House Republicans are making a mistake.
They want to oust Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming for daring to tell the truth. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik both endorsed a Cheney primary challenger this week: Harriet Hageman.
Stefanik, who replaced Cheney as the House Republican Conference chairwoman, called Cheney a “far-left puppet” on Fox News and said Cheney belongs on MSNBC or CNN. It’s an absurd thing to say. Republicans shouldn’t abandon Cheney, whether or not they agree with her policies.
The simple truth: The GOP is railroading Cheney because she tells the truth. She dared to acknowledge the reality that the 2020 presidential election wasn’t stolen from former President Donald Trump. She also acknowledged that Trump is a liar for saying that he won, and so are the Republicans that defend his lies.
Her other big offense: She agrees that the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot was a national embarrassment and that Trump bears some responsibility for it. She voted to impeach Trump when he had about one week left in office.
While this makes Cheney unpopular with much of the Republican base, she understands that the Republican Party should not be a Trump personality cult. The public doesn’t respect Trump the person, even if they liked some of his policies. Cheney is right to recognize that loyalty to Trump when he’s not telling the truth does a disservice to her constituents and the people. We should want politicians to tell the truth, even when it’s not politically convenient.
Cheney lives in a deep-red state. Had she gone along with the election lie and voted against certifying the 2020 results, there wouldn’t be a primary in her state. Instead, Cheney is doing what she thinks is right, and her party is attacking her over it.
It’s also ironic that Stefanik, of all people, would try to call Cheney a puppet of the far Left. Neither of them are far-left, but Cheney is to the right of Stefanik. Just look at Stefanik’s voting record. On policy, Cheney was more loyal to Trump. She voted with him 92.9% of the time, compared to Stefanik’s 77.7%.
Stefanik was one of two Republicans to vote for the Equality Act of 2019 that would have made gender identity a protected class. She voted against the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Trump’s biggest legislative achievement. She wanted the U.S. to stay in the wasteful Paris climate accord. And she opposed Trump declaring a national emergency in 2019 to secure U.S.-Mexico border wall funding.
That’s not to say every single one of those votes was wrong. Still, it makes clear that this fight has nothing to do with policy.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts. He is also a freelance writer who has been published in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other outlets
