Tonight, in a speech that claimed every piece of the Republican landscape since 1980, Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney launched a broadside against the Republican leaders who have shackled the party to the former president.
Maureen Dowd had an unusually good piece in the Sunday NYT reminding us why we must not make a hero or martyr of Cheney: she details the origin of the Big Lie with Cheney’s father, and her complicity with it in getting career started. I recommend reading it along with this piece.
Yes, Maureen Dowd's piece is excellent, Mary. That said, I don't believe that anyone really wants to make a hero or martyr of Liz Cheney. For the time being, she is merely a voice of reason trumpeting from within the GOP -- she is not on our side, but at the very least, she highlights two significant truths: the dangers posed by 45's Big Lie and by his very presence as so-called leader of the GOP. It is so critical to ingest what she says in order to understand all factions of that fractured party.
According to Søren Kierkegaard: "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." By appealing to Reagan and events of the past, Cheney is being quite strategic in her approach toward the inquisitors who accuse her of political heresy. If she plays her cards right, we may have to deal with another kettle of fish -- good or bad, she can't be worse than mangoface.
Actually - and I say this as someone who has long considered myself an active opponent of people named Cheney - she is on our side. So are the never-Trump conservatives. There are two political parties now - the party that believes in democracy and the party that doesn't. When things are over and we can safely go back to worrying about policy differences, rather than the existence of the democratic constitutional republic, we can go back to being political opponents. But right now we are - like it or not - in a coalition like that which won World War II. If Churchill could offer Stalin an alliance without conditions, after spending 20 years trying to overthrow his government, because as he said, "If Hitler were to invade Hell, I should at least have a good word for the Devil," we can do no less. I don't like her and I doubt I ever will, but that is irrelevant. What she is saying now is the truth. It's truth we all agree on.
To all those who can't cotton to Cheney's politics: We are not discussing Cheney's particular politics right now. We are recognizing and agreeing with her overarching belief in our Constitutional democracy. Particular politics comes along later in the equation after our Constitutional Republic survives.
Politically-/Policy-wise I am opposed to Cheney. However, if it came down to a choice between the Trump-McCarthy-McConnell bloc and the Cheney-Kinzinger bloc, I'd choose the latter.
I gather you take her speech straight and consider her a convert to democracy crying out in the Republican wilderness? If so I fervently hope you are right.
"...on the side of the devil now. Whodathunk." That's a good one. I never thought I would ever said anything nice about her. She is playing a long game to save the Republican Party. However, as I said before don't trust her as far as I can throw her.
No, she is not deserving of our trust. What she is doing is both admirable and a bold political play. But her ascendancy would not be good news for the values we hold dear, except for democracy, of course! Which, as TC points out, is pretty much all that matters at this point. We can work out the details later.
Seems I woke up today as an incarnation of Debby Downer, but the actual proverb, which takes my side in this discussion, is “The enemy of my enemy is not my friend.”
You assert this several times, and I am curious why you are so convinced of this. The proverb 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' is from the Arthashastra, from the 4th century BCE https://www.worldhistory.org/Arthashastra/ although the original text is quite a bit wordier... you can find it here in Book 6: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Arthashastra/Book_VI -- what is the source of your claim that there is an even earlier proverb, stating that the enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend?
Hi Kim. Yes, of course it counts. That’s why the “Whodathunk” comment. I think all the comparisons to Stalin and Churchill are apropos. Anyone who misses the connection between Felon45 and Adolf Hitler has not been paying attention. The Republicans are at risk of becoming a modern version of the Nazi Party, that’s what this is all about, and no I am not being hyperbolic nor am I exaggerating. The Germans were doing what the racist anti-Semitic sexist wing (the whackos) of the Republican Party is now doing. It’s a crucial moment in American history. This is not an average week for us.
Well, Roland, you got me to give up my determination to just read Heather's letter and then hit the sack. Your last two sentences did it: the hyperbole of "crucial moment" justaposed with the understated "not an average week". Perfect. I go to bed (soon, I hope) with the sense that something went right, at least briefly. Thanks.
The adage that comes to mind for me is "Even a broken clock is right 2 times a day." Cheney is as "broken" as it gets, but on this one issue--"Trumpty Dumpty"--she is spot on. I think it's certain that "Trumpty Dumpty" is headed for a fall.
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You know why I didn't, TPJ? I have an aversion to anything that begins with somebody's name. And "Herd"? A group that just moves along in the same direction as everyone else without thinking too much about it? I know that's not what you are doing. But the implications of a name like that leave me feeling a little queasy. Can you guys come up with a name a little more, um, dynamic? Or whatever?
I see your point, but I can't fully accept her ally-ship. During unsettling times, the enemy of my enemy becomes my friend -- not the best of allianced. Churchill and Stalin didn't trust e/o one little bit.
Yes but the British and Americans helped rearm his forces and feed his people as a result supplying all through the dangerous convoys to Murmansk.....risking their own personnel's lives to do it. It helps build a belief at least that they share their principal...if not all....objectives. Anything that can be done to help "ease her task" should be welcomed until such a time as interests diverge once again.
I would agree if I thought her plan was to save democracy. According to Dowd it is not, and never has been. Her piece is informative. I suggested people read it, not that they blame Lynn Cheney for the sins of her father.
Republicans won't listen to anyone on the left, not even Manchin, so even if she is a hypocrite and untrustworthy, she is telling the truth about the election and about Trump. Maybe she is like a sacrifice bunt for the GOP? Perhaps to save them or to advance a new runner---Stefanik?
