Publisher’s Riff
Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY), the lone Republican House member representing the conservative and small population state of Wyoming, is parading as the pop media-appointed Wonder Woman of democracy. Clearly, she never was. Journalists not asking the Congresswoman about her rejection of voting rights are not doing their job.
The public is watching with mixed wonder and outrage as Cheney finds herself unceremoniously ejected from the coveted and very influential House Republican Conference Chair slot - officially by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), but directly at the command of Trump who, in an ugly fit of retribution, is cementing his status as the unopposed leader of the Republican Party.
As that drama unfolds, Cheney is now celebrated as a victimized warrior and ardent defender of democracy. The public discourse decides she must not be all that bad if she’s publicly rejecting Trump’s “Big Lie” - something most Republicans are too afraid to do - and she also voted to impeach him. But, the closing of her recent op-ed in The Washington Post entitled “The GOP is at a Turning Point. History is Watching Us” reveals that she has no real concern about saving the nation and in reality, just like her other colleagues, she is only interested in saving the Party …
The real problem here is that defying Trump or the “Big Lie” party line does not automatically make you pro-democracy. The real measure of a contemporary policymaker’s position on democracy is whether they support the protection of voting rights and unfettered access to the voting franchise. Period. You can not, in any way, claim to “defend the basic principles that underpin and protect our freedom and our democratic process” when you vote against protecting the most basic and most fundamental pillar of the democratic process. Cheney not only voted against H.R. 1, the comprehensive “For the People Act” voting rights bill recently passed in March by the House that now sits, untouched, in the Senate …
But she also voted against the more tightly focused “John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act” or H.R. 4 ….
And while she has no control over the whims of Wyoming’s state legislature, she could publicly oppose the introduction of three voter suppression bills by that body and the signing of one very restrictive voter ID law by the governor there …
But, no one in media is asking her about that while annointing her vanquished Protector of Democracy. In two historic moments when it was essential for Cheney and her Republican colleagues to support the most important tool of democracy’s operation, they instead voted against it in favor of a very craven (and outright racist) attempt to steal power. You can’t have it both ways: you can’t believe that your rejection of your party’s attempt to oppose the 2020 Electoral College results makes you a booster for democracy when you, simultaneously, vote to take away people’s access to those same elections. We need to ask every Republican, including Cheney, about that.