Smokin’ Liz
Conspiratorial Republicans blame Liz Cheney for deserting the Party in order to fulfill her duty as an elected government official
What’s true and what’s false:
True:
There was a fist bump.
False:
There was a signifier of subverting the Party.
The Republican Party elite are outraged. We saw a similar outrage emerge when Governor Chris Christie accepted an empathic Obama hug during a Presidential visit to a New Jersey shore community devastated by Hurricane Sandy in October, 2012.
How dare he, said the Republican obstructionist.
Fast forward nine years and President Biden, descending into the House Chamber, encounters Rep. Liz Cheney and they…
fist bump.
How dare she, said the Republican conspirator.
Behind the outrage one might sense a common aversion to celebrating any notion that we share the convivial moment, at least physically. But these are not normal times.
This time the physical moment sharing is different: we are watching a woman standing in for the Republican power elite in a chamber once in the party’s grip. No helicopter tarmac in the shadow of a disaster, but the sacred halls of the legislative branch on the occasion of a Presidential address.
How dare she flout the party’s partisan post-election rapture.
‘She is not fit to lead.’
Ponder this non-sequitor for a while. Ostensibly, Rep. Liz Cheney is an election fraud denier. Hence she is unfit to lead the Party in acknowledging the election result. Even participating with the election result, as other Republicans have:
“Count me out.”
-Lindsey Graham, explaining his vote to certify the Electoral College decision, November 7, 2020
Is this outrage the “Trump cult” at work?
“Finally, we Republicans need to stand for genuinely conservative principles, and steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality.”
-Rep. Liz Cheney, Washington Post, May 5, 2021
Cheney provides the reader a polite rationalization for the Republican elite’s outrage. No, this is not a “cult of personality,” this is a religion. And apostasy is its energy.
To remain loyal to the Republican Party these days is to abandon the principles of the Republican Party.
May 6