Those were brave people who manned the Allied supply convoys to Murmansk. German U-boats were kings of the seas through 1942 and sank thousands and thousands of Allied ships. About 15 years ago, I read a 1942 copy of "LIFE Magazine" in which President Roosevelt [in a close paraphrase] said, "The people of the United States will be eternally grateful to the Russian people for the sacrifices they have made." Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and other Allied leaders wanted to send as many supplies as possible to the Soviet Union because the Soviet armies were keeping the German Wehrmacht away from British and American shores.
Your response to my point below seems to have disappeared, so I'll just respond here. Yalta and the supplies were the price that Roosevelte and Churchill paid for the creation of the second front. The Treaty effectively gave Eastern Europe to Stalin to do as he wished. Hence the headlong rush of allied forces to get to Berlin ahead of the Russians...they were late as the latter East German boundary testified. Whether the Western leaders were aware of the fact that Stalin probably killed more people than Hitler at the time is a moot question....but I think that the Ukrainians might have told them. What Stalin did to the Poles he had already done to the Russian people....a real model for Pol Pot.
Given the underlying competing ideologies dictating world dominance ....granted, in different ways....one can hardly be surprised at the poor US-Soviet relations thereafter. Stalin however mostly respected his part of the deal in that he stopped Communists taking over in France for instance after the war as they had been the mainstay of french resistance to the Nazi invaders....after 1942! Similar uncontrolled communist eruptions in Greece and Belgium were left to the tender mercies of Churchill to do the job.
Good points. We also need to remember that 80 percent of the deaths in World War II worldwide happened on the Eastern Front. The Soviets lost more men at Stalingrad than we lost in the entire war. At Tehran, Stalin promised to start an offensive within a week of the Allied landing in Normandy, to take pressure off the invasion; the Soviet 1944 offensive began on June 10, four days after D-Day and did remove the pressure. At Yalta, he promised to enter the war with Japan 90 days after the Germans surrendered. On August 9, the Soviets invaded Manchuria. The record of the Japanese Supreme War Council for that day makes no mention of the fact that Nagasaki had been bombed. All eyes were on the Soviets, because they knew they had no defenses in Manchuria or in northern Japan, having sent everything to Kyushu to oppose the coming US invasion. The Soviets planned to invade Hokkaido from Sakhalin at the end of September, a good 5-6 weeks before Operation Coronet, the Kyushu invasion (which would likely have failed in the face of the kamikazes and the Japanese beach defenses - I spoke to a Marine who was part of the Marine leadership of the 6th division, who all visited the beach they would have hit after the surrender in September. They all agreed, after talking to their opposite numbers and looking at the defenses, that they would never have gotten off the beach). Had that invasion happened, the Soviets would have taken Hokkaido and Honshu already.
We believe Japan surrendered because of the A-bombs because that was what they told us. In fact they were happy to surrender to us, rather than to the tender mercies of the Russians, who hadn't forgotten the events of 1905 and whose "mercies" in Germany after the surrender they had knowledge of.
Ah! The wonders of new technology. Always there to make life easier for us all. Previously we would be writing letters and awaiting the response...which wouldn't disappear in a puff of smoke between gmail and substack. In the meantime we managed to get around it!😁
Rowshan, this is one of the mysteries of Substack. For unknown reasons, sometimes it shuffles comments around. I've searched fruitlessly for comments I KNOW I have read, sworn they were lost, only to have them unexpectedly pop up in some peculiar context (sometimes sounding even more appropriate than they did in the original context!). Yours too, will reappear. Often it happens for me when I near the end, and then keeps going- then the missing comment appears, and it is actually somewhere near the beginning. Some weird intellectual cycle and I don't even want to know how or why. Life started out weird and it is determined to stay that way.
Precisely. In this fight we are not choosing friends. We are choosing a side - that of democracy.
I have mixed feelings of course. On the one hand, her opposition to Trump is sudden. During Trump’s Presidency I can’t recall her ever opposing him, at least until the eve of the insurrection. She was a rising force within the Party and I guess it behooved her to be a good soldier through his Presidency. She appears sagacious now, but she was one of the leading voices in support of Trump in the Ukraine impeachment, with numerous media moments. I thought her arguments were typical of the weak tea the GOP was serving up on behalf of Trump.
Nonetheless, she is now at the head of a movement to pull the Republicans back from the cliff they are so rushing so eagerly to. She may succeed in the long run and she may not. But she was unequivocal in her words last night and has at least rocked the lickspittles who currently “lead” the Republicans. One suspects that she has more powerful support behind her than we know.
And finally, who else could we expect to perform this feat. The Republicans have been the very embodiment of mediocrity and mendacity for decades now. Their intellectual poverty came dazzlingly into view with Newt Gingrich in the 90s a man of some intelligence and no wisdom. George W., Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz led a bound to fail bid for a spreading of American hegemony going forward. It’s not hard to recall how they wreaked havoc in pushing forward A Project For a New American Century.
They moved on to be slapped around by the Tea Party movement with luminaries such as Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Grover Norquist swinging for the fences. For a hot minute Bobby Jindal was thought to be the savior of the Party. Then it was Marco Rubio’s turn. Then, in an hour of greatest weakness, they allowed themselves to be seduced by Trump.
Really, it’s beyond astonishing how stony their soil has been. The Republicans have been masters of tactical maneuvers to win elections. Once won, they have not once shown themselves worthy in leadership.
The stakes appear immensely high now. The loyal opposition will do what it will do. We can but watch uneasily as they confront yet another “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?” moment.
