Capitol.
A peaceful transfer of power involves both the peaceful part
and a willing transfer. It depends on the ability to acknowledge defeat. Never
before have so many elected members of Congress from one party tried to disrupt
a clear victory by the other party.
At first, that January 6 attack seemed as if it might cause party leaders, like Senator Mitch
McConnell (R-KY) to reassert the importance of democratic principles.
Instead, Republicans who called out Donald Trump’s falsehoods found themselves marginalized.
The central message of Cheney’s
ouster is that Republicans must lie, or quietly endorse Trump’s “Big Lie” to remain Republicans in good standing.
The same thing is happening in state Republican
parties. In VA, Glenn Youngkin won the GOP nomination for governor.
By résumé, he is a country-club Republican, having served as co-CEO at the
Carlyle Group, a well-connected investment firm. To win the nomination, though,
Youngkin evidently decided that he needed to promote false conspiracy
theories. So he did.
In more than 10 states, including TX, FL, GA, and AZ Republican
lawmakers have responded to Trump’s defeat by moving to make voting more
difficult.
It’s true that some of these measures are defensible.
Others may have less impact than Democrats claim.
But the intent of the laws is clear, and they will surely have some effect.
Provisions that target heavily Democratic areas — like GA’s
limit on ballot drop boxes — are particularly blatant.
Kenneth Mayer, a political scientist at the University of WI
told The Times: “The typical response by a losing party in a
functioning democracy is that they alter their platform to make it more
appealing. Here the response is to try to keep people from voting. It’s
dangerously anti-democratic.”
Joshua Douglas of the University of KY has written that a few
states have also given state legislators more power over election
administrators, potentially making it easier for politicians to reject an
election’s result. These provisions may be even more dangerous than the
hurdles to voting, especially since they are an explicit response to Trump’s “Big
Lie.”
Could all of these moves come too little, much as Trump’s
postelection flailing did? Yes, that’s one possible outcome. But it is not the
only one. In a way that would have been unfathomable a few years ago, one of
the country’s two major parties is taking steps that would allow it to overturn
the outcome of a future election.
And what now?
For Republicans, the
question is whether they are willing to break with their own party, or at least
criticize it honestly, to speak up for democracy. That’s not an easy thing to
do.
There are many Americans
who believe in both democracy and a conservative agenda — less regulation,
strict abortion laws, few gun restrictions, tight border security, strong
support for police departments, and churches. These Americans no longer have a
comfortable partisan home.
If even a small portion of Republicans insist that the party supports democracy, they can succeed. As several experts have pointed out — including Anne Applebaum (The Atlantic), Steven Levitsky (The Washington Post, and Daniel Ziblatt (The Guardian) — the most successful strategy for beating back a political party’s authoritarian shift has depended on defections among people who otherwise agree with that party. That’s why Liz Cheney, Former AZ Sen. Jeff Flake, Sen. Mitt Romney, and others criticizing Trump’s “Big Lie” are significant.
The same experts advise Democrats to welcome the courage of
those Republicans and not obsess over their many other disagreements.
Cheney’s stance matters because she is a pro-gun, anti-abortion,
anti-regulation deeply conservative Republican. Jonathan Chait has written in NY magazine: “The
Republican Party is sliding into authoritarianism at a terrifyingly rapid clip.
That fate of American democracy is the biggest issue in American politics.”
Four key elements since the 2020 Election:
1. From William Barr, AG under Trump administration, late last
year said: “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected
a different outcome in the election.
2. From Jeffrey Rosen former Acting AG during his House testimony
on May 12: “During my tenure, DOJ maintained the position publicly
announced previously that the Department had been presented with no evidence of
widespread voter fraud at a scale sufficient to change the outcome of the 2020
election, that it would not participate in any campaign's or political party's
legal challenges to the certification of the Electoral College votes, and that
there would be an orderly and peaceful transfer of power under the
Constitution.”
3. Trump and his legal team filed dozens of cases in both
state and Federal courts alleging widespread voter fraud. They did not win
a single significant victory in those nearly 60 cases.
4. Even the Supreme Court rejected two major Trump
challenges: (1) They rejected a suit to overturn the PA results and (2) a broader effort led by TX AG Ken Paxton that aimed to
invalidate votes in several key swing states that went for Biden ruled against
Trump and his ilk.
My 2 cents: To summarize as easily as possible: Trump must be held to account for January 6, no if’s, and’s, or but’s. That would be 100% a complete legal solution. It would also free up many Republicans from Trump’s grasp and fear of his power within the GOP.
I do not advocate for the GOP in any way, but I do for the sake of the nation and our democratic processes by bringing Trump to justice, which is totally warranted as the only solution – at least in my view. I hope you agree.
Thanks for stopping by.
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