When the news broke yesterday evening that former vice-president Dick Cheney had declared creepy Donald Trump a threat to democracy and that he would be voting for Kamala Harris, I wrote that this was major news. After all, Cheney was vice-president in the period 2001-2009 for two terms under George W. Bush and was reputedly the most powerful vice-president ever, amassing a degree of executive power and influence that no vice-president before him had. He was also a pillar of the Republican establishment. He had served as a congressman, a defense secretary under president George H. W. Bush, and chief of staff to president Gerald R. Ford.
And yet, when I tuned in to NPR’s news programs All Things Considered on Friday evening and Weekend Edition Saturday this morning, neither program, even though they both run for two hours, saw fit to find room to even mention this. Given that NPR’s audience skews older, I can only conclude that they felt that this would only be relevant to a much older demographic than even what they have, and that their audience may not even know who Cheney is or see any significance in his switching his allegiance
I am still surprised, though. After all, let’s look at the surviving Republican presidents, vice-presidents, and failed nominees for those positions. We have for president George W. Bush (2001-2009). For vice-president we have Dan Quayle (1989-1993), Dick Cheney (2001-2009), and Mike Pence (2017-2021). For failed presidential nominees we have Mitt Romney (2012), and for failed vice-presidential nominees Sarah Palin (2008) and Paul Ryan (2012). Of these seven, four (Cheney, Pence, Romney, and Ryan) have said that they will either not vote for creepy Donald Trump (Pence, Romney, Ryan) or gone further and said that they will vote for Harris (Cheney). Of the other three, only Palin has said that she will vote for creepy Trump. Bush and Quayle have been silent, though privately Bush has expressed dismay at some of the things that creepy Trump has said. (‘Bush and Quayle’ sounds like the name of an outdoors magazine.)
That is a stunning number of defections from the top echelons of the Republican party and Cheney’s defection tops the list, a position that would be displaced only if Bush did the same. Compare this with the Democrats, all of whom have rallied around Kamala Harris. So even though Cheney has not been in office since 2009, I thought his defection should be big news, not just to really old people like me. But it looks like I am wrong.
As an aside, I was surprised that creepy Trump did not offer Palin a high-profile position in his administration, or at least an ambassadorship. She struck me as just the kind of person he would like, photogenic, vacuous, with a penchant for rambling word salads and making in-your-face provocative culture war statements. But despite that snub, she is still sticking with him. Maybe she is hoping that if he gets back in power, this time he will repay her loyalty.
I think I agree with robro’s comment over on Pharyngula. I’m old enough to remember when there were principled conservatives with whom one could have rational discussions, and maybe even learn a thing or two; but I have no reason to believe that the Cheneys are such folks. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that the Cheneys’ announcements are just part of a ploy to regain control of the Republican Party.
billseymour @ # 1: I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that the Cheneys’ announcements are just part of a ploy to regain control of the Republican Party.
My thoughts exactly when Liz C started pushing back against Trumpismo.
When viewed as a Bush-Cheney power grab, that ploy seemed obviously guaranteed to fail, just as it did.
Our esteemed host: I must be really, really old
No, you just have a functional memory. That’s both so 20th-century, and un-American.
The Cheneys understand that for the Republican Party to regain respectability their lunatic fringe (Maga et al) needs to be curbed. The most likely way to do that is to support their opponents. The enemy of my enemy is my friend sort of stuff. Likely true for most of the Repugs supporting Harris.
I don’t know if they are right or not. It may require the democracy supporting Repugs to form a new party and try to reduce the MAGAs to a fringe party. That would probably need a few election cycles, whereas, the current strategy may only need one.
The rule of opportunistic regressive bastards is based on the population having worse memories than goldfish.
I have always been poor at recalling names and faces, but I recall political atrocities very well.
I even recall Biden as senator agreed to confirm the worst of the supreme court judges, after he dismissed credible accusations of poor conduct.
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Regarding Palin; I have always assumed her fall from favor was because of her age; she is no longer young and so she has lost her appeal with the conservative men.
you mentioned cheney memories and being real old, and i assumed this would be about his association with the nixon administration. i remembered he had something to do with them, but a lil wikipedia doesn’t show much. he was on rumsfeld’s staff when he was the guy appointed by tricky dick to destroy an agency he disliked.
Palin’s problem is she hasn’t updated her schtick since she burst on the scene and now she’s about as relevant to the daily Republican clownshow as Psycho is to scary movies. She’s basically 70’s wallpaper.
It’s the non-lunatics in the Republican Party who are now the fringe!
I was stationed in Alaska during the Sarah Palin years. You folks have absolutely no idea how despicable that woman was. As mayor, she utterly mismanaged a town of 6k--and while building a hockey rink on privately owned land without permission, her own house got built with materials that look exactly like those used in a hockey rink (stair railings, wood floor, etc.). As governor of a state of 600,000 (smaller than many cities), she appointed her friends to various political jobs that they utterly mismanaged, appointed others to dairy industry jobs that they mismanaged into bankruptcy, got busted not only for paying herself per diem to live in her own home, but also for flying members of her family around on vacations.
She also tried to get a librarian fired for not banning the books that she, personally, did not like. Her husband did most of the governing because she was a fan of her tanning bed and massages. She and her daughter verbally assaulted a teacher for supporting a different candidate. She laughed while her son cut the brake lines on school buses, her one daughter attended wild parties at other people’s homes and boats and destroyed them, and another daughter got pregnant at least three and arguably six times.
Then there’s the matter of her oldest son who was a dead ringer for her old boyfriend, who mysteriously died because there was water in his airplane engine. And her mystery pregnancy that somehow never showed when she was on vacation but swelled to look 20 months pregnant for the camera, where she was speaking in Dallas and claimed to be in labor and leaking amniotic fluid with her seventh pregnancy (either the 7th or 8th month depending on her retelling the story) that at various tellings she claimed to know or not know had a birth defect. Instead of checking herself into a world-class hospital in Dallas not even five minutes’ drive from the hotel, instead flew from Dallas to Seattle-Tacoma where she had a 7-hour layover, then flew to Anchorage. Did she stop at Anchorage to get checked out at that major hospital? No, she drove an hour over icy roads to give birth in a tiny little community clinic that’s not even rated or equipped to handle such pregnancies.
In other words, she was a wannabe Trump. Word salad, nonstop lies, incompetence, and all. No wonder those two grifters found each other--he tried to ride on her coat tails by inviting her to New York and taking her out for pizza (which he ate with a knife and fork) and she strapped on a pair of fantasy-porn fake breasts and tottered around on six-inch heels.
The only thing Palin had going for her is that with enough donor money for professional hair and makeup, and $10k of donor money for fancy clothes, she gave some conservative men pants-feelings. But her looks are gone now.
Oh, and another trait Palin and Trump have in common: they are both dumber than dirt and too lazy to learn. They also share a sadistic streak and a joy in hurting people. But as a male candidate Trump’s still viable candidate even in oompa-loompa orange makeup with a really bad combover and ridiculous lifts in his shoes, Palin is a 60-something woman and her looks have slipped to “average”, so she’s no longer a viable candidate.
Dick Cheney hasnt been relevant even within the Republican party since probably the second Obama term -- i doubt this endorsement matters to anyone currently voting for Trump.
The Republicans who could have made a difference already showed their position when it was impeachment time.