The House GOP has opted to eat Liz Cheney alive as Donald Trump tightens his grip on the party.
Wednesday, House GOP members voted to oust Cheney from her leadership position as she’s dug into criticisms of the former president.
“I have tremendous affection and admiration for many of you in this room. I know we all came to Washington to do important work for the nation,” Cheney told members at the start of a conference meeting, according to a source familiar with the remarks. Cheney added “we cannot let the former president drag us backward and make us complicit in his efforts to unravel our democracy. Down that path lies our destruction, and potentially the destruction of our country.” She continued saying “If you want leaders who will enable and spread his destructive lies, I’m not your person, you have plenty of others to choose from. That will be their legacy.”
Cheney’s criticisms of Trump largely stem from the former President’s claim of election fraud that in turn helped lead to the far-right, neofascist insurrection at the U.S. Capitol back on January 6. Back in February, the House GOP voted 145-61 in a secret ballot to hold off a vote to oust Cheney with minority leader Kevin McCarthy throwing his support behind the Utah congresswoman.
Since then, McCarthy was caught on a hot mic saying he’s “lost confidence” in her and “she’s got real problems” while House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) came out publicly earlier this month in favor of replacing Cheney with Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.).
Cheney has mentioned to associates of hers that she plans to run again for party leadership within the House and claims that she will not “abandon her fight” for the direction of the Republican Party.
“I promise you this, after today, I will be leading the fight to restore our party and our nation to conservative principles, to defeating socialism, to defending our republic, to making the GOP worthy again of being the party of Lincoln”
Trumpism lives on in the Republican Party and how this affects the left
No one should be feeling any sympathy for someone like Liz Cheney. She’s a warmongering, neocon, who like her awful father has helped perpetuate the ongoing suffering of people around the world and here at home at the hands of the U.S. Empire. She’s simply advocating for a GOP that’s seemingly savvier and less forthcoming when it comes to their oppressive nature.
And don’t get me wrong, Trumpism is absolutely horrible. However, Donald Trump and his toxic ideology didn’t come about out of thin air. One shitty ideology like those traditional neoconservative and neoliberal policies that have reigned supreme over U.S. politics for decades brought on an even worse ideology in Trumpism back in 2016 and it doesn’t look like it’s going away anytime soon.
In any sense, Trumpism is the symptom of a much broader issue with the United States.
But what does this mean for the left? Well, Democrats, especially the corporate type will continue to dig into the notion that Trumpism needs to be defeated and simply run on a platform that’s anti-Trump rather than a platform that pushes policy that benefits the working class and poor. Not to mention an argument could definitely be made that the Democrats prefer a position of sitting shotgun to power since they can still play the victim while pandering to voters and their donors who’ll still write and sign the checks.
Of course, this is all contingent on any leftist who still believes that electoralism can work, which is fine if that’s what you want to believe. Our position here at EMPIRE Media, however, is that electoralism doesn’t work and dual power amongst the people must be built outside of the system. So in turn and at the end of the day Liz Cheney getting eaten alive by her colleagues in the Republican Party really doesn’t mean a whole lot.
