Leaders are not born; they are made.…..at least, that’s what we are told. Unless, of course, you are a believer in power handed down ancestrally in a monarchistic system.
Hardly anyone to whom I have spoken over the last couple of years believed that Elizabeth (Liz) Cheney, the Daughter of former Wyoming Congressman and Vice President to George W. Bush, would emerge as a true leader and, for all intents and purposes, a hero in my view.
I have matured enough to use the (H) word to describe a Republican, something I previously thought was as paradoxical as walking in an east-westerly direction.
Liz Cheney was the Number three Republican in the House Republican caucus. She hails from a ruby-red state that has no Democrat elected statewide.
Wyoming is a Republican stronghold in presidential elections, having voted Democratic just once since 1952, that was the 1964 Presidential landslide victory of Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater.
Apart from not wanting to live in an autocratic society ruled by Donald Trump, Liz Chaney had no reason to sacrifice her seat in Congress and her lofty position in American politics. But she did.
In the entire Republican Caucus that lived through the terror of the Donald Trump-directed neanderthal horde that swarmed through the nation’s seat of Power on January 6th, 2021, only ten (10) had the courage to vote to impeach Trump.
Liz Chaney and Adam Kizinger are probably the two most well-known of the lot. Of the ten who honored their oaths and defended the Constitution, not one remains in Congress; they have all been voted out by Republican voters in their respective states.
The others are Rep. Tom Rice, South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District: Rep. Dan Newhouse, Washington’s 4th: Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, Ohio’s 16th: Rep. Fred Upton, Michigan’s 6th: Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, Washington’s 3rd: Rep. Peter Meijer, Michigan’s 3rd: Rep. John Katko, New York’s 24th: Rep. David Valadao, California’s 21st:
Plausibly, it is arguable that from New York to California and states in between, Republican voters have demonstrated that they are either too stupid to recognize clear and present danger or they crave it.
This is the reason that people like Cheney, Kinzinger, Rice, and others are heroes in my book, even though I would not cast a vote for either one for elected office because of the party to which they are affiliated.
When functionaries within a political movement are willing to overthrow the established order solely for the purpose of holding power, that political movement is a danger to the country.
The Republican party is a danger to America!!!!
“A Republican House majority in 2025 would be a “threat” to the country because of the way Republicans have disregarded the Constitution to back former President Donald Trump.” (Liz Cheney)
The former Republican leader was speaking to CBS News Sunday morning when she gave the dire warning. Cheney told the program host the House of Representatives must not be overseen by a Republican majority in 2025.
The shocking reality is that not only is the Republican party run-away primary leader, Donald Trump is poised to be re-nominated as their standard bearer for the presidency in 2024 despite 91 felony charges pending against him, but the entire party poses a severe threat to the world democracy and stability.
Cheney warned that if Donald Trump were ever given the chance to be president again, he would never leave office. Based on his past and present behavior, the one-term twice-impeached, Trump has demonstrated that that is his intention.
This is not a situation where people flock to a certain person because he or she has a magnetic personality. It is even that they clamor for this clown because he is smart, intelligent, and convincing. The man has the personality of a frog.
So, what is the reason that Republican voters are clamoring once again to place the nuclear codes in the hands of this dunce and are willing to destroy the constitutional order to do so?
But why?
Is this purely that Republican voters are willing to live in a dictatorship as long as the dictatorship is run by the Republican party, the party of their choice? They have made it clear that that is not it. By getting rid of Cheney, Kinzinger et al. Republican voters from coast to coast have shown that they will eat their own if they do not stick to the cult of Donald Trump.
What is it about Trump that they like so much?
Not in generations has a Republican running for the presidency been as openly racist and xenophobic as Trump. His voters dream of a time when whites did as they pleased to other Americans not like them without consequence. They are ready to jettison the Constitution and live under an autocratic régime run by a tin pan, a semi-literate tyrant with the morals of a brothel madam.
Trump’s voters, older, white, non-college-educated, are not a majority in the nation of 230 million, but there are more than enough selfish, stupid, unfocused others with a vote that are not focused on what’s important.
Therein lies the problem..
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.