Liz Cheney: ‘Not Only Am I Not Voting for Donald Trump, but I Will Be Voting for Kamala Harris’

Annie Karni, reporting for The New York Times:

During an event at Duke University, Ms. Cheney told students that it was not enough for her to simply oppose the former president, if she intended to do whatever was necessary to prevent Mr. Trump from winning the White House again, as she has long said she would.

“I don’t believe we have the luxury of writing in candidates’ names, particularly in swing states,” Ms. Cheney said, speaking to students in the hotly contested state of North Carolina. “As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this and because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris.”

The room erupted in cheers after she made her unexpected announcement.

I have so much respect for Cheney. Her father too, but he’s retired. Liz Cheney took this principled stand while she was one of the most influential Republicans in the nation. I get being a conservative, politically. I get being opposed to the Democratic Party, politically. Liz Cheney is a conservative and — like her father — endorses very different policies than Kamala Harris. But (lowercase ‘d’) democratic politics ought to be viewed very much like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs are in psychology. Some things matter more than others. And nothing — not climate change or the environment, not reproductive rights, and certainly not fucking tax rates — nothing matters more than support for democracy itself and the rule of law. The only way we’re going to get those other things right — which are really, really important — is through democratic governance and the rule of law.

Trump is 100 percent anti-Democratic-Party but he’s no conservative. I don’t support or endorse a Reagan/Bush/Cheney political viewpoint, but that viewpoint is coherent. Trump espouses no coherent views at all. He literally tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. He’s a criminal. He’s mentally deranged, decrepitly old, and failing before our eyes. “I don’t like Democrats” is — with Trump on the ballot and polling within the margin of error of winning — not high enough on the political hierarchy of needs to cast one’s vote for anyone but Kamala Harris.

If the Democratic candidate were a Trump-like decrepit crooked lunatic, I wouldn’t hesitate, for a second, to vote for, say, Republican Liz Cheney for president. None of this namby-pamby bullshit about “writing in” a non-candidate’s name. No protest voting for a third-party candidate. The next president is either going to be Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, and only one of the two believes in anything at all — anything — that this great country stands for.

★ Wednesday, 4 September 2024