There is no Joe DiMaggio. Liz Cheney will have to do for the time being.
This is right. This is why I once applauded Mitt Romney, why John McCain will always be a hero to me. Do you remember Corker and Flake? I may not have liked their policies but they didn’t betray the Constitution or bow to the golden calf.
Whereas I agree completely, I was very disappointed that they chose to bow out rather than engage in a very public fight to keep their seats, Flake in particular. We needed that vocal example then, even if they lost big, and they missed that opportunity.
Good question. She hasn't done much that I'm aware of that would engender trust. Words are cheap. And although I'm glad any Republican with in-house bona fides is contradicting the party line, I don't expect much to come of it.
One thing I've learned over my long life is that men do not follow women. They use women and sometimes set them up to test the waters, but the notion of 'follow the money' is sometimes secondary to 'follow the men'....the ones with both money and power having the greatest advantage.
We'll hear nothing about Liz Cheney in a month as the media focuses on the next shiny trinket and people go about the business of recovery, exhausted from the past year, especially, and sick of politics. I don't think most Americans even know what democracy is, let alone worry about its survival.
I could not agree more. Let's encourage the former Republican Party to set up its circular firing squads. The rest of us need to recognize that the line has been drawn between republican democracy and fascist autocracy. All that matters now is which side you're on.
I love that they are about to split themselves in two. Take a little joy wherever you can get it these days. This is our biggest advantage if the DOJ and SDNY do not produce all the atrocities and indictments of the seditionists and their sordid behaviors. I think they should be entitled the "Seditionist Party" or "Know Nothings II." Can you believe Texas wants to blatantly stop education of their children about current events as well as accurate history? You cannot control and manipulate educated persons. They know it and are working hard to prevent it. The Matrix is frighteningly alive in America. Modern slavery, enforced caste system. I don't think so, Texas. We will work to free your people, of all colors, from the Seditionists.
Texas's legislature has been trying to prevent children from being educated for the last 40 years. This is why they wanted, about 20 years ago, all reference to Thomas Jefferson removed from their high school US history textbooks.
It is my observation that Ronald Reagan died a second and lasting death when the Republican Party was turned into a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump & Co. I'd go so far as to bet good money that the likes of Jordan, Gaetz, Greene, Boebert, Nunes know nothing about Reagan. (Just to be perfectly clear, Reagan is a name that gives me the heebie jeebies. Still, I grant that he understood how government works and he played his role with a modicum of dignity. I recently came across his farewell address and, as much as hate to admit this, it brought tears to my eyes.)
Ronald Reagan had people around him who knew how government worked. "Conservative Activists" who knew the mistakes from the past, learned from them, and made the way for Donald Trump to become President. Ronald Reagan was the salesman more than a leader. He was a one of a kind communicator. He delivered some amazing speeches. Liz Cheney's speech yesterday could be considered Reaganess.
While I certainly can't say that listening to political speeches is one of my favorite entertainments, I do recall listening to a few of Reagan's speeches and I never figured out why he was called the "Great Communicator." He never made a lick o' sense to me -- it all seemed to be a jumble of bumper-sticker slogans with little rationale or reason.
For fun, read the account by Dr. Oliver Sachs of the reaction of his patients to Reagan's speeches, patients who were hospitalized for neurological defects involving either the understanding of speech or in the interpretation of facial expressions. The former group had become skilled in reading body language and concluded that Reagan was a liar from the mismatch between his face and his gestures. The latter group concluded Reagan was a liar because his words and concepts were disconnected from each other and made no sense.
At least, that's how I recall that section. I think it was from "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," which used to be in my little personal library but which I can no longer find (grumble). Any clarification would be welcome.
A friend’s father was a journalist in Germany in the late 30s, before we joined the war. He asked to come back to NY after he found himself moved to tears by a speech of Hitler’s.
He was an actor who could still deliver lines written by some young and articulate conservatives, even though he couldn't have told you two minutes after delivering those lines what they were or meant.
I believe we need to work with Republicans, like Cheney, on the issues we can work with them on. Saving our democracy certainly seems like one of those issues. But, Mary, as you point out there are issues with Republican leadership. VP Cheney was comfortable with the Big Lie about WMD to take us into Iraq. Republicans were okay with Iran-Contragate that created a shadow government. Republicans have been okay with playing parliamentary games to sabotage sharing of governance.
Democrats need to work with Cheney and other Republicans to save our democracy. At the same, those Republicans serious about saving our democracy must face the serious issues they have created in burning trust in our government with their dangerous rhetoric that government is the problem.
Republicans wanting to save our democracy cannot expect to go back to their slash and burn parliamentary gamesmanship that has brought us all to this point. Like others, I hope there are back room discussions taking place among responsible representatives of both parties to meet this crisis of democracy as Americans who care about our democratic project.
It's hard to imagine a more existential crisis than this one.
And just like Churchill working with Stalin, while it is strategic to ally ourselves with Cheney in these dire times, we must never forget what she stands for. A tiger does not change her stripes and, while she is far preferable to Trump and his minions, that's a damn low bar for her to clear. She is otherwise reprehensible.
The first place for Republicans to start would be refuting the lies that McTurtle and Ted Cruz said about the For the People Act in the Senate yesterday. Saying that it was the Dems that we’re trying to control elections was a huge lie. Oh, and how about Dr. Fauci having to call out the other ridiculous lie that Rand Paul said about out funding the Wuhan lab? So they have many chances to show that they are willing to save democracy. But I’m not holding my breath.
