OPINION:
Rep. Liz Cheney just dug her hole a little deeper.
The Wyoming Republican said in a Washington Post op-ed that the GOP was facing a “turning point” and must “steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality,” or else risk a permanent demise of the Constitution.
This is classic textbook Trump Derangement Syndrome.
And it’s also a great example of how elitists in the political world Still. Don’t. Get. It.
Former President Donald Trump didn’t bring in a new wave of American patriotism, or usher in a new atmosphere of love for country, love for Constitution, love for limited government principles. He simply spoke the language of the limited government types in America — and then actually stood strong for those same principles once in office.
The spirit of rugged individualism and anti-Big Government was already in America. The MAGA movement was already in America. The America First types were already in America. They were just being ignored, ‘dissed and dismissed by the powers-who-be on Capitol Hill — by Democrats who scorn the nature of this great democratic-republic, with all its power-to-the-people glory, as well as by the Republicans who’ve been so long in office they’ve forgotten the constituents who pay their salaries. For too long, conservatives in America have watched Republicans promise this on the campaign trail, promise that during election-year crusades, only to then go to Capitol Hill and go behind closed doors and cut deals with Democrats that counter what they promised their constituents.
Remember John Boehner and his constant caves to Barack Obama on the debt ceiling?
Remember Eric Cantor and his sheltered steak-eating life of fundraising?
“He made time for big-dollar private fundraisers to curry favor with other members of Congress, but he did not make time for constituent service,” U.S. News wrote in a 2014 piece about Cantor’s loss to tea party upstart Dave Brat. “He walked the halls of power instead of the streets of his suburban Richmond district. His approach to Brat was to caricature him as an extremist one-issue candidate with scurrilous friends and little idea of what he would do if elected when his constituents wanted to hear what he planned to do to better serve their interests.”
That’s because for many — for too many — for, dare say, most? — politicians in power for too long, their loyalties lie with party leaders not the people.
“Mitch McConnell Is Vowing to ‘Crush’ The Tea Party,” Business Insider wrote in 2014.
“Emperor Mitch McConnell Pledges to Crush the Tea Party,” The Atlantic wrote in 2014.
What a sentiment for a Senate leader in the Republican Party to express — to wipe out an entire segment of the conservative voting class simply because too many in its ranks oppose higher taxes, bigger government, bigger and more secretive government.
Deep state, anyone?
Trump busted out the Republicans In Name Only, the shadowy and secretive globalists in U.S. government, the collectivist types who’d rather work with the United Nations than on behalf of the United States, and took on — publicly, without apology, and unceasingly — the forces in both parties who fought him at every step, who drummed up false charges to oust him from office, who beat an impeachment drum even when impeachable offenses were no where to be found.
That’s not a “cult of personality.”
That’s a guy who stood up for the little guy, the one the RINOs worked so hard for so many years with Democrats to stifle.
That’s a guy who took a look at the politics of the border, then at the deaths and injuries due to sanctuary cities, then again at the likes of Republicans working with Democrats to pretend to care about the border — and said nope, no more.
“The Republican Party is at a turning point,” Cheney wrote in The Washington Post, “and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution.
“[The GOP must] steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality,” Cheney wrote.
“History is watching. Our children are watching. We must be brave enough to defend the basic principles that underpin and protect our freedom and our democratic process,” Cheney wrote.
She doesn’t get it.
She doesn’t get Trump.
More than that, she doesn’t get the American conservative — the American people — the American spirit.
But she is right on one point: Republicans must be brave enough to defend the principles of freedom.
They just better know where to look for the real defenders of that freedom.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Socialists Don’t Sleep: Christians Must Rise Or America Will Fall,” is available by clicking HERE.
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