The Cult Cancels Liz Cheney

By DICK POLMAN

Let me see if I have this right: If a Republican House member tweets assassination fantasies about killing a colleague, it’s all cool and he shall remain a member in good standing. But if a Republican House member speaks out against fascism and actual political violence committed in the spirit of fascism, that’s not cool and she shall be expelled with extreme prejudice.

There you have it. Recently, the Wyoming GOP’s central committee voted to cast out Liz Cheney – conservative congresswoman, daughter of the most conservative veep in eons, a lifelong Republican who voted for Donald Trump’s agenda 93% of the time – because she’s had the temerity to utter blasphemies that contradict cult doctrine. She said the other day, for instance, that Trump and his party toadies are “at war with the rule of law and the Constitution.”

I can’t imagine where she got that idea.

Party leaders in her home state have now officially decreed that it’s bad form to confirm what most of us know to be true. They prefer the Orwellian credo, as articulated in the closing lines of 1984 – that one must reject the evidence of one’s own eyes and ears because that is the party’s “final, most essential command.”

I’ll concede that George Orwell is often invoked to excess, but let’s face it, the guy was a font of wisdom. The move against Liz Cheney brings to mind another aphorism: “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

A cult hooked on deceit plays by its own rules. Paul Gosar is cool for tweeting death to AOC. Steven Bannon is cool for defying the 1/6 Committee. One hundred and forty seven House Republicans are cool for defying Joe Biden’s election certification. Kevin McCarthy is cool for trying to sabotage the Capitol insurrection probe. And the coolest of all, of course, is the sociopathic liar who’s plotting to destroy democracy once and for all three years from now. (In the new book “Betrayal,” released Nov. 16, Trump is quoted referring to the insurrection as “a very beautiful time with extremely loving and friendly people.”)

How can Liz Cheney possibly compete with that? When you pass on drinking the Kool-Aid, a penalty must be paid. She’s facing four challengers in the next Wyoming GOP primary; one of them, Cheyenne lawyer Harriet Hageman (whom Trump has already endorsed), has applauded the state party’s cancel action: “Liz Cheney stopped recognizing what Wyomingites care about a long time ago. When she launched her war against President Trump, she completely broke with where we are as a state.” (That’s where they are as a state? Scratch Wyoming off the bucket list.)

I would like to believe that voters nationwide will reject the cult’s accelerating goosesteps. I mean, what could possibly be more important, right? Oh wait, the price of gas is going up.

Of course, we should not be surprised that Cheney has been canceled by her compadres. After all, a cult that somehow deems it blasphemous to vote for better roads and bridges will surely not abide someone who assails fascism and dares to challenge Republicans to act like Americans: “Will we put duty to our oath above partisan politics, or will we look away from the danger and the threat, embrace the lies and enable the liar?”

Alas, we already have our answer.

Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes at DickPolman.net. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2021

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