Yep--golly gee, Republicans have to grow up and behave like adults instead of 6 year olds trying to slither out of taking ownership of the crap they have caused? Quel horreur.
Frankly the pandemic was my biggest existential conundrum—the fact that the political crises merge into one period has and continues to be overwhelming.
Yes, the pandemic has been especially hard on working families with children. These folks have been placed between a rock and a hard place, many of them having to idle one-half of their working pair to stay home to keep house and rear children I can't imagine a harder situation to be in.
It is important to be aware that creating an alliance with people with whom we fundamentally disagree does not include pretending that the new ally has changed. Political pragmatism means sitting down at a table and talking to people whose political opinions one might abhor, but if they are, at least, not actively trying to destroy democracy as we know it, they are worth talking to. We can worry about the political positions Ms Cheney professes once the stark threat of possible nazification of the USA has been neutralized.
Liz Cheney. Mitt Romney. Jeff Flake. George W. Bush. And others like them. These people do not believe in what I believe in. They do not want what I want for our country. But. We Have No Choice, but to form a temporary alliance with these kind of Republicans to fight back against Trump and his ilk. And for God's sake, all kinds of liberals need to suck it up and stand together right now to fight off this nightmare.
My brother-in-law once quipped that Trump is the best thing that ever happened to George W. Bush -- he actually looks like a senior statesman in comparison.
The Democratic Party need to step up and build an alliance, like thenLincoln Project or with the Lincoln Project. We all have plenty of time to go our separate ways later.
I read it but though I’m so aware of why I couldn’t stand the Cheney’s before, this speech of hers goes a long way toward standing up for a real two party system.
Having read it, can I ask what you think Cheney’s motives to be? It seems unlikely to me that they include saving democracy, given the actions of her past.
She is clearly standing up for the principles of our democracy, rule of law and constitution while her colleagues like McCarthy are kissing Cheeto’s ring. Whatever else she has done or will do, at the moment, I forgive.
Liz I would like to believe that but I need evidence. She has participated in big lying throughout her career—why should I believe her now? That isn’t a rhetorical question.
I don’t need to believe her motives— I like the words of her speech because they help our cause and if the Repugs splinter off to 2 or 3 parties that helps us too.
I see your point, but in the context can't agree. She's dangerous, and the motives of her long game are are important. Everyone knows the next "T****" will be slick, plausible and have a working vocabulary: ideally she'll be a woman. Cheney was hand in hand with her autocratic father throughout the opening years of the Age of Lies, has hard right views, big political ambitions, and gives no sign in her actions or views of a normal conscience. Her enthusiasm for waterboarding is discouraging, and that she can manipulate rhetoric doesn't allay my fear. I hope I'm wrong. Here's John Nichols, if Maureen Dowd doesn't do it for you: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/liz-cheney-trump/
Thanks for mentioning Maureen Dowd’s column. I missed it originally and went back after your note. I think that she is right on in her comments. I also agree with you in several of your comments that we should treat Liz Cheney’s role in challenging the ‘Big Lie’ not as one that is a fight for democracy but rather as a fight for power in the current Republican Party. As Dowd notes the makings for the ‘Big Lie’ were established for the rush up to the Iraq war in 2003 when Cheney’s dad pushed his own big lie with the intel manufactured to support Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction. The Cheney’s are neoliberals with a strong penchant for an all-powerful executive branch that favors authoritarianism rather than democracy. This is clearly a power struggle between two factions within the Republican Party neither of which is in favor of democracy. Both will march under the tune of the Koch donor oligarch network.
Maureen Dowd had an unusually good piece in the Sunday NYT reminding us why we must not make a hero or martyr of Cheney: she details the origin of the Big Lie with Cheney’s father, and her complicity with it in getting career started. I recommend reading it along with this piece.
Yes, Maureen Dowd's piece is excellent, Mary. That said, I don't believe that anyone really wants to make a hero or martyr of Liz Cheney. For the time being, she is merely a voice of reason trumpeting from within the GOP -- she is not on our side, but at the very least, she highlights two significant truths: the dangers posed by 45's Big Lie and by his very presence as so-called leader of the GOP. It is so critical to ingest what she says in order to understand all factions of that fractured party.
According to Søren Kierkegaard: "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." By appealing to Reagan and events of the past, Cheney is being quite strategic in her approach toward the inquisitors who accuse her of political heresy. If she plays her cards right, we may have to deal with another kettle of fish -- good or bad, she can't be worse than mangoface.
Actually - and I say this as someone who has long considered myself an active opponent of people named Cheney - she is on our side. So are the never-Trump conservatives. There are two political parties now - the party that believes in democracy and the party that doesn't. When things are over and we can safely go back to worrying about policy differences, rather than the existence of the democratic constitutional republic, we can go back to being political opponents. But right now we are - like it or not - in a coalition like that which won World War II. If Churchill could offer Stalin an alliance without conditions, after spending 20 years trying to overthrow his government, because as he said, "If Hitler were to invade Hell, I should at least have a good word for the Devil," we can do no less. I don't like her and I doubt I ever will, but that is irrelevant. What she is saying now is the truth. It's truth we all agree on.
To all those who can't cotton to Cheney's politics: We are not discussing Cheney's particular politics right now. We are recognizing and agreeing with her overarching belief in our Constitutional democracy. Particular politics comes along later in the equation after our Constitutional Republic survives.
Excellent differentiation. Thank you, Claudia.
