Learning the Wrong Lessons from Replacing Liz Cheney
Liz Cheney & Elise Stefanik are two sides of the same no good coin. The Republican Base must demand better.
Learning the Wrong Lessons from Replacing Liz Cheney
On February 3rd, Liz Cheney overwhelmingly survived a no confidence vote among House Republicans, with 145 Republicans voting to keep her as their Chair of the House Republican Conference. 3 months later, things could not be more different. What started as quiet whispers on Capitol Hill last week has turned into a near certainty: Republicans are going to replace Liz Cheney as Chair. The reasons Republicans are suddenly clamoring to replace Rep. Cheney (R- WY At Large) are many. The main reason is her vocal opposition to former President Trump’s personality and priorities. Countless times, Liz Cheney has been a vocal anti Trump voice for House Republicans, slamming Trump’s comments on election fraud, blaming Trump for inciting the January 6th Capitol Riot, criticizing Trump as the undisputed leader of the Republican Party and many more broadsides.
The privileged daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, Liz has followed in her father’s footsteps of leading a congressional neoconservative faction that is on life support. Cheney has passionately argued for expanding our military’s role overseas, and for keeping our troops in Afghanistan “because withdrawing plays into our enemies’ hands”. Like a petulant child in denial, Liz Cheney insisted “Donald Trump does not have a role in our party going forward”. Her comment was not a one-off, as she said “I don't believe that he should be playing a role in the future of the party or the country" three weeks later. Like that’s a decision she can make. Cheney takes every opportunity possible to criticize Donald Trump and his priorities. Which is why Liz Cheney must be ousted.
Unfortunately, Liz Cheney is not alone in this regard. Thankfully, the moderate faction Cheney represents is relatively small. Members from Jaime Herrera-Buetler to Peter Meijer have backed Cheney’s criticisms of Trump, with this ten member faction of jealous political has-beens voting to impeach Trump for his conduct leading up to the Capitol Riot. President Trump and populists have been mobilizing to end the careers of this desperate anti Trump faction, with Cheney being our number one target. Yet Liz Cheney is the top target almost solely because of her criticisms of Donald Trump himself.
The real reason Liz Cheney should be ousted is because when she attacks Donald Trump, she attacks the policies of nationalist populism that Trumpism itself represents. When rising populist Rep. Jim Banks correctly noted that the Republican Base is increasingly working class and Republicans must shift their policies to become a working class party, Cheney ignorantly responded that Banks’ idea was “neo Marxist”. Like Liz Cheney, Rep. Peter Meijer and the dinosaurs at Jonah Goldberg’s The Dispatch cling onto this idea that the GOP is not becoming a populist party, and insisting that Republicans must return to “the traditional principles of limited government, economic liberty, balanced budgets, free markets, free trade and a strong American footprint in the world”, the same drivel John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Cheney’s good friend, Paul Ryan, spouted before losing in 2008 and 2012.
Liz Cheney is part of a vocal minority in denial. Not just about where Donald Trump stands in the party, as Donald Trump the Man is not as important as the Movement he represents. In 2016 and 2020, working class voters from Youngstown, Ohio to McAllen, TX voted to rebuke the very vision Liz Cheney and her neoconservative cronies have peddled for 40 years. If Liz Cheney was right that Republicans are not changing, then Jeb Bush would’ve won the 2016 primary. As of Wednesday, it’s a near certainty that Liz Cheney will be ousted as chairwoman of the House Republican Conference.
So with the Republican Party shifting from a neoconservative, pro business party into a populist one, as polls here, here, here and here of the Base have shown, you would think a pro Trump successor would replace Cheney, right? The Republican Establishment won’t give us the party we want that easy. Kevin McCarthy and his allies are insisting a woman replace Liz Cheney, which on one hand is understandable, but surrenders to the Democrats’ game of identity politics. Instead of nominating a pro Trump conservative like Virginia Foxx (R, NC), House Republicans have joined ranks behind Rep. Elise Stefanik, a New York moderate who does not have the MAGA Movement’s best interests.
Deemed a “rising star” by the Republican National Committee, Stefanik is a young face with old ideas. Replacing Liz Cheney with Elise Stefanik will barely change anything. Aside for the fact that Stefanik has toned down anti Trump rhetoric, the differences between Cheney and Stefanik may as well come down to their hair color. Both Cheney and Stefanik are centrists who have shown little fight to the Democrats, and are more interested in pleasing lobbyists instead. Elise Stefanik and Liz Cheney are two sides of the same coin, and it is a coin certainly owned not by the Republican Base. According to the American Conservative Union, Elise Stefanik received a 41% score on her 2019 conservative voting record. Stefanik got an even worse voting record of 19% from the Conservative Review. In 2020, Heritage gave her a 56% grade on her voting record, which is far below the standards Republicans should be at in Congress. On immigration, Stefanik is not much better, receiving a mediocre C- on her votes to secure our borders. When Stefanik does vote on immigration, it’s usually voting with the Democrats to defend the DREAMers, increase green cards for foreign workers taking jobs at Big Tech firms, or in favor of granting amnesty to farm workers. Elise Stefanik even voted against President Donald Trump’s border wall, calling a border wall “unrealistic” on May 10, 2017. On trade, arguably the issue that sealed Trump’s victory in the Rust Belt, Stefanik took the now familiar Establishment approach, criticizing Trump’s tarrifs on China, and vocally vocally opposing Trump’s demands for NATO to pay its fair share.
If you thought it couldn’t get any worse, think again. Elise Stefanik even defended Robert Mueller’s probe of the Trump Administration’s connections to Russia, saying “I will continue to be an outspoken supporter of the Mueller investigation, which I believe is best equipped and our best hope to get to the truth. I disagree on [Trump's] attacks on law enforcement and the Department of Justice." On social issues, Elise Stefanik voted for the Equality Act, an extreme bill that would end traditional gender norms as we know it. But the lesson from all this is the wrong one. Trump and his allies have passionately endorsed Stefanik to replace Cheney, lying through their teeth that she’s some great defender of the Trump agenda. Despite a proven record of Stefanik’s weakness when it matters, the number one person learning the wrong lessons here is Donald Trump himself.
President Trump deserves some of the blame for the GOP nominating the pro Equality Act, anti border wall and Mueller defender Rep. Elise Stefanik too. He chose to put the "rising star who did a GREAT job defending me on television" over an actual conservative replacement to Liz Cheney. The former president praised Stefanik after her performance against Trump’s first impeachment, calling her “A new Republican star!”
Likely because of Trump’s known attitude of liking whoever says nice things about him on TV, Trump decided to put his needs first over the Base’s, sealing the deal for Stefanik Wednesday, proudly endorsing her to replace Cheney. The lesson in all of this is Republicans must put their Base first. We cannot count on a spineless Establishment hack like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to do this, but can we trust President Trump to either? When President Trump hires sworn enemies of the America First movement like a man who also said nice things on TV, John Bolton, we should have questions. When President Trump defends a GREAT friend, Lindsey Graham, as being “strong on borders and tough on crime”, we should have questions.
Finally, when President Trump proudly endorses Stefanik, the so called rising star who has voted against the MAGA Movement at every chance, we need to wake up. Republicans need to realize Liz Cheney will be replaced by someone barely any better in Stefanik. Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, and apparently not even Donald Trump can save the Base from the whims of the Establishment. We have to do it ourselves.