Liz Cheney has said she puts her allegiance to the nation and the Constitution ahead of that to her Party. Accordingly, she has pledged to do everything in her power to see that Donald Trump doesn’t become President again.
The question arises: how can she best accomplish her goal of protecting American democracy?
It is generally assumed that what she’s likely to do is challenge Donald Trump in a competition for the 2024 Republican nomination.
I think there’s a better way.
First, there are two problems with that approach:
- All the evidence – not least Cheney’s lopsided defeat in the Wyoming primary – suggests that the Republican base would hand Trump a landslide victory over Cheney in the contest for the Republican nomination. That might do more harm than good, given Cheney’s goal: not only would it fail to prevent Trump’s getting the nomination, but beyond that Trump’s decisive victories might well burnish Trump’s image as a winner, a powerful man, an irresistible force. Just as Cheney’s recent defeat in the Wyoming primary showed Trump’s strength with the Party, so also might Cheney’s fairing similarly in a contest for the 2024 Republican nomination.
- In addition, it’s by no means clear that Trump will end up being the Republicans’ 2024 nominee, even without Cheney’s efforts: he will certainly be weighed down by heavy baggage (of which the Republicans might want to free themselves), and he might well be by then a convicted criminal behind bars. The Republicans might want to turn instead to another figure in the Trump Party (like FL Gov. Ron DeSantis).
Which brings up the second point: if the purpose is to defend the Constitution and American democracy, Cheney’s stated goal of “making sure that Donald Trump never gets near the Oval Office” doesn’t go nearly far enough: as Cheney herself clearly well knows, the lawlessness of this Republican Party extends well beyond this criminal former President.
The goal needs to be to make sure that no enemy of our constitutional order will again wield the powers of the Presidency.
With that goal in mind, when the time comes for Ms. Cheney to announce the next stage in the heroic role she’s been playing in these times, she should declare:
“If the Republican Party nominates anyone who has supported the attack on our constitutional order (trying to overturn a legitimate election, by supporting the Big Lie or the attempted coup) I will run for President (in the general election) as an Independent.”
If, in the general election, she can siphon off that perhaps one-fourth of Republicans who, like Cheney, reject the GOP’s turn toward Fascism, she would pretty well assure the defeat of any fascistic Republican nominee.
While her playing this spoiler role would doubtless anger the majority in the Republican base, Cheney can plausibly represent her threat — “If… I will run as an Independent” — as an attempt to bring the Republican Party – to which she has a long record of loyalty – back to its historic principles and commitment to a truly conservative form of patriotism. She could represent herself as not trying to hurt the Republican Party, but to save it.
But if it will not be saved, if that once-respectable party persists in betraying the oath that all of them have taken, then she must act on her deepest allegiance: If she has to choose between the America our founders gave us and the GOP – between her oath of office and partisan interest – she will honor her oath and do her patriotic duty.
(She could even argue that the oath she has taken actually obliges her to do all that she can to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” for which purpose there is no more effective a strategy than her running to keep any enemy of our constitutional order — not just Trump — from wielding the powers of the American Presidency.)
Cheney’s running as an Independent third-party candidate would make her, as some would accuse, a “spoiler.” But “spoiler” is just a pejorative word to describe what in this case would mean keeping power out of the hands of the enemies of American democracy.
There’s no way of knowing for sure how much such an Independent candidacy would weaken the candidacy of Trump, or DeSantis, or any other candidate who has acted as an accomplice on this recent assault on the American constitutional order. But any amount could well spell the difference between the survival of American democracy and the powers of the Presidency being wielded – again --by a fascistic Party.
And just possibly, Liz Cheney announcing this threat might prove sufficient to tilt the Republican nominating process back toward the better angels of that Party’s nature.