Politically-/Policy-wise I am opposed to Cheney. However, if it came down to a choice between the Trump-McCarthy-McConnell bloc and the Cheney-Kinzinger bloc, I'd choose the latter.
I gather you take her speech straight and consider her a convert to democracy crying out in the Republican wilderness? If so I fervently hope you are right.
👍👍
My wife just said Liz is Daddy’s little girl. Spawn of war criminal. Yes, we are on the side of the devil now. Whodathunk.
"...on the side of the devil now. Whodathunk." That's a good one. I never thought I would ever said anything nice about her. She is playing a long game to save the Republican Party. However, as I said before don't trust her as far as I can throw her.
No, she is not deserving of our trust. What she is doing is both admirable and a bold political play. But her ascendancy would not be good news for the values we hold dear, except for democracy, of course! Which, as TC points out, is pretty much all that matters at this point. We can work out the details later.
That’s exactly what the founders of Israel thought about the ultra-right. Just saying.
She voted 93% in compliance with DT. She is not our hero or friend in any way, shape or form.
And yet, here we are....
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Seems I woke up today as an incarnation of Debby Downer, but the actual proverb, which takes my side in this discussion, is “The enemy of my enemy is not my friend.”
At this point, I will settle for working with enemies of fascism.
You assert this several times, and I am curious why you are so convinced of this. The proverb 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' is from the Arthashastra, from the 4th century BCE https://www.worldhistory.org/Arthashastra/ although the original text is quite a bit wordier... you can find it here in Book 6: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Arthashastra/Book_VI -- what is the source of your claim that there is an even earlier proverb, stating that the enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend?
Yes!
does it count that it is a devil with a constitution, or a belief in our shared constitution?
(missed your contributions, Roland. Glad to see you back.)
Hi Kim. Yes, of course it counts. That’s why the “Whodathunk” comment. I think all the comparisons to Stalin and Churchill are apropos. Anyone who misses the connection between Felon45 and Adolf Hitler has not been paying attention. The Republicans are at risk of becoming a modern version of the Nazi Party, that’s what this is all about, and no I am not being hyperbolic nor am I exaggerating. The Germans were doing what the racist anti-Semitic sexist wing (the whackos) of the Republican Party is now doing. It’s a crucial moment in American history. This is not an average week for us.
Cheeto is our homegrown Hitler.
Well, Roland, you got me to give up my determination to just read Heather's letter and then hit the sack. Your last two sentences did it: the hyperbole of "crucial moment" justaposed with the understated "not an average week". Perfect. I go to bed (soon, I hope) with the sense that something went right, at least briefly. Thanks.
Same here.
Rather, I think that the devil has come to our side, at least temporarily.
The adage that comes to mind for me is "Even a broken clock is right 2 times a day." Cheney is as "broken" as it gets, but on this one issue--"Trumpty Dumpty"--she is spot on. I think it's certain that "Trumpty Dumpty" is headed for a fall.
Please consider signing on to Heather's Herd, Roland. Your friends want to see and hear you.
Is it possible to share that link? She gave it to me once but I lost it
I too would appreciate the link
And what is Heather's Herd pray tell?
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You know why I didn't, TPJ? I have an aversion to anything that begins with somebody's name. And "Herd"? A group that just moves along in the same direction as everyone else without thinking too much about it? I know that's not what you are doing. But the implications of a name like that leave me feeling a little queasy. Can you guys come up with a name a little more, um, dynamic? Or whatever?
I see your point, but I can't fully accept her ally-ship. During unsettling times, the enemy of my enemy becomes my friend -- not the best of allianced. Churchill and Stalin didn't trust e/o one little bit.
Yes but the British and Americans helped rearm his forces and feed his people as a result supplying all through the dangerous convoys to Murmansk.....risking their own personnel's lives to do it. It helps build a belief at least that they share their principal...if not all....objectives. Anything that can be done to help "ease her task" should be welcomed until such a time as interests diverge once again.
We do share the same objective - the maintenance of democracy, where we scrabble with each other and respect the results.
Right the overarching goal is to save our democracy.
I would agree if I thought her plan was to save democracy. According to Dowd it is not, and never has been. Her piece is informative. I suggested people read it, not that they blame Lynn Cheney for the sins of her father.
This, TPJ. I posted my comment before I saw yours. YES to having a democracy to bicker about.
Republicans won't listen to anyone on the left, not even Manchin, so even if she is a hypocrite and untrustworthy, she is telling the truth about the election and about Trump. Maybe she is like a sacrifice bunt for the GOP? Perhaps to save them or to advance a new runner---Stefanik?
Stuart, exactly!
Those were brave people who manned the Allied supply convoys to Murmansk. German U-boats were kings of the seas through 1942 and sank thousands and thousands of Allied ships. About 15 years ago, I read a 1942 copy of "LIFE Magazine" in which President Roosevelt [in a close paraphrase] said, "The people of the United States will be eternally grateful to the Russian people for the sacrifices they have made." Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and other Allied leaders wanted to send as many supplies as possible to the Soviet Union because the Soviet armies were keeping the German Wehrmacht away from British and American shores.
Your response to my point below seems to have disappeared, so I'll just respond here. Yalta and the supplies were the price that Roosevelte and Churchill paid for the creation of the second front. The Treaty effectively gave Eastern Europe to Stalin to do as he wished. Hence the headlong rush of allied forces to get to Berlin ahead of the Russians...they were late as the latter East German boundary testified. Whether the Western leaders were aware of the fact that Stalin probably killed more people than Hitler at the time is a moot question....but I think that the Ukrainians might have told them. What Stalin did to the Poles he had already done to the Russian people....a real model for Pol Pot.
