The Witches of First Street
Why are Liz Cheney and Cassidy Hutchinson scaring the hell out of everyone?
Apparently, Washington, DC is haunted. Or sleeping. Or both. (1)
Now that Trump apologist Mike Johnson is at the helm in Congress and the Republican Party is in a trance, the Republican “apostates,” (2) the current witches, are disturbingly active. Book/cauldrons in hand, Liz Cheney and Cassidy Hutchinson are descending on podcast/cable news land, and stirring things up:
Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman from Wyoming and an ardent conservative, is an apostate for modern times. In a political party that has evolved into a personality cult, her apostasy resides in her refusal to worship its leader and in her defense of the Constitution. For such impudence, she was banished. She was thrown out of the Wyoming Republican Party, censured by the Republican National Committee, and voted out of Congress simply for insisting on the facts: that Donald Trump incited a violent insurrection on Capitol Hill as part of an elaborate attempt to steal the 2020 Presidential election…
Cheney has not ceased ringing the alarm. She now contends that, if Trump wins back the White House in November, his election could be our last election. Mainstream media outlets, including this one, are filled with detailed descriptions of an incipient Trump autocracy, a second term in which he is no longer restrained by conscience-stricken counsellors. Yet tens of millions of Americans seem undeterred by the prospect of absolutism, cruelty, and corruption on the horizon…
The country, as Cheney puts it, is “sleepwalking into dictatorship.” (3)
Appearing recently on MSNBC multiple times since the release of her book, and peering behind her black frame glasses, Cheney is serious, as in “channeling-Paul-Revere-serious.” Even her doo looks windswept, with horse in tow, panting, showing breath on a December morning ride.
Also appearing on MSNBC, Cassidy Hutchinson, clad in signature white, looks confident, hair expertly styled, eyebrows perfect, assured, poised, very ‘un-witchy.’ Contrast to Cheney, “Cassidy” sounds more ‘survivalist:’ don’t give ’em oxygen…don’t show your hand… proceed with caution… be prepared.
Pretty spooky stuff.
But consider what these whistleblowing witches are dealing with: ‘only four years, then he’ll be gone for good… is he really that different?… he’s gonna lose anyway… and if he wins, there are checks and balances… I don’t have an opinion…’
Snore.
Are America’s laws for guarding against insurrection resilient enough to withstand Trump’s campaign to exonerate himself?
These witches confirm that no, most assuredly, America’s laws are not. What laws there are need to be dusted off, requiring courts, justices, an army of lawyers, time, venue, jury selection. Throw in a succession of appeals… all the way to the Trump-curated Supreme Court.
This, these witches confirm: if Trump is elected, such a question may go unanswered.
Not so spooky. TERRIFYING.
December 14
Notes
1- One recalls Gore Vidal’s timely assessment: United States of Amnesia.
2- David Remnick, “Are We Sleepwalking into Dictatorship?,” The New Yorker, December 10, 2023. ‘Sleepwalking into dictatorship,’ is a phrase quoted from Cheney’s book, “Oath and Honor, A Memoir and a Warning,” (2023)
3- ibid.
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