Liz Cheney’s civil war

Cheney began by implicitly comparing her own situation to that of Abraham Lincoln. “The great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the Senate and the House before he won the most important election of all,” Cheney said. “Lincoln ultimately prevailed.” Cheney quoted from the Gettysburg Address, in which Lincoln spoke of the “great task” ahead: “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.”

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Now Cheney is organizing a new anti-Trump political action committee, which she will call “The Great Task.” Her discussion of Lincoln’s early defeats — he lost and then he came back to win the White House! — was an obvious reference to her belief that her own blowout defeat will not be the end of her political career.

But Cheney made clear that first she has to win the new civil war. And thus it was back to the Civil War. “In May of 1864, after years of war and a string of reluctant Union generals, Ulysses S. Grant met Gen. Lee’s forces at the Battle of the Wilderness,” Cheney said. “In two days of heaving fighting, the Union suffered over 10,000 casualties. At the end of that battle, Gen. Grant faced a choice. Most assumed he would do what previous Union generals had done and retreat.”

But Grant did not retreat. “On the evening of May 7, Grant began to move,” Cheney continued. “As the fires of the battle still smoldered, Grant rode to the head of the column, he rode to the intersection of Brock Road and Orange Plank Road, and there, as the men of his army watched and waited, instead of turning north back toward Washington and safety, Grant turned his horse south toward Richmond and the heart of Lee’s army. Refusing to retreat, he pressed on to victory. Lincoln and Grant, and all who fought in our nation’s tragic Civil War, including my own great-great-grandfathers, saved our union. Their courage saved freedom.”

Now, it is Liz Cheney’s time to show courage, to turn her horse south toward Richmond, or at least continue taking testimony before the Jan. 6 committee. In any event, Cheney’s speech shows that Trump supporters are not the only ones engaging in dreams of civil war.

As for the rest of Cheney’s concession, here is an interesting note: She barely mentioned the word “Wyoming.” She used it just once in the body of her speech — and that was in a negative way, saying, “We have candidates for Congress, including here in Wyoming, who refused to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.” The only other time she uttered the name of her home state was when she said goodbye: “God bless you. God bless Wyoming. God bless the United States of America.”

Wyoming played almost no role in Cheney’s speech, just as it had played almost no role in her campaign, which focused on her resolve to remove Trump from the 2024 presidential election. Compare that to her opponent Harriet Hageman, who won the election in a blowout with 66% of the vote compared to Cheney’s 29%. In her victory speech, as in her campaign, Hageman talked Wyoming, Wyoming, Wyoming. In her campaign, Hageman talked about land rights, water rights, energy, and ranching — in other words, about Wyoming issues. Cheney talked about Trump.

And that is the last thing to note about Cheney’s defeat. In the last year, she became a single-issue politician and then a single-issue candidate. Now, she will become a single-issue advocate while she considers whether she will mount a single-issue campaign for the presidency in 2024. On the Today program Wednesday morning, Cheney said she is thinking about running in 2024 but is not ready to make any announcements.

The theory, if there is one, behind a Cheney candidacy would be that Cheney could appeal to the relatively small number of Republicans who are implacably opposed to Trump. Perhaps she could also attract a few of the larger number of Republicans, still nowhere near a majority in the party, who appreciate Trump’s accomplishments in office but would prefer that he not run again. But others in that group might be turned off by Cheney’s unrelenting attacks on the former president. And, of course, Cheney would not win over any Trump supporters.

Which means she does not have a chance. “The idea that Cheney could be a serious factor in a 2024 GOP primary or would siphon votes from Trump as an independent remains as preposterous as the idea this Wyoming primary would be competitive,” tweeted Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report.

Another possibility, mentioned by Wasserman and given voice today by the Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein, is that Cheney, an obvious loser in a GOP primary process, might mount a “kamikaze” independent candidacy in the 2024 general election. Of course, she would not win, but, the theory goes, her constant attacks on Trump might “help persuade enough centrist and white-collar voters to reject him and ensure his defeat.”

There’s a lot of wishful thinking in that scenario, but one sure thing is that a Cheney 2024 campaign would attract a wildly disproportionate amount of media coverage — very favorable media coverage. There would be one profile-in-courage feature on her after another, perhaps with Cheney’s favorite images of Grant, heading south toward battle and victory. That won’t win a presidential election, and all should pray it does not start a war, but it could help Cheney land in her next position, whatever that might be.

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