Given the underlying competing ideologies dictating world dominance ....granted, in different ways....one can hardly be surprised at the poor US-Soviet relations thereafter. Stalin however mostly respected his part of the deal in that he stopped Communists taking over in France for instance after the war as they had been the mainstay of french resistance to the Nazi invaders....after 1942! Similar uncontrolled communist eruptions in Greece and Belgium were left to the tender mercies of Churchill to do the job.
Good points. We also need to remember that 80 percent of the deaths in World War II worldwide happened on the Eastern Front. The Soviets lost more men at Stalingrad than we lost in the entire war. At Tehran, Stalin promised to start an offensive within a week of the Allied landing in Normandy, to take pressure off the invasion; the Soviet 1944 offensive began on June 10, four days after D-Day and did remove the pressure. At Yalta, he promised to enter the war with Japan 90 days after the Germans surrendered. On August 9, the Soviets invaded Manchuria. The record of the Japanese Supreme War Council for that day makes no mention of the fact that Nagasaki had been bombed. All eyes were on the Soviets, because they knew they had no defenses in Manchuria or in northern Japan, having sent everything to Kyushu to oppose the coming US invasion. The Soviets planned to invade Hokkaido from Sakhalin at the end of September, a good 5-6 weeks before Operation Coronet, the Kyushu invasion (which would likely have failed in the face of the kamikazes and the Japanese beach defenses - I spoke to a Marine who was part of the Marine leadership of the 6th division, who all visited the beach they would have hit after the surrender in September. They all agreed, after talking to their opposite numbers and looking at the defenses, that they would never have gotten off the beach). Had that invasion happened, the Soviets would have taken Hokkaido and Honshu already.
We believe Japan surrendered because of the A-bombs because that was what they told us. In fact they were happy to surrender to us, rather than to the tender mercies of the Russians, who hadn't forgotten the events of 1905 and whose "mercies" in Germany after the surrender they had knowledge of.
How did my comment disppear, Stuart? I didn't do it. It shouldn't have been offensive except to a Russian not.
Ah! The wonders of new technology. Always there to make life easier for us all. Previously we would be writing letters and awaiting the response...which wouldn't disappear in a puff of smoke between gmail and substack. In the meantime we managed to get around it!😁
Bot, not "not".
Rowshan, this is one of the mysteries of Substack. For unknown reasons, sometimes it shuffles comments around. I've searched fruitlessly for comments I KNOW I have read, sworn they were lost, only to have them unexpectedly pop up in some peculiar context (sometimes sounding even more appropriate than they did in the original context!). Yours too, will reappear. Often it happens for me when I near the end, and then keeps going- then the missing comment appears, and it is actually somewhere near the beginning. Some weird intellectual cycle and I don't even want to know how or why. Life started out weird and it is determined to stay that way.
If you want to get a bit into the weeds on this, see Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front, by Serhii Plokhii.
Completely right.
Precisely. In this fight we are not choosing friends. We are choosing a side - that of democracy.
I have mixed feelings of course. On the one hand, her opposition to Trump is sudden. During Trump’s Presidency I can’t recall her ever opposing him, at least until the eve of the insurrection. She was a rising force within the Party and I guess it behooved her to be a good soldier through his Presidency. She appears sagacious now, but she was one of the leading voices in support of Trump in the Ukraine impeachment, with numerous media moments. I thought her arguments were typical of the weak tea the GOP was serving up on behalf of Trump.
Nonetheless, she is now at the head of a movement to pull the Republicans back from the cliff they are so rushing so eagerly to. She may succeed in the long run and she may not. But she was unequivocal in her words last night and has at least rocked the lickspittles who currently “lead” the Republicans. One suspects that she has more powerful support behind her than we know.
And finally, who else could we expect to perform this feat. The Republicans have been the very embodiment of mediocrity and mendacity for decades now. Their intellectual poverty came dazzlingly into view with Newt Gingrich in the 90s a man of some intelligence and no wisdom. George W., Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz led a bound to fail bid for a spreading of American hegemony going forward. It’s not hard to recall how they wreaked havoc in pushing forward A Project For a New American Century.
They moved on to be slapped around by the Tea Party movement with luminaries such as Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Grover Norquist swinging for the fences. For a hot minute Bobby Jindal was thought to be the savior of the Party. Then it was Marco Rubio’s turn. Then, in an hour of greatest weakness, they allowed themselves to be seduced by Trump.
Really, it’s beyond astonishing how stony their soil has been. The Republicans have been masters of tactical maneuvers to win elections. Once won, they have not once shown themselves worthy in leadership.
The stakes appear immensely high now. The loyal opposition will do what it will do. We can but watch uneasily as they confront yet another “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?” moment.
There is no Joe DiMaggio. Liz Cheney will have to do for the time being.
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you...
This is right. This is why I once applauded Mitt Romney, why John McCain will always be a hero to me. Do you remember Corker and Flake? I may not have liked their policies but they didn’t betray the Constitution or bow to the golden calf.
Whereas I agree completely, I was very disappointed that they chose to bow out rather than engage in a very public fight to keep their seats, Flake in particular. We needed that vocal example then, even if they lost big, and they missed that opportunity.
My heroes as well.
There is an ancient proverb written in Sanskrit in the 4th century BC that expresses the following sentiment: "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
I'm sorry but you have that proverb wrong. It's "The enemy of my enemy is not my friend"--and that's the wisdom we need reminding of at such times.
