Alongside a couple of right-wing hotheads and Trumpian junkies, a majority of the House Republicans were giddy and enthusiastic in removing Cheney from the #3 leadership post
Only a few hours ago, today Friday May 14, 2021 House Republicans chose a cheerleader for former President Donald J. Trump, Rep. Elise Stefanik (of New York), to replace the truly conservative Liz Cheney (of Wyoming).
“It’s official- Liz Cheney has been fired from House Leadership and I was proud to vote against her,” Rep. Lance Gooden (Republican from Texas), yelled, literally on Twitter.
Alongside a couple of right-wing hotheads and Trumpian junkies, a majority of the House Republicans were giddy and enthusiastic in removing Cheney from the #3 leadership post within the Republican Party’s congressional conference.
Cheney’s “crime”? She challenged the errant, divisive and destructive lies and ways of the impeached former President Trump.
That one; Trump, the messy and pugnacious god of the nativists and violent groups and rings of conspiracy theorists who have captured the soul of the increasingly race-baiting political group who nominally later under the banner of the Republican.
Liz, the 54-years old first daughter of the former Vice President Dick Cheney (under George W. Bush) has repeatedly condemned Trump for his toxic and false and provocative lies which claim baselessly that the presidential election was “stolen” due to (wait for it!) “massive voter fraud”. Trump riled up the violent mob that set upon and attacked the U.S Capitol on January 6, 2021— with the core goal of interfering and interrupting the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
The mob was assembled by Trump and his cronies —Including his “lawyer” Rudy Guiliani who raised the graeco-roman era “trial by combat”! as an option available for them and the congressional representatives at the Hill. He said this, openly, a few blocks from that crazy and shameful afternoon near the Capitol.
The removal of Cheney is setting the stage for a wider showdown between the forces of democratic rights and multiracial empowerment against the followers of power-drunk thin-gods, loquacious, racially-polarizing and quasi-autocratic movements filled with the attackers of police officers, violent insurrectionists, nihilists and other uniformed hustlers.
She was a portrait in courage and principle on January 6 when she condemned Trump and his goon squads for desecrating the congressional dignity and grace of the temples of American democracy.
In the light of the latest developments, the critical question becomes: Will those groveling, linguini-spine Republicans continue to roar and chant “how high” whenever Trump screamed “Jump!”? It clearly seems evident that they will.
Liz, this Wednesday at the House Republicans shameful fix to oust the courageous congresswoman, told her partisan, hypocritical colleagues that “If you want leaders who will enable and spread his destructive lies, I’m not your person; you have plenty of others to choose from. That will be their legacy…. But I promise you this, after today, I will be leading the fight to restore our party and our nation to conservative principles, to defeating socialism, to defending our republic, to making the GOP worthy again of being the party of Lincoln.”
And, she warned that Trump’s rhetorics and nonsense about “stolen election” were threats to the democratic culture of these United States, damages the rule of law and short changes the citizens, diminishes the GOP brand, etc. Cheney was emphatic when she stated that:
“Trump is seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work — confidence in the result of elections and the rule of law. No other American president has ever done this. The Republican Party is at a turning point, and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution. In the immediate wake of the violence of Jan. 6, almost all of us knew the gravity and the cause of what had just happened — we had witnessed it firsthand.
"I am a conservative Republican, and the most conservative of conservative values is reverence for the rule of law. Each of us swears an oath before God to uphold our Constitution. The electoral college has spoken. More than 60 state and federal courts, including multiple Trump-appointed judges, have rejected the former president’s arguments, and refused to overturn election results. That is the rule of law; that is our constitutional system for resolving claims of election fraud.
"The question before us now is whether we will join Trump’s crusade to delegitimize and undo the legal outcome of the 2020 election, with all the consequences that might have. I have worked overseas in nations where changes in leadership come only with violence, where democracy takes hold only until the next violent upheaval. America is exceptional because our constitutional system guards against that. At the heart of our republic is a commitment to the peaceful transfer of power among political rivals in accordance with law.”
I believe that the fight ahead of the 2022 mid-term elections and the 2024 presidential elections in the U.S has become very interesting.
*Dr. Chido Nwangwu, the author of the forthcoming 2021 book, MLK, Mandela & Achebe: Power, Leadership and Identity, serves as Founder & Publisher of the first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper on the internet, USAfricaonline.com, and established USAfrica in 1992 in Houston. He is recipient of several public policy and journalism excellence honors, civic engagement and community empowerment awards and has appeared as an analyst on CNN and SKYnews. He served as an adviser on Africa business to Houston’s former Mayor Lee Brown. @Chido247