First, a disclaimer: I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Republican. And although I'm a registered Democrat because I worked for a Democratic Governor of Nevada, Grant Sawyer, in the 1960s, I'm now a card-carrying independent voter, and proud of it.
With that political preamble, I want to weigh-in on behalf of maverick Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney who was ousted from the House GOP leadership Wednesday on a voice vote for telling the truth about former President Donald Trump and the 2020 election.
Cheney, who had been the No. 3 Republican in the House, should be praised for standing up to Trump and his continuing "Big Lie" about how the 2020 election was "stolen." She's one of a handful of Republicans willing to face the facts and speak out against the former president and his delusional and/or fanatical followers, who think Trump won "in a landslide." Please!
"The 2020 election was NOT stolen," Cheney responded after Trump asserted "the Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE!" Cheney countered that "anyone who claims the election was stolen is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the Rule of Law, and poisoning our democratic system." In other words, she told the truth about the election. As my Aussie friends would say, "Shock! Horror!"
The conservative Wall Street Journal opined that "GOP leaders shouldn't have to lie about 2020 to keep their jobs. …The GOP problem is less that Ms. Cheney won't let Mr. Trump go than that Mr. Trump won't let 2020 go. …Perhaps the shock of the Biden/Pelosi agenda will unite the GOP enough to pick up the handful of seats it needs to win in 2022, but that task is harder with Mr. Trump plotting revenge and focused as ever on himself above all else."
Many lifelong Republicans agree with the Journal. Georgetown University professor Steve Roberts, the widower of the late Washington journalist Cokie Roberts, wrote that "there's no Republican Party, (only) a Trump Party. …The GOP has lashed itself to a leader who has never commanded the support of a majority of Americans, and never will." Roberts pointed out that Trump has never been able to achieve a 50 percent approval rating from American voters, always stalling out at 40 percent or less.
Although some 80 percent of Republican voters love Trump, 20 percent of Republicans, almost all Democrats and an overwhelming percentage of independent voters (including yours truly) can't stand him and would never vote for him even though they like many of his policies, especially on the economy and border security. Let's face it, President Biden's border crisis is a national embarrassment.
Another lifelong Republican, David French, a senior editor at The Dispatch, said "the GOP has a grassroots problem. …The Republican base is often unhinged, increasingly radicalized and intolerant of dissent. The evidence is everywhere." Just watch for unhinged letters to the editor from Minden and beyond after this column is published.
French lambasted GOP leaders who condemn anti-Trump Republicans while endorsing Trump's Big Lie. "Many members of the party's elite have stood shamefully silent as they watched a few brave Republicans directly confront the former president," French wrote. "They've been shamefully silent even when they agreed that Trump was unfit." Of course he was referring to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and his deputy, Steve Scalise, among others.
Bottom line: Cheney was punished for telling the truth. Shame on the GOP leadership.
Guy W. Farmer is the Appeal's senior political columnist.
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