Two proverbs instead of one . . . .
I am curious about why people think she believes in the Constitution. Is it because she said so in this speech?
Good question. She hasn't done much that I'm aware of that would engender trust. Words are cheap. And although I'm glad any Republican with in-house bona fides is contradicting the party line, I don't expect much to come of it.
One thing I've learned over my long life is that men do not follow women. They use women and sometimes set them up to test the waters, but the notion of 'follow the money' is sometimes secondary to 'follow the men'....the ones with both money and power having the greatest advantage.
We'll hear nothing about Liz Cheney in a month as the media focuses on the next shiny trinket and people go about the business of recovery, exhausted from the past year, especially, and sick of politics. I don't think most Americans even know what democracy is, let alone worry about its survival.
I could not agree more. Let's encourage the former Republican Party to set up its circular firing squads. The rest of us need to recognize that the line has been drawn between republican democracy and fascist autocracy. All that matters now is which side you're on.
100%.
Absolutely right TCinLA
I love that they are about to split themselves in two. Take a little joy wherever you can get it these days. This is our biggest advantage if the DOJ and SDNY do not produce all the atrocities and indictments of the seditionists and their sordid behaviors. I think they should be entitled the "Seditionist Party" or "Know Nothings II." Can you believe Texas wants to blatantly stop education of their children about current events as well as accurate history? You cannot control and manipulate educated persons. They know it and are working hard to prevent it. The Matrix is frighteningly alive in America. Modern slavery, enforced caste system. I don't think so, Texas. We will work to free your people, of all colors, from the Seditionists.
Texas's legislature has been trying to prevent children from being educated for the last 40 years. This is why they wanted, about 20 years ago, all reference to Thomas Jefferson removed from their high school US history textbooks.
And, Linda, could you give some thought to joining Heathers Herd, if you have not yet?
I keep hearing about this group but haven't got any info. I would love to but I think the info gets deleted.
Amazing how they keep trying. Thanks for background, Linda.
It is my observation that Ronald Reagan died a second and lasting death when the Republican Party was turned into a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump & Co. I'd go so far as to bet good money that the likes of Jordan, Gaetz, Greene, Boebert, Nunes know nothing about Reagan. (Just to be perfectly clear, Reagan is a name that gives me the heebie jeebies. Still, I grant that he understood how government works and he played his role with a modicum of dignity. I recently came across his farewell address and, as much as hate to admit this, it brought tears to my eyes.)
Ronald Reagan had people around him who knew how government worked. "Conservative Activists" who knew the mistakes from the past, learned from them, and made the way for Donald Trump to become President. Ronald Reagan was the salesman more than a leader. He was a one of a kind communicator. He delivered some amazing speeches. Liz Cheney's speech yesterday could be considered Reaganess.
While I certainly can't say that listening to political speeches is one of my favorite entertainments, I do recall listening to a few of Reagan's speeches and I never figured out why he was called the "Great Communicator." He never made a lick o' sense to me -- it all seemed to be a jumble of bumper-sticker slogans with little rationale or reason.
For fun, read the account by Dr. Oliver Sachs of the reaction of his patients to Reagan's speeches, patients who were hospitalized for neurological defects involving either the understanding of speech or in the interpretation of facial expressions. The former group had become skilled in reading body language and concluded that Reagan was a liar from the mismatch between his face and his gestures. The latter group concluded Reagan was a liar because his words and concepts were disconnected from each other and made no sense.
At least, that's how I recall that section. I think it was from "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," which used to be in my little personal library but which I can no longer find (grumble). Any clarification would be welcome.
I love that Sacks essay! And I felt exactly as you did listening to Reagan.
Who could have believed that Reagan, a really bad actor, could have convinced so many.
A friend’s father was a journalist in Germany in the late 30s, before we joined the war. He asked to come back to NY after he found himself moved to tears by a speech of Hitler’s.
He was an actor who could still deliver lines written by some young and articulate conservatives, even though he couldn't have told you two minutes after delivering those lines what they were or meant.
Reagan was a game.
We need a worthy opponent
Susan, exactly! One not detached from reality.
Mangoface. Hahaha. I prefer hateful toad, but this is good.
Margaret Thatcher
So good to hear you quote Kierkegaard.
I believe we need to work with Republicans, like Cheney, on the issues we can work with them on. Saving our democracy certainly seems like one of those issues. But, Mary, as you point out there are issues with Republican leadership. VP Cheney was comfortable with the Big Lie about WMD to take us into Iraq. Republicans were okay with Iran-Contragate that created a shadow government. Republicans have been okay with playing parliamentary games to sabotage sharing of governance.
Democrats need to work with Cheney and other Republicans to save our democracy. At the same, those Republicans serious about saving our democracy must face the serious issues they have created in burning trust in our government with their dangerous rhetoric that government is the problem.
Republicans wanting to save our democracy cannot expect to go back to their slash and burn parliamentary gamesmanship that has brought us all to this point. Like others, I hope there are back room discussions taking place among responsible representatives of both parties to meet this crisis of democracy as Americans who care about our democratic project.
It's hard to imagine a more existential crisis than this one.
And just like Churchill working with Stalin, while it is strategic to ally ourselves with Cheney in these dire times, we must never forget what she stands for. A tiger does not change her stripes and, while she is far preferable to Trump and his minions, that's a damn low bar for her to clear. She is otherwise reprehensible.
