Seth Meyers: for today’s Republican party, ‘living in reality is considered heresy’

House Republicans voted Wednesday to strip Liz Cheney, the party’s third-ranking member in the House, of her leadership positions, as part of the purge on members of the party who don’t publicly back Donald Trump’s baseless claims on 2020 election fraud.

It was a striking portrait of the Republican party’s loyalty to the former president, since Cheney, the daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney, has been a staunch conservative in Congress since the Bush years. “Cheney cheered on illegal torture and disastrous wars, helped pave the way for Trump and stood by him throughout the 2016 election and his first his impeachment, but she’s not being punished for any of that,” Seth Meyers explained on Late Night.

“She’s being punished for acknowledging the reality that Trump lost in 2020 and that there was no widespread fraud, for criticizing him for inciting a violent insurrection to overturn the results,” he continued. “Living in reality should be the bare minimum for holding public office, and yet today’s GOP is so batshit crazy simply living in reality is considered heresy.”

Following the ouster, which occurred in a voice vote during a closeddoor meeting, House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy, a Trump acolyte, praised the party’s unity and added, “unlike the left, we embrace free thought and debate”.

“You guys are the ones purging someone from GOP leadership for questioning party dogma,” Meyers retorted. “You’re like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz – it turns out the cancel culture you were looking for was right there inside you all along.”

Stephen Colbert

“Cheney has been outspoken in her criticism of former president ‘A Man for All Treasons’, and his big lie that the 2020 election was stolen by digital democratic Hugo Chavez zombies,” Stephen Colbert recapped on Wednesday, “but the real problem for GOP leaders is that Cheney kept inconveniently bringing up the attempted coup.”

The Wyoming congresswoman’s refusal to dismiss Trump’s role in inciting the 6 January siege on the Capitol angered McCarthy, who insisted after Cheney’s ouster that the GOP remains a “big tent party”.

“Oh it’s a big tent alright,” Colbert mocked, “there’s room for QAnons, Pizzagaters, people afraid Jewish space lasers, everyone’s welcome. Except Liz