Liz Cheney's primary defeat tells us today's Republicans want lawmakers who listen, not lecture
Play a requiem for Liz Cheney and her establishment Republican Party with its a top down approach. It has been replaced by the New Right
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Amid the arid western hills of Wyoming on Tuesday night, the sun set on a decades old era of American politics. Rep. Liz Cheney, daughter and scion of former Vice President Dick Cheney, a major GOP player since the 1970s, lost her bid for a fourth term in the House of Representatives.
It is tempting to view Cheney’s very public battles with Donald Trump, including her star turn on the January 6th Committee as the key to her defeat. But in fact, Cheney’s loss symbolizes something much bigger. Conservative challenger Harriet Hageman won the race because Republican voters no longer want politicians who lecture, they want politicians who listen.
The pre-populist GOP, perhaps best exemplified by the 2012 presidential ticket of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, was a party whose candidates told voters, "I am smart, I am competent, and I will do what I know is best for you."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Sen. Mitt Romney walks through the Senate Subway on his way to a security briefing on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, on Capitol Hill, March 30, 2022. (Reuters/Elizabeth Frantz)
Beginning with Donald Trump, but now with Govs. Ron DeSantis and Glenn Youngkin and a cavalcade of populists behind them, the Republican Party’s message is squarely, "Elect us and we will do what you want us to."
Republican voters have learned a lesson. They are in charge, and politicians who refuse to be responsive to them can be ignominiously shown the door. Even if their name is Cheney.
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There are a "core four" political priorities that unite and animate this New Right. They are a strong border, skepticism on trade deals, energy independence, and fighting the culture war.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}On all of these the old GOP establishment was badly out of step with voters. It sought amnesty arrangements, it never met a trade deal it didn’t love, often caved on fossil fuel production, and refused to prosecute the culture wars over trans issues and critical race theory out of fear of being called bigots.
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Is it any wonder that, according to Civiqs polling in 2016, fewer than 50% of Republican voters had a favorable view of the party and that today that number is 75%? That’s a sea change.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The new GOP fights aggressively on these core four issues, while Cheney and the old guard call for a return to normalcy. The problem with Cheney and her ilks’ appeal to normalcy is that when Republican voters look at their country, what is considered to be normal doesn’t seem normal to them at all.
They spent two years in lockdowns, they can’t afford gas, they can’t even find baby formula, they are told that castrating teenage boys is "gender affirming care," and their kids learn a version of American history that squarely paints us as the bad guys. Yet Cheney, with all the myopia of Ahab staring at the great white whale, doesn’t talk about any of this.
Liz Cheney didn’t lose because the GOP has become a Trumpist cult, no matter how much the liberal media wishes that were so. She lost because the GOP is no longer a party of think tanks, but a party of voters.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}LAWMAKERS, PUNDITS REACT TO LIZ CHENEY'S LOSS IN WYOMING: ‘GIRL, BYE’
A high rating from the Heritage Foundation is irrelevant if politicians like Cheney refuse to actively fight on the fronts that matter most to their constituents. Her House voting record is meaningless if she opposes the 2024 GOP nominee. We know she won’t support Trump; now she’s hinted she wouldn’t even support DeSantis.
According to many reports, Cheney, like a phoenix, is plotting with her pals to rise from the electoral ashes with a 2024 presidential run. It will raise millions and millions of big donor dollars, it will receive saccharine sweet coverage in major media, and in the end it will struggle to crack 3% in a single primary.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Cheney, like so many others falsely believed that if Trump could just be destroyed then the scales would fall from the voters’ eyes and they would come crawling back to the ever compromising Chamber of Commerce candidates. But Republican voters have learned a lesson. They are in charge, and politicians who refuse to be responsive to them can be ignominiously shown the door. Even if their name is Cheney.
Whether one views Liz Cheney as a principled hero or a traitor to her party, one thing is clear; as night fell on her congressional career, her policies and priorities are not what the Republican electorate in Wyoming, or in broader America, want.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}This is a requiem for Cheney, yes, but also for the buttoned up, top down GOP that the New Right has now completely replaced.
Today, a new age has finally fully dawned over the American conservative movement. Its future is now.