The first place for Republicans to start would be refuting the lies that McTurtle and Ted Cruz said about the For the People Act in the Senate yesterday. Saying that it was the Dems that we’re trying to control elections was a huge lie. Oh, and how about Dr. Fauci having to call out the other ridiculous lie that Rand Paul said about out funding the Wuhan lab? So they have many chances to show that they are willing to save democracy. But I’m not holding my breath.
Yep--golly gee, Republicans have to grow up and behave like adults instead of 6 year olds trying to slither out of taking ownership of the crap they have caused? Quel horreur.
Like you I hope the Democrats can find some reasonable Republicans to work with. I don’t happen to think Cheney is one of them.
All of the Republicans that Democrats can work with call themselves Democrats.
Frankly the pandemic was my biggest existential conundrum—the fact that the political crises merge into one period has and continues to be overwhelming.
Yes, the pandemic has been especially hard on working families with children. These folks have been placed between a rock and a hard place, many of them having to idle one-half of their working pair to stay home to keep house and rear children I can't imagine a harder situation to be in.
For sure!
Jeff Flake in Todays WaPo: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/11/jeff-flake-liz-cheney-republican-party/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_opinions&utm_campaign=wp_opinions
Also, Charles Blow last week: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/opinion/liz-cheney-republicans.html?searchResultPosition=2
It is important to be aware that creating an alliance with people with whom we fundamentally disagree does not include pretending that the new ally has changed. Political pragmatism means sitting down at a table and talking to people whose political opinions one might abhor, but if they are, at least, not actively trying to destroy democracy as we know it, they are worth talking to. We can worry about the political positions Ms Cheney professes once the stark threat of possible nazification of the USA has been neutralized.
Winston Churchill needed only seven words to summarize the value of the Soviet alliance: "They are very good at killing Germans."
WC was so pragmatic.
Sometimes, not always.
"Winston has a hundred ideas a day, and four of them are good."
-- Variously attributed, including FDR
WC was such a character— yes I can imagine why FDR said that and poor long suffering Clementine. He was an exhausting husband.
Here is a link to the opinion piece:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/08/opinion/liz-cheney-donald-trump.amp.html
Thanks
Liz Cheney. Mitt Romney. Jeff Flake. George W. Bush. And others like them. These people do not believe in what I believe in. They do not want what I want for our country. But. We Have No Choice, but to form a temporary alliance with these kind of Republicans to fight back against Trump and his ilk. And for God's sake, all kinds of liberals need to suck it up and stand together right now to fight off this nightmare.
My brother-in-law once quipped that Trump is the best thing that ever happened to George W. Bush -- he actually looks like a senior statesman in comparison.
Is there a way to join together?
The Democratic Party need to step up and build an alliance, like thenLincoln Project or with the Lincoln Project. We all have plenty of time to go our separate ways later.
We have 9 years on the climate. Is that enough time?
Just breathe through your mouth for a while...like when you dissect a frog.
Oh. THATs what “mouth breathers” means!
I read it but though I’m so aware of why I couldn’t stand the Cheney’s before, this speech of hers goes a long way toward standing up for a real two party system.
Having read it, can I ask what you think Cheney’s motives to be? It seems unlikely to me that they include saving democracy, given the actions of her past.
She is clearly standing up for the principles of our democracy, rule of law and constitution while her colleagues like McCarthy are kissing Cheeto’s ring. Whatever else she has done or will do, at the moment, I forgive.
Cheeto has a new name in WaPo’s comments section:
“Been-A-Dick Donald.”
He doesn’t deserve so many syllables—dickhead works-Cheeto dick head
No more than four characters needed, e.g. Idjt, 1/45.
Liz I would like to believe that but I need evidence. She has participated in big lying throughout her career—why should I believe her now? That isn’t a rhetorical question.
I don’t need to believe her motives— I like the words of her speech because they help our cause and if the Repugs splinter off to 2 or 3 parties that helps us too.
I see your point, but in the context can't agree. She's dangerous, and the motives of her long game are are important. Everyone knows the next "T****" will be slick, plausible and have a working vocabulary: ideally she'll be a woman. Cheney was hand in hand with her autocratic father throughout the opening years of the Age of Lies, has hard right views, big political ambitions, and gives no sign in her actions or views of a normal conscience. Her enthusiasm for waterboarding is discouraging, and that she can manipulate rhetoric doesn't allay my fear. I hope I'm wrong. Here's John Nichols, if Maureen Dowd doesn't do it for you: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/liz-cheney-trump/
Forgive, but don’t forget.
#AppalachianGrudgeHolder
Don’t worry— I’m a Scorpio and I never forget the bad stuff!
Is it perhaps Trump’s most dangerous legacy that we become a nation of cynics?
It's Nixon's legacy first. 1/45 deepened it.
I don’t think it’s cynical to be skeptical of a person like this. I’m a pro-democracy activist and put a lot of my time and precious energy into that.
Thanks for mentioning Maureen Dowd’s column. I missed it originally and went back after your note. I think that she is right on in her comments. I also agree with you in several of your comments that we should treat Liz Cheney’s role in challenging the ‘Big Lie’ not as one that is a fight for democracy but rather as a fight for power in the current Republican Party. As Dowd notes the makings for the ‘Big Lie’ were established for the rush up to the Iraq war in 2003 when Cheney’s dad pushed his own big lie with the intel manufactured to support Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction. The Cheney’s are neoliberals with a strong penchant for an all-powerful executive branch that favors authoritarianism rather than democracy. This is clearly a power struggle between two factions within the Republican Party neither of which is in favor of democracy. Both will march under the tune of the Koch donor oligarch network.