John notes below the perversity of the Dick Cheney endorsement of Kamala Harris, wondering if DC Republicans have fully succumbed to Stockholm Syndrome. As I have said many times, I understand the many conservatives who think Trump is unfit for the presidency, though for some reason many such people (Bill Kristol, Charlie Sykes, David French, Max Boot, etc) seem to have decided that dislike of Trump somehow entails reversing their previously long-held positions about issues. Most of the never Trumpers now line up with the left on abortion, climate change, the Supreme Court, taxes, etc.
Can’t you just feel the sheer joy of a Cheney endorsement?
The case of Dick Cheney is even more curious than most never Trumpers because his claim that Trump represents the most serious threat to the Constitution ever raises a question: What is the premise of that hyperbole? Is it that the executive branch has grown too powerful? Well yes—heartily agree. Yet the paradox here is that Trump in his first term kept trying to get Congress to step up and assert its constitutional powers to solve some of our major problems, rather than using executive ukase as Obama and Biden liked to do (and no doubt Harris will too, if she wins). And Trump’s appointees to the Supreme Court have struck the most serious blows against executive power, especially in striking down the Chevron Doctrine.
I wonder if Cheney agrees with that decision. If the executive branch is too powerful to be trusted in the hands of Donald Trump, maybe Cheney ought to look in the mirror a bit longer. After all, as both a congressman in the 1980s, and then as vice president, Cheney was one of the leading champions of maximum executive power, and produced serious work in support of the “unitary executive” idea.
It is reasonable for people who can’t stand Trump to leave the top of the ballot blank (that’s what George W. Bush has essentially hinted), but to endorse Harris is an act of political suicide. Do they they think they’ll actually have any influence in a Harris administration? How much influence did they have in the Biden administration? And lots of DC Republicans have a long history with Biden, but none with Harris. This is the kind of contempt for the Republican base that has caused so much of the Republican base to hate the Busheoisee (as I call the old establishment Republicans).
I have always admired Dick Cheney, and conversed with him a few times before he became vice president. I can’t help but speculate, however, that the real reason he hates Trump so much is a sense of wounded pride, at being rejected so forcefully by Trump, and criticized for his role in promoting the disastrous military strategy after 9/11. That criticism is overdone, perhaps, but this is no excuse for recommending that Republicans commit political suicide by voting for Harris.
Forget thinking Obama or someone attached a “kick me” sign to Cheney’s backside. Cheney is bidding to become the Jack Kervorkian of the Republican Party all on his own.
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.