Liz Cheney Not Going "Gentle Into That Good Night" - Rob Horowitz

Liz Cheney Not Going "Gentle Into That Good Night" - Rob Horowitz

Completely undeterred by the wreckage of January 6, which violently ended his failed, unprecedented and disgraceful effort to overturn the results of the November election and cling to power by any means necessary, former President Trump is putting new energy into claims that the election was stolen from him, recently sending out statement after statement calling the election “fraudulent” and actively supporting an embarrassing clown-show of a recount in Arizona ordered by his Republican allies in the State Senate--one that has no force of law.

Yet, instead of pushing back on the former president and telling him it is long past time to move on, House Republicans have decided to remove Liz Cheney, one of the most forceful critics of his actions since election day, as House Conference Chair. It appears as if she is going to be replaced by Elise Stefanik, who was endorsed by Trump for the position, and did her first two interviews publicly campaigning for the job with two enthusiastic spreaders of Trump’s unfounded election conspiracy theories, Steve Bannon and Seb Gorka. In the interviews, she declared her support for the so-called Arizona audit and professed her concern about the “integrity” of the 2020 election.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is hoping removing Cheney from her leadership position will appease the former president and create more message discipline, so he can keep the focus on attacking the Biden agenda. His problem, however, remains two-fold.  Donald Trump will not have any message discipline imposed on him. The removal of Cheney will only embolden him further to keep pushing his unfounded and blatantly untrue election claims, despite the fact that it repels the swing voters that McCarthy needs to vote Republican in 2022.  And Liz Cheney is refusing to “go gently into that good night.” Her stature and ability to command national media attention will only grow because of this public beheading.

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Knowing full well that continuing to speak out on Trump’s continued false claims would ensure her removal, Liz Cheney still led off her recent opinion piece in The Washington Post as follows: “In public statements again this week, former President Donald Trump has repeated his claims that the 2020 election was a fraud and was stolen. His message: I am still the rightful president, and President Biden is illegitimate. Trump repeats these words now with full knowledge that exactly this type of language provoked violence on Jan. 6. And, as the Justice Department and multiple federal judges have suggested, there is good reason to believe that Trump’s language can provoke violence again. Trump is seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work — confidence in the result of elections and the rule of law. No other American president has ever done this.”

Liz Cheney will continue to state the plain unvarnished truth and she has the political savvy, the toughness, and the large donor support to be an outsized voice in our politics for the long term.  Cheney’s view is by far the view of the overwhelming majority of Americans and of about 30% of Republicans—a sub-set the party cannot afford to lose, if there is going to be a Speaker McCarthy.

It is true that Kevin McCarthy was caught between the proverbial rock and the hard place. His politically craven decision, however, is not only damaging to our democracy; it will not solve his fundamental political problem and may not even postpone it for all that long.  For that, he must somehow succeed in the near-impossible task of reining in the former president. Trump is already a large drag on Republican Congressional candidates in swing districts as documented in the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee’s own polling. His negative electoral impact will only increase, if he continues on his present course.  Donald Trump remains the single greatest impediment to Kevin McCarthy getting the job of his dreams—a job that the California Congressman has proved once again he is all too willing to sell his soul to obtain.

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.