Liz Cheney should have spent time in the coffee shops of Laramie, Rawlins and Casper.
Maybe she should have gone to a few auctions at the Torrington Livestock Markets or been at July’s Cheyenne Frontier Days.
Even CNN, in an attempt to improve its image with the little people, attended Frontier Days, Cowboy State Daily reported. I could find no evidence Rep. Cheney was there.
Cheney, who suffered a landslide defeat last week from Wyoming voters, should not have come to the state she was supposed to represent just to campaign for votes — although she didn’t do much of that.
Rather, she should have come to get away from the toxic air of Washington and find out what her constituents — like millions of other Americans — think.
Because listening to her after the election shows a mind fashioned by the echo chamber of the Swamp on the Potomac.
In fact, her views are worse than most, except for perhaps Democrats.
Be critical of recent FBI behavior and you advocate violence against law enforcement. The Republican Party, of which she is a nominal member, is filled with “election deniers” and has abandoned the Constitution to which former President Donald Trump is the “center of the threat.” Trump, after all, sent “an armed mob” to the Capitol to overturn the election. And the support of Trump by Republicans is “sick.”
And that’s just what she said Sunday to Jonathan Karl on ABC’s “This Week”.
I guess that was maybe toned down a bit compared to fifteen months ago when she likened Trump’s questioning of the 2020 election results to “the same kinds of things that the Chinese Communist Party says about democracy — that it’s a failed system and America’s a failed nation.”
Maybe if Cheney had hung out a bit more with the people of Wyoming, she could have gotten a different perspective on things.
She may have disagreed with people — after all, that’s part of politics — but her conversation would not be a pure reflection of swampspeak.
Lack of depth of knowing thoughts of the people in her red state prompts her only to compare her positions with those she agrees or disagrees with in D.C.
For instance, Cheney’s main focus is to keep Trump away from the Oval Office, she told Karl.
“I think, one, it says that people continue to believe the [election] lie, they continue to believe what he’s saying, which is very dangerous,” she said.
“I think it also tells you that large portions of our party, including the leadership of our party, both at a state level in Wyoming, as well as on a national level with the RNC, is very sick,” according to Cheney.
“We really have got to decide whether or not we’re going to be a party based on substance and policy or whether we’re going to remain as so many of our party are today, in the grips of a dangerous former president,” she said.
Whew.
I’m sure a lot of people in Wyoming are aware that Trump can bluster and be obnoxious. But they know the guy loves America and for the most part, has a knack for getting things done.
And the 2020 election? Cheney said she will work against “election deniers.”
“I’m going to be very focused on working to ensure that we do everything we can not to elect election deniers. and I’m going to work against those people,” she said.
“I’m going to work to support their opponents,” she said, indicating that would include current Republican colleagues in congress. That would also include, she said in response to a question, individuals like Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, plus Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“It would be very difficult when you look at somebody like Josh Hawley or somebody like Ted Cruz, both of whom know better, both of whom know exactly what the role of Congress is in terms of our constitutional obligations with respect to presidential elections.”
In the 2020 election, Democrats created a situation where so many anomalies appeared that whatever the outcome was, it is not possible to have faith in the results.
That’s the real threat. Lack of faith in the process.
Also, the recent raid on Trump’s Florida home by the FBI was unprecedented. It was not an attack on Donald Trump. It was an attack on the office of the former president itself.
Rep. Cheney can speak of all kinds of threats to the nation — real or imaginary — but what happened in an attack on a former president is evidence of the failed state that the Chinese Communists and Cheney point at.
And when Republicans (and some Democrats) challenged the action, Cheney said she was “ashamed.”
“That’s a very serious thing. I think that when you think about the fact that we were in a position where the FBI, the Department of Justice, felt the need to execute a search warrant at the home of a former president — that’s a really serious thing for the nation,” she said.
Cheney’s right — it is a serious thing, because of the assault on the presidency, not for the reasons she expressed to Karl.
Also, Cheney said, “I was ashamed to hear Republicans immediately and reflexively attack the FBI agents who executed the search warrant.”
“It’s a really serious thing and I just think that for us as a party to be in a position where we’re reflexively attacking career law enforcement professionals in order to defend a former president who conducted himself the way this one did, is it’s really sad day for the party,” according to Cheney.
On she goes, dividing the swamp into those who agree with her and those who don’t — apparently bitter that many in her party continue to support Trump.
Again, it’s too bad Cheney did not spend more time with the Wyoming people she was supposed to represent.
They would have gotten her to tone it down; maybe see things a bit like they do — after all, they’re concerned about inflation, energy prices, and destruction of the substantial Wyoming coal industry.
And maybe they could tell her that if the FBI can raid the home of a former president, what’s stopping the FBI (or the IRS) from smashing some Wyoming door in the middle of the night?
That should be your concern, Rep. Cheney.
You could have learned a lot at the local coffee shop.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
