She seems politically finished. And yet it enlivens the fantasies of many Americans. It is hoped that Liz Cheney will protect the United States from Donald Trump returning to the White House. Only: How is this resurrection from the political dead to succeed?
The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney will no longer be a member of the next Congress. When lined up in her constituency in Wyoming, the moderate Republican remained under 30 percent. It’s a tough fall from 73 percent in 2020. Trump-backed rival Harriet Hageman now defeated her at 66 percent.
The Republican base is punishing Cheney for voting to remove Trump from impeachment. And because she is not boycotting the Congressional investigation into Trump’s role in the storming of the Capitol in January 2021, like almost all Republicans.
Cheney is gathering evidence that Trump planned a coup to thwart Joe Biden’s election victory. The meetings were televised live. It made her famous across the country. The 56-year-old will miss this stage in the future. Nevertheless, US media speculate that she could run for president in 2024 and prevent Trump from a second term.
That sounds far-fetched given her performance at home. The calculus: Trump did not prevail in the 2016 candidate list because the majority wanted him. The base would probably have preferred a classic Republican.
But there were too many applicants of this genre. They took each other’s voices away. Trump pushed past them with relative majorities in the early primaries. If all moderate votes had gone to one candidate instead of being divided among several, Trump would not have become the party’s candidate.
By 2024, some strategists believe the situation will be reversed. Several candidates will copy Trump’s populist success story, compete with each other and with their role model, Trump.
If the right takes votes away from each other this time, it opens a path for a moderate Republican like Cheney. Of course, she has to convince other potential applicants from the classic party profile to leave the field to her.
Cheney doesn’t have to win, say the strategists. You and the country would have won if Trump failed.
This is the tone Cheney struck in the “Concession Speech” in which she admitted defeat. Many TV stations broadcast live. “I don’t bend.”
She cited heroes of US history like Abraham Lincoln, Civil War generals and Martin Luther King who “saved liberty” by not surrendering. Your mission now is to prevent Trump.
