In the epilogue to Liz Cheney’s just released book ‘Oath and Honor’ she writes: “As a nation, we can endure damaging policies for a four-year term. But we cannot survive a president willing to terminate our Constitution.” It is as remarkable as it is encouraging that a die-hard conservative and life-long Republican is willing to suspend her ideological beliefs in favor of creating a (temporary and single-purpose) pro-democracy and anti-authoritarian coalition with Democrats and Independents who share her belief in the overarching necessity to preserve our constitutional Republic. I assume Liz realizes that, if she gets her way, she may have to endure ‘damaging policies’ not for a four-year term, but for a full eight years of a Democrat in the White House and yet, she does not blink. She is still wrestling with the question what she can do, other than voicing her fierce opposition against Trump and his acolytes as she has done in several capacities and in her book, to convince the public to unequivocally reject authoritarianism when they go to the voting booth in November of next year.
The first
primaries, the Iowa caucus on January 15, the New Hampshire primary on January
23, the South Carolina primary on February 24, and the Super Tuesday primaries
on March 5 will show if, as polling suggests, Trump will be the Republican
nominee for the 2024 Presidential election. If the conventional wisdom prevails
and Trump is on his way to become his party’s candidate, Liz Cheney will have
to decide if she wants to oppose him directly by running against him. She has
repeatedly declared that she is willing to do so if it appears that her
opposition would likely help keeping Trump out of the White House for a second
term. That will be a difficult calculation to make. She will not run to win. Her
sole purpose would be to siphon enough electoral votes away from Trump to deny
him the 270 he will need to become President for a second term. But her
participation in the race, together with other independent or third-party
candidates, would present a realistic possibility that none of the contenders
obtain the threshold 270 electoral votes, in which case the election would be
thrown to the House of Representatives, where each State would have one vote and
each state delegation would vote en bloc. Currently, 26 States have a majority
Republican delegation, 22 States have a majority Democratic delegation, and 2
States have an equally divided delegation. The uniquely American constitutional
provision that gives each of the States only one vote when the House is called
upon to elect the President places, as Liz Cheney herself has stressed,
exceptional weight on the election for the House of Representatives. Little
doubt that, if the current constellation holds, the vote will go in favor of
the Republican nominee, but a little shift towards the Democrats in the 2024
election could alter that picture. Just like in the American system the
President can be elected by a minority of the voting public, it is possible for
one of the parties in Congress to have a numerical majority in the House of
Representatives without having the votes to elect the President if the election
is thrown to the House.
Given this
uncertainty, my speculation is that Liz Cheney will not herself contest the
2024 Presidential Election but work very hard on building a coalition of
Democrats, Independents, and Trump-averse Republicans to defeat Trump even if
it means that the presidency is delivered to the Democratic candidate. What she
will do in the unlikely case that the Republicans nominate someone else than Trump
remains to be seen, but in that case, she will definitely not run for the
office herself and less likely support the Democratic nominee. Although she says
for now to be single focused on the 2024 race and the defeat of Trump, she has
made it abundantly clear that she is done with the Republican party that has kicked
her out of Congress and refused to hold Trump to account for his refusal to support
the Constitution, concede defeat, and arrange a peaceful transfer of power. In several
of the many book-interviews she has given since her book was published, she has
informed us that, after November 2024, she will explore with other like-minded
conservatives the feasibility of either taking back control of the GOP or creating
a new, truly republican and truly conservative party.
At this
point it is way too early to say if Liz Cheney’s crusade to preserve democracy
in the USA will prevail. If we could believe current polling, she is fighting
an uphill battle as poll after poll suggests that Trump is a shoo-in for the
GOP nomination and a favorite over Biden in the battle states that will decide this
election. But there is a lot of fight in Liz Cheney, and she will not be alone
in the fight to the finish. She is capable of mobilizing a coalition for
democracy from all those Republicans who already have borne witness to the
threat Trump poses to the functioning of our democratic republic, Democrats,
and Independents.
I am
confident that when the moment of truth arrives and Americans fill out their
ballots for the November 5, 2024 election, they will realize that the only
choice in front of them is between a fully democratic and an autocratic form of
government. A choice between the Constitution and chaos. And I’m confident that
at that moment a large majority of them will unambiguously decide for democracy
over autocracy. If that comes to pass, it will in no small part be thanks to
the profile in courage exhibited by Liz Cheney, the rare politician who valued
honor and constitutionality over her political career.
