Members of the Wyoming state Republican Party have indicated that Rep. Liz Cheney’s vote to impeach President Donald Trump has jeopardized her political future. Many doubt that she will serve another term because of her decision to support the Democrats’ second impeachment attempt. It seems her desire to show how brave she is by voting to impeach a president after he has already left office was too much to resist.
The Washington Examiner noted, “doubts quickly surfaced about her viability in the 2022 GOP primary after she announced her support of impeachment and then led nine other House Republicans on Wednesday in voting to impeach Mr. Trump for inciting the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.”
Martin Kimmet, chairman of the Republican Party in Park County, Wyoming, said, “she couldn’t win a primary today for dog catcher.”
“I’ve gotten a lot of phone calls, more than you could count. I have not gotten one in support of what Liz Cheney did,” he added. “What she did was wrong. Period.”
Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has represented Wyoming in Congress since 2017. She won re-election in 2020 with 68.7% of the state’s votes.
Her decision to vote in support of impeachment flies in the face of her constituents and Republican votesr nationwide. A recent NBC News poll revealed that only 8% of Republicans favor another impeachment attempt.
Still, Cheney remains defiant. “I’m not going anywhere. This is a vote of conscience. It’s one where there are different views in our conference. But our nation is facing an unprecedented — since the Civil War — constitutional crisis,” she told reporters.
Quite dramatic, isn’t it? Trump is so horrific that the Civil War is the only comparable event to his supposed atrocities, according Cheney’s ilk.
After she cast her vote for impeachment, she told reporters that she planned to help lead the GOP back to a House majority.
“Once we get through this period, once we get through the inauguration, we will very much be focused on policy,” she said. “I’m laying out a positive agenda for the future, and it’ll be one that will allow us to get the majority back in two years. That’s what I’m focused on, and that’s what I look forward to our conference being able to accomplish.”
But it appears that Cheney might be overly optimistic about her future.
Cheney was not the only Republican to vote in favor of impeachment. Nine others also supported the idea.
But her eventual ousting is not an eventuality lacking significance. Indeed, one could easily view it as a harbinger of things to come in the conservative movement. We cannot ignore the fact that Liz Cheney is so establishment, she makes Mitt Romney look like Matt Gaetz.
The civil war between the establishment GOP and non-establishment conservatives has already begun. It is a conflict that will literally decide the trajectory of the Republican Party and the conservative movement. It appears that Cheney is poised to become a casualty of that war in 2022.
Cheney, like most in the NeverTrumper camp, is a relic of the movement championed by the likes of her father and other neoconservatives who dominated the right until 2016. She represents the version of the Republican Party that is still far too prevalent: the establishment that feigned concern over the worries of their constituents while only using their position to line their pockets and maintain their power.
Still, it is important to remember that while lawmakers like Cheney made their stance known publicly, others are still there to push the establishment agenda without revealing their true allegiances. These are individuals who may not have voted for impeachment, but still want to bring the party back to its pre-Trump days. Fortunately for the non-establishment faction, many of these folks have already exposed themselves. (See: Here’s a List of Every Republican Representative Who Voted to Override President Trump’s NDAA Veto and Here’s a List of Every Republican Senator Who Voted to Override President Trump’s NDAA Veto)
It will be up to voters to determine whether or not these lawmakers remain in office in 2022. While most voters typically do not pay much attention to primary races, conservatives will have to break this habit if we wish to see people in Congress who will prioritize their constituents over themselves.
Let me know what you think in the comments below!
