A Woman Among Cowardly Men
Liz Cheney's appearance with Harris in Ripon yesterday was inspiring. It was maddening, too.
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Citifield nine that day;
the score stood two to zero, with but one inning more to play.
But the Mets, as usual, managed to find a way.
Saving our own Bill Kristol from emotional decay…. Happy Friday.
Liz Cheney, Alone
by Tim Miller
“Thank you Liz!” the crowd shouted, drowning out the former congresswoman who had come to Ripon, Wisconsin to deliver the most unlikely cri de cœur in political memory.
Cheney endorsed Harris weeks ago. But this was the first time she spoke at an official Harris for President event. There she stood, stern but emotional, positioned behind the seal of the office her father once held—a crowd of appreciative Democrats before her.
It was a powerful scene. It was deserved. And it was overdue. Cheney has earned a moment with flowers and applause for her willingness to call out the threat posed by Trump. Yesterday she finally got it, replete with a few choked back tears.
But the visible emotions passed quickly. This was not a time for valedictory celebration. There is real business before us. Nobody understands that more than Liz. For her, this isn’t about ego or pageantry. She earnestly believes it’s the most important thing she will ever do. Her dad said as much.
On Thursday, she spoke in stark and powerful terms. First, she reiterated that her values and policy views haven’t changed, and they needn’t change, to make this endorsement.
I was a Republican even-before Donald Trump started spray tanning. I am a Ronald Reagan conservative.… Above all else, I know that the most conservative of conservative values is fidelity to our Constitution. I tell you, I have never voted for a Democrat. But this year, I am proudly casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Then, she laid out the clear choice before the country.
In this election, a broad coalition has come together to support Vice President Kamala Harris. Now, we may disagree on some things, but we are bound together by the one thing that matters to us as Americans more than any other, and that's our duty to our Constitution and our belief in the miracle and the blessing of this incredible nation… So, today I ask all of you here and everyone listening across this great country to join us. I ask you to meet this moment. I ask you to stand in truth to reject the depraved cruelty of Donald Trump. And I ask you instead to help us elect Kamala Harris as President
As I processed this speech, I couldn’t shake the sad spectacle hovering over it. Given the stakes and the unimpeachable arguments presented, it is striking that Cheney is so alone among her peers.1
Back when Charlie helmed this newsletter, he wrote a series about the singular bravery of Mitt Romney. “Romney, Alone.” “Romney, One Man Alone.” “Romney, Alone Again.”
In the series’ final installment he wrote this:
Almost alone among his colleagues, Romney seems focused on the verdict of history. . . . What would happen if three or four—or eight or nine—Republicans senators joined Romney? How would Trump react to a critical mass of senators who pushed back? What would happen if a half dozen senators who remembered the legacy of Margaret Chase Smith joined together to condemn “Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear”? Would Trump tweet insults at them all? And how would their Senate colleagues react then? As the impeachment inquiry progresses and we find more evidence of exactly what Trump did with regard to foreign interference in U.S. elections, we may well find out. Until then, Romney stands alone. Again.
Today, Romney doesn’t stand alone. He stands on the sidelines. Rather than focusing on the verdict in November, he prefers to try and ensure he is “in a position after this election to have some influence on the direction of our party in the future.”
God (and Liz) willing, when this election is over there will be something left to influence.
Mike Pence wasn’t in Ripon either. But he was there in spirit. In absentia, Trump’s former vice president received a spirited round of applause from the Democrats in Wisconsin after Cheney congratulated him for refusing to violate his constitutional oath. (Democrats applauding Mike Pence. Yes, you read that right.)
The list of others who were missing is too long and too depressing to enumerate, so I shan’t. Instead, I’ll return to The Bulwark’s persistent yawp. After all these years and all these disappointments it remains impossible to process that at this moment, with everything on the line, it is Liz, alone. How could it be? How can they risk putting Donald Trump back in the Oval Office after he ate well-done cheeseburgers in front of his TV while a mob he sent ransacked the Capitol, assaulted police, and tried to hang his vice president?
How????
As long as I live I will never fully comprehend it. There should have been a line of honest and wise men a mile long standing behind Cheney on Thursday. But their cowardice, their venality, their shameful abdication of responsibility only served to make this moment in Ripon more powerful.
Because instead of that mile-long line of men, there stood two women with vanishingly little in common. There they were, in the place where an honest, abolitionist Republican party formed, in political unity, bound by a mutual love of country and a commitment to its best ideals.
Two women standing in the breach to protect the country from the men trying to tear it apart.
Two women alone, standing together for all of us.
Disastrous Disaster Relief
by Sam Stein
There has been a fair bit of ink spread in recent days on how the government can and should respond to natural disasters. Deservedly so. Helene is the deadliest hurricane since Katrina—and we’re far from having a final death toll, let alone a full sense of the extent of the physical damage.
