More than 100 Republicans in the House of Representatives want to oust their colleague Rep. Liz Cheney. Her sin? She told the truth about former President Donald Trump and the 2020 presidential election.
About half of Cheney’s Republican colleagues are backing Harriet Hageman in the 2022 Wyoming at-large Republican congressional primary. They’re doing so because Cheney doesn’t support Donald Trump and refutes his lies that the election was rigged. But whether one agrees with Cheney on each and every policy, the country needs more politicians who prefer to tell the truth over comforting lies.
Trump only has himself to blame for his 2020 loss. The former president’s brash personality alienated some people who otherwise agreed with him on policy. Trump also suppressed his vote by telling his supporters not to vote by mail but on Election Day instead. While voter fraud definitely exists, no evidence exists there was sufficient fraud to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, let alone all of the fraud going in one way in all the key swing states that Trump needed to win.
Cheney acknowledges this fact and recognizes the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot was a national embarrassment that Trump deserves some blame for. These shouldn’t be controversial positions. Any Republican who denies these truths is lying to protect Trump’s feelings.
Cheney’s problem certainly isn’t that she is insufficiently conservative. Indeed, she is more conservative than some of the people who want to oust her, including House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik. While Stefanik supports Trump, her voting record makes her one of the more liberal Republicans in Congress.
It’s also a great example of how this dispute has little to do with policy and Republican values. It’s all about loyalty to one person who no longer holds elected office.
The moral hypocrisy is clear.
Instead of trying to oust Cheney, for example, House Republicans should look at another one of their colleagues: Marjorie Taylor Greene. She’s a fringe conspiracy theorist who uses her platform to spread misinformation and hate. Acting in form, Greene recently spoke at a conference that included white nationalists. Showing his temperamental support for conservative values, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy initially refused to condemn Greene’s attendance at that conference.
If more Republicans at least tolerated Cheney, maybe the GOP could attract new voters who dislike a Democratic Party that becomes more woke every day.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports ) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts.
