Need more like Cheney
Sure, politicians want to be reelected. They will rarely take risks that run contrary to their political self-interests. But it sure seems like Republicans — with one glaring exception — have been much more inclined to sell their souls in recent years than Democrats.
Consider the confirmation hearings of Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, specifically picked for their pre-approved views on abortion. But when Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, was given a fig-leaf promise that they would not overturn Roe v. Wade, she jumped at the chance to confirm them and save her seat, betraying the abortion rights movement and millions of women. (Her claim that she was bamboozled by Kavanaugh is hardly credible given the amount of information attesting to his views.)
But remember former Democratic senators Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota? They all knew their vote against Kavanaugh might cost them their seats. They opposed him anyway.
Regarding the House select committee’s investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection and President Donald Trump’s attempted coup, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming is the sole Republican on the committee still seeking reelection. She has made clear she does not care whether it costs her in November. She readily agrees that her colleagues have lost their nerve. As she said during an interview with CBS News’s Robert Costa:
Cheney: We have too many people now in the Republican Party who are not taking their responsibilities seriously, and who have pledged their allegiance and loyalty to Donald Trump. I mean, it is fundamentally antithetical, it is contrary to everything conservatives believe, to embrace a personality cult. And yet, that is what so many in my party are doing today.
Costa: Is the Republican Party a personality cult? Cheney: I think that large segments of it have certainly become that.
Republicans are so petrified about the committee and its work that the MAGA crowd’s network of choice, Fox News, won’t even broadcast Thursday’s hearings live. (Disclaimer: I am an MSNBC contributor.)
Well, it’s easy for all the Democrats to join the Jan. 6 inquiry, right? Not in all cases. The New York Times reports: “Representative Elaine Luria knew from the start that serving on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol could be a political liability in her Republican-leaning district in Virginia’s tidewater.” Sure enough, the MAGA lackeys are using her service on the committee against her. She knows she may lose. “You just want to thumb your nose at that because that’s not the most important thing about serving,” she told the Times. “If I don’t get reelected because of this, that’s OK.” No Republican but Cheney says the same these days.
With the passing of Arizona senator John McCain — who delighted in his “maverick” label and voted for gun regulations and immigration reform and against repeal of the Affordable Care Act — and the retirement of other Republicans with backbone (e.g., Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona), the party now consists almost entirely of timorous sheep willing to fall in line behind the MAGA base regardless of the consequences.
That’s odd considering Republicans are supposed to believe government is not the be-all and end-all of American life. They routinely sneer at government and attempt to starve it of revenue, yet they mortgage what conscience they have to keep their seats and remain on a government salary. No private sector for them!
It did not used to be that way. President George H.W. Bush arguably lost his presidency because he thought raising taxes was for the good of the country. You have to go back decades before McCain to find a comparably brave character on the GOP side: Sen. Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, who stood up to fellow Republican Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin.
I asked political scientist Norman Ornstein about the disparity. “I use the cult frame,” he explains. “For Republicans who know better, they are scared they will be shunned, viewed as traitors, excommunicated and even threatened. Not just by party elites, Fox and outside radical groups — by their friends and circles back home.” Ornstein notes that not every Republican is so supine, pointing to Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Fred Upton of Michigan — both of whom decided not to run for reelection this year. Apparently, the longer a Republican pol lives in a bubble of conspiracy theories, white hysteria and victim-hood, the scarier it is to break with the “tribe.”
By contrast, Ornstein argues that, for Democrats, “the fear of backlash is less, and the desire to do the right thing, even if it is risky, is greater.” For one thing, Democrats tend to believe in government and hence are intensely motivated to get the policy “right” despite the career costs.
As the common saying goes: “Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line.” But falling in line is one thing; selling out every prior principle you once had, contributing to mass slaughter of children and undermining democracy are entirely different. Sadly, for too many Republicans, it’s only losing their seats and their right-wing TV spots that seem inconceivable.