President Joe Biden spent this week going to affected states and communities. Donald Trump is set to appear in Georgia with Brian Kemp, his frequent GOP foe, to address relief efforts happening there. Kamala Harris met with FEMA officials and impacted families. Everyone in power wants to project the image of being attentive to the situation.
But beyond judging how our leaders are responding now, voters must assess what they will do in the future, both to try and lessen the impact of these types of events and manage the bureaucracies responsible for handling the aftermath.
In that vein, here are two worthwhile items to read this morning. The first is from Politico, which reports that back in 2018, when he was president, Trump balked at providing disaster relief to wildfire-ravaged California because of the state’s Democratic leaning. Only after officials showed him that heavily damaged Orange County had a boatload of Trump supporters did he relent. This, we should note, wasn’t conveyed to the publication by an anonymous Trump aide, but by Mark Harvey, Trump’s senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff.
“We went as far as looking up how many votes he got in those impacted areas . . . to show him these are people who voted for you,” said Harvey, who is now endorsing Harris.
Another ex-Trumper turned Harris backer is the source of the other item worth reading this morning. Olivia Troye, a national security official under Trump, went on Greg Sargent’s podcast and relayed that among the people Trump considered as a replacement for Harvey after he left his post was Christina Bobb.
Bobb has had quite the trajectory over the past few years. She was an anchor at One America News Network, then became a prominent spokesperson for Trump’s efforts to deny the election results and even became entangled in the FBI investigation into his handling of government documents. She was among those indicted in the Arizona fake electors plot and is also part of the RNC’s “election integrity” program. One thing notably not on that resume: expertise in disaster relief and preparedness.
Quick Hits
BIG JOBS NUMBERS: Hot off the press. . . . The economy added 254,000 jobs in September, far surpassing the expected 150,000 gain. The unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent, beating the expectation that it would hold steady at 4.2 percent. Most significantly, wages are at +4 percent in the past year, compared to roughly 2.5 percent inflation.
EGGER GETS RESULTS: Just hours after Andrew went off on the dockworkers for going on strike and holding the U.S. economy hostage, a deal was announced between the longshoremen’s union and the United States Maritime Alliance. Under the deal, union workers will reportedly get a 62 percent wage increase over six years while negotiations will continue over the future of automation in the field. The workers have agreed to return to the job until at least January 15. So, crisis averted. And frankly, we’re glad to see it. Proof once more that when it comes down to it,
collective bargainingbrowbeating from Egger is what gets results for workers.JUST BEAT IT: A curious one from the New York Times yesterday. The Gray Lady reports that Rep. Mike Lawler, who is one of the tighter House races this cycle, wore blackface when dressing up as Michael Jackson back in 2006. Lawler, who was a college student at the time, has issued a statement sort of apologizing for it. But he also called it flattery. He’s a huge MJ fan and apparently has been since he was a kid. Which, okay…. This wasn’t 1987. Jackson definitely had had some social stigma attached to him by 2006. But, I guess it’s fair to continue to recognize and celebrate his artistic genius. What was weirder, perhaps, is what the Times buried in the piece:
“In 2005, as a high school senior, Mr. Lawler flew from New York to California to attend parts of Jackson’s criminal trial. The pop star had been charged with molesting a 13-year-old boy at his Neverland Ranch; the case ended in acquittal.”WHAT CAN BARACK DO FOR YOU: Former President Barack Obama will hit the trail for Harris in the closing month, according to the Harris campaign. Obama’s first event will be this coming Thursday in Pittsburgh. From there he is set to “crisscross the country” in battleground states. Obama tends to try and maximize his events around when voting actually is happening, which makes his appearances a bit more selective and often later in the cycle. Now . . . let’s see what Michelle has in store.
Cheap Shots
Nothing but love and respect for Kinzinger, Duncan, etc., etc., but y’all know what I mean.
"Two women standing in the breach to protect the country from the men trying to tear it apart.
Two women alone, standing together for all of us. "
Two women standing there yesterday, but just wait until you see all of the women showing up at the polls to back up both Liz and Harris. Women will save our country, mark my words!
Crazy thing: I’ve been in the US Navy for over 23 years (joined at 17, now am an Officer) and every time I got promoted we reaffirmed our oath to the Constitution. We never took an oath to a person. The abject cowardice displayed by so many people is gobsmacking. Fear of their constituents is not reason enough to not do the right thing. I’ve been in situations plenty of times where the stakes were personally high but I still did my duty instead of taking the easy, cowardly way out. That way usually only leads to more problems down the line anyway. I cannot understand these pusillanimous “men.”