There are easily a dozen ways to help you understand Liz Cheney — daughter of the spawn of Beelzebub and Darth Vader and holder of the most famous name in Wyoming politics — losing by 40 points to the GOP’s latest example of terminal cynicism. But spending a couple days with Mark Leibovich’s new book, “Thank You for Your Servitude” helps square the edges and color in between the lines.
I’m an unabashed fan boy for Leibovich’s writing and style of reporting. If you’ve read nothing by him — he recently moved to The Atlantic after 16 years with The New York Times — start with “This Town”, his 2013 classic. It’s a [Tom] Wolfian dissection of the DC social scene, where TV anchors, pundits, well-heeled reporters, society grande dames and perpetually self-serving politicians interwine incestuously to reap the benefits of the prestigious game of … mmm, public service. Written during the Obama administration, it’s a scene-setter for characters and fault lines that cracked wide open during the Trump epidemic.
Having just finished “Thank You for Your Servitude” — (thanks again to Sir Richard the Noble for sending it over as a gift) — Cheney’s predicament was not only fully predict-able, but perfectly understandable as well. She is, as many have said, a creature from a party, an “ethos” if you will, that quite literally no longer exists. In interviews with the likes of Lindsey Graham, Kevin McCarthy and various other modern Republican “leaders”, Leibovich lays it out with kind of morbid hilarity.
I quote mark “leaders” because they are all quaking in terror of the Trumpy base. From Mitch McConnell on down each of them live as a hostage in a Circus Maximus where a mere whispered criticism of a character all regard (but only in private) as a ludicrous fop has become an excommunicatable offense.
Chatter this morning is where Cheney goes from here? She seems to have hinted at running for President. But how? And as what?
Delicious as it would be to have her up on a debate stage with Landslide Donny, I see no one imagining how she mounts a primary campaign as a Republican, if only because of security concerns. As it was in her home state of Wyoming, with her family name slapped on countless buildings, she didn’t dare announce her campaign visits more than a couple hours in advance for fear of locked and loaded Trump-o-nauts showing up to protect their … you know … freedoms … from radical socialists like … Liz Cheney.
So maybe she runs as an independent? Walking point for a reimagining of Daddy Cheney’s kind of conservative politics? The kind with all the sweet tax cuts for Halliburton board members, evisceration of social safety nets, deregulation for any drilling operation that sees money in national parks, wildly disproportionate paranoia about feckless dictators and … gotta love this … the mythical Unitary Executive, where buffoons as unqualified as, oh I don’t know, a multiply bankrupt reality TV “star” can do whatever he damn well pleases once “POTUS” is part of his official title.
Face it, independent = futile, electorally. Although given Cheney’s standing via the January 6 committee she’d be guaranteed plenty of free media if Trump himself is in the 2024 race.
And if Trump isn’t? Well, as Leibovich points out repeatedly in his book, even absent Trump the Candidate, no Republican who hasn’t bent the knee, slurped the lifted loafer and kissed the sprawling booty of Donald J. will have any traction with the cult of chronically pissed off D+ students who have total control of the party today and for the forseeable future. There simply is no infrastructure for a new-breed-like-just-the-old-breed Republican like Liz Cheney.
If Trump declines to serve again, the Republican base circa 2024 is primed for a much smarter and far uglier version of a loathsome freedom(s) fighter. I give you Ron DeSantis, Josh Hawley, etc. ad infinitum.
