Standing up for what is right

Liz Cheney does it again, from this morning's Bulwark:

Cheney’s Endorsement Was No Accident
—William Kristol

Liz Cheney spoke yesterday at Duke University, a very fine school known for being a five-time NCAA national men’s basketball champion. Like so many of those teams shaped by the great Coach K, Cheney came to play.

Honored by Duke as this year’s Sanford Distinguished Lecturer, Cheney engaged in a conversation with political scientist Peter Feaver on the subject of “Defending Democracy.”

As a former Republican leader in the House of Representatives and Vice Chair of the House’s January 6th Committee in 2022, Cheney had many important things to say on that broad topic. But what was notable is that she decided not simply to look back and reflect but to confront the challenge we face in defending our democracy now.

Speaking extemporaneously, Cheney said this to an auditorium full of students:

Donald Trump, no matter what your policy views are—no matter if you are a conservative Republican or not—Donald Trump cannot be trusted with power. The power of the presidency is the most awesome power of any office anywhere in the world, and the character of the people we elect really matters. And, so what I say is, I understand the desire to think that you’re casting a vote for conservative policies, but—first of all, he is not a conservative, and he’s dangerous, and this is not a policy election, and we can talk about getting this country back on track once we get through this election cycle—but Donald Trump, if he is reelected, will be far more dangerous than we have ever seen before.

He has told us he believes you can terminate the Constitution. He’s gone to war with the rule of law. He repeatedly suggests that the people who assaulted and attacked the Capitol should be celebrated. He has said he will ignore the rulings of the courts. He won’t leave office. He is a risk that we simply can’t take, and he has to be defeated.

I say that, not as a liberal Democrat. Not as someone who agrees with policies on the left most of the time, but he is simply a risk that, as a nation, we must never take again.

Because we are here in North Carolina, I think it is crucially important for people to recognize not only is what I’ve just said about the danger that Trump poses, something that should prevent people from voting for him, but I don’t believe that we have the luxury of writing in candidates’ names, particularly in swing states. And, as a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this, and because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris.

And let me say that I think it is crucially important—and I would say especially to my fellow conservatives—that we think about the stakes and we think about the extent to which we have a duty, a duty, to put our country and our Constitution above partisanship. We all have that duty and responsibility.

That Cheney would endorse Kamala Harris in this year’s presidential election isn’t surprising. But most observers expected her to wait to do so until later in September.

But Cheney wasn’t being impulsive. She didn’t accidentally blurt out an endorsement whose debut had been planned for later. She knows that we are at a crucial moment in the campaign, after the Democratic convention and before next week’s debate. Harris has pulled even in the contest, but it’s on a razor’s edge. And some conservatives and Republicans—like former Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey earlier this week—have had the decency to shun Trump but are nonetheless shying away from endorsing Harris.

Cheney thinks sitting out the contest is a fundamental mistake and an unwitting evasion of responsibility. She believes now is the time to step up and help other conservatives and Republicans understand why they need to get off the bench when there’s so much at stake. Cheney’s former January 6th Committee colleague, Adam Kinzinger, and the former lieutenant governor of Georgia, Geoff Duncan, made this case eloquently at the Democratic convention. Now Cheney has put an exclamation point on their arguments, and has laid the groundwork for two months of reiterating and reinforcing them. Which I gather she’ll be doing though an extensive schedule of travel and events through all the swing states.

Why did Cheney announce her support of Harris in a conversation in front of students, rather than from a podium at a national convention or in the calm and professional setting of a television studio? Maybe it was just a matter of timing and convenience. But she may also have thought it appropriate to say what she had to say in a context different from the normal venues politicians inhabit. She made the case against Trump and for Harris at a discussion about defending democracy. That’s not an accident. She was emphasizing that the 2024 election isn’t just politics as usual.

It also won’t have escaped Cheney’s notice that she was being honored by Duke as the Sanford Distinguished Lecturer. Terry Sanford was a longtime president of Duke University. (Not the least of his accomplishments was that he hired Coach K.) But before that, from 1961 to 1965, Sanford was governor of North Carolina.

On January 14, 1963, George Wallace was sworn in as governor of Alabama, proclaiming in his inaugural address, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” Four days later, on January 18, 1963, Gov. Sanford chose to give a major speech of his own, in which he became the first southern governor to call for an end to racially discriminatory employment practices: “The time has come for American citizens to give up this reluctance, to quit unfair discrimination, and to give the Negro a full chance to earn a decent living for his family and to contribute to higher standards for himself and all men.”

The path of Terry Sanford or that of George Wallace? We faced that choice sixty years ago, and as a nation we eventually chose the right path. Today one of our two major parties has nominated, for the third consecutive time, Donald Trump, the most dangerous demagogue to emerge in American politics since Wallace, but made more dangerous by his greater electoral success.

There haven’t been very many latter-day Terry Sanfords: elected officials from Trump’s own party with the courage and capacity to speak up against him and the threat he represents. All honor to Liz Cheney for doing so.

There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t.
– John Green, author

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