Cheney: GOP becoming cult of personality
Republicans are being warned against becoming a ‘‘cult of personality’’ as they prepare to tighten Donald Trump’s grip on the party by replacing a senior congresswoman with a loyal supporter of the former president.
Liz Cheney, who criticised Trump for stoking the attack on the US Capitol by his supporters, said the party was at a ‘‘turning point’’ as she faces removal from her leadership role next week.
A Trump-backed opponent is also preparing to try to oust her from Congress in next year’s midterm elections.
Other moderate Republicans said it appeared Trump was winning the party’s civil war as many senior figures backed his false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.
The 74-year-old former president remains the kingmaker thanks to strong grassroots support six months after he lost to President Joe Biden, leaving disgruntled Republicans wary of speaking out in case they suffer the same onslaught as Cheney.
A vote is being prepared for next Wednesday to remove Cheney as Republican conference chairwoman, the party’s third most senior position in the House of Representatives. Elise Stefanik, a 36-year-old congresswoman from New York, is being lined up to replace her.
Unlike Cheney, Stefanik excused
Trump of blame for the January 6 riot and voted that day to reject the election results from Pennsylvania that sealed Biden’s victory.
Cheney, 54, daughter of the former Republican vice-president Dick Cheney, launched a last-ditch appeal to the party in an article for the Washington Post, a newspaper viewed with hostility by Trump supporters as part of the reviled mainstream media.
‘‘The Republican Party is at a turning point, and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution,’’ she wrote. ‘‘I am a conservative Republican, and the most conservative of conservative values is reverence for the rule of law. The question before us now is whether we will join Trump’s crusade to delegitimise and undo the legal outcome of the 2020 election, with all the consequences that might have.’’
She urged Republicans to support an independent inquiry into the events and causes of January 6, not a broader review as backed by Kevin McCarthy, the party leader in the House, to include far-left violence following last year’s Black
Lives Matter protests.
‘‘We Republicans need to stand for genuinely conservative principles, and steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality,’’ Cheney warned.
‘‘There is much at stake now, including the ridiculous wokeness of our political rivals, the irrational policies at the border and runaway spending that threatens a return to the catastrophic inflation of the 1970s.’’
She added: ‘‘Reagan formed a broad coalition from across the political spectrum to return America to sanity, and we need to do the same now. History is watching. Our children are watching.’’
Cheney’s fate appears sealed, however, after McCarthy was recorded on an open microphone before a Fox News interview saying, ‘‘I’ve had it with her’’. Steve Scalise, the House whip and number two in the House hierarchy, declared that Stefanik should replace her.
Cheney won a vote of confidence in a secret ballot of Republican House members by 145 to 61 in February. Her senior colleagues argue that she is entitled to dissenting views but continues to spend too much time criticising Trump when the team should be unified against Biden.
‘‘House Republicans need to be solely focused on taking back the House in 2022 and fighting against Speaker Pelosi and President Biden’s radical socialist agenda, and Elise Stefanik is strongly committed to doing that,’’ Lauren Fine, a spokeswoman for Scalise, said.
An analysis by the FiveThirtyEight website showed that Stefanik voted with Trump 77.7 per cent of the time compared to 92.9 per cent for Cheney.
Stefanik touted her credentials yesterday, pointing to her A-plus rating from the National Rifle Association and posting a video in which Trump praised her, saying: ‘‘I thought, she looks good, she looks like good talent, but I did not realise, when she opens that mouth you are killing them Elise.’’
Trump issued a fresh endorsement on Thursday, emailing supporters to say: ‘‘Liz Cheney is a warmongering fool who has no business in Republican Party Leadership. We want leaders who believe in the Make America Great Again movement, and prioritise the values of America First. Elise Stefanik is a far superior choice, and she has my COMPLETE and TOTAL endorsement for GOP Conference Chair.’’
The wider Republican rift beyond Washington was shown when the editorial board of the conservative National Review argued that Cheney was not the real problem. ‘‘The problem is that Republicans consider her obviously true statements to be controversial. It isn’t Cheney who is preventing Republicans from moving on and repairing the wounds from the 2020 election. It is Trump himself. Six months after being defeated, he still won’t drop it.’’ Cheney has also been backed by The Wall Street Journal.
Biden said yesterday that he thought the Republican party was ‘‘in the midst of a significant sort of mini-revolution’’ as it purged antiTrump voices.
He added: ‘‘It seems as though the Republican party is trying to identify what it stands for. I think Republicans are further away from trying to figure out who they are and what they stand for than I thought they would be at this point.’’
‘‘The Republican Party is at a turning point, and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution.’’
Liz Cheney