Hostages Released Unharmed From St. Cloud Bank

National Review

Liz Cheney and the GOP, &c.

Political courage is a rare thing, like all courage. That’s why we celebrate courage (some of the time), I think. If courage were more common, we might shrug at it, or even fail to notice it. Liz Cheney, the Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, has demonstrated political courage. In last November’s presidential election, Donald Trump won Wyoming with 70 percent of the vote — his highest percentage anywhere. Wyoming has a small population and just one congressional district. Liz Cheney is that House rep. Despite Trump’s immense popularity in her state, she voted to impeach him, and she will not stop telling the truth about November 3 (Election Day), January 6 (the day of the assault on the Capitol), and so on. As a result, she will probably lose her leadership position in the House GOP. And why shouldn’t she? She is out of step with her party — which is greatly to her credit, I think. Listen to her colleague Anthony Gonzalez, a Republican congressman from Ohio: “If a prerequisite for leading our conference is continuing to lie to our voters, then Liz is not the best fit. Liz isn’t going to lie to people. Liz is going to say what she believes. She’s going to stand on principle. If that’s going to be distracting for folks, she’s not the best fit. I wish that weren’t the case.” Yes — but it is. On the way to the rostrum to give his recent speech to Congress, President Biden greeted Cheney with a fist bump — which led Donald Trump Jr. to tweet, “Republican” warmonger Liz Cheney gives Sleepy Joe a fist bump after he delivered a radical socialist vision for the future of America. So glad she’s in the GOP leadership, I guess they wanted to be more inclusive and put Democrats in there too?!? Bill Buckley used to say, “It’s amazing how serious political issues can be boiled down to bumper stickers: ‘Better Dead Than Red’; ‘Better Red Than Dead.’” Similarly, it’s amazing how one tweet can go so far in summarizing the current state of our politics. Liz Cheney responded, I disagree strongly w/@JoeBiden policies, but when the President reaches out to greet me in the chamber of the US House of Representatives, I will always respond in a civil, respectful & dignified way. We’re different political parties. We’re not sworn enemies. We’re Americans. That kind of language — that kind of thinking — is from another age. The tweet might as well have been written in Sanskrit. At a Utah GOP convention last Saturday, delegates booed Mitt Romney, and heckled him as a “traitor” and “communist.” Romney asked the poignant question: “Aren’t you embarrassed?” (Answer: no.) Millions of Americans are definitionally at sea. They have no idea what a communist is, or a conservative, etc. They are badly misled by the talkers they listen to. In the 2012 Republican primaries, Rick Perry damned Mitt Romney as a “vulture capitalist.” Today, some Republicans are damning Romney as a “communist.” If Mitt thinks the world has gone stark raving mad, I don’t blame him. Some days, I’m inclined to believe that Matt Gaetz, the talk establishment, and the rest of Trump Nation are right: There is no place for the likes of Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney in the GOP. Not today’s. The Republicans have become a Trump party, through and through. Is there room for a third party, of any significance? Probably not. America seems to do two at a time. But a third party is awfully attractive to a lot of conservatives. By “a lot,” I don’t mean the kind of numbers that Trump & Co. can attract. But enough to fill a few booths at Denny’s? Yes. Maybe even rent out the whole restaurant. • In a recent column — primarily about Northern Ireland — Daniel Hannan said something that really rang my chimes: . . . Britishness is uniquely suited to the modern age. It is creedal rather than ethnic, resting on values rather than blood. Which values?…