Enjoy Liz Cheney while you can, Democrats. One day you'll hate her

One of the tragedies of Republicans electing a demagogue as their standard-bearer six years ago is the loss of talent such as Liz Cheney.

She had it all – the intelligence, the toughness, the conservative bona fides, the love of country – to one day be a Republican president of the United States.

On Tuesday the MAGA crowd gleefully waved goodbye to her as she lost her reelection bid.

Media makes her loss look like a win

Cheney voted for Donald Trump’s impeachment and refused to go along with the lie that Arizona Republican candidate for governor Kari Lake laps up by the bucketful – that our last presidential election was stolen.

Now Cheney has lost her seat in Congress.

There are fringe benefits for bucking the Republicans. Virtually the entire media establishment now venerates Cheney as the conquering hero. With The New York Times, Washington Post, NBC News and CNN tossing garlands at her departing chariot, what was defeat can feel like triumph.

Another view: How Republican cancel culture eats its own dead

“I would not frame (Liz Cheney as) ... losing. It is a loss for Wyoming, the Republican Party, and the nation.”

– Dan Rather

“Liz Cheney may have lost tonight, but she has earned a place amongst honorable Americans who put country over Party and political ambition. She will be remembered and admired as a profile in courage.”

– Ana Navarro

Liz Cheney should enjoy this while she can, because if she doesn’t know by now – and I suspect she does – the love of Democrats is conditional. Conditional in the extreme.

Democrats will hate Liz Cheney soon enough

Cheney will continue her quest to rope the legs of the Trump colossus and bring it crashing to the ground. But mark my word: The day is coming when the Democrats will hate her.

The daughter of Dick and Lynne Cheney is not blind to the radicalism festering on the left, that has Trump-like worked to undermine our American institutions and traditions.

While Trump was trampling presidential norms and leading Pickett’s Charge on the Capitol, Democrats were laying waste to our major cities, turning violent criminals out of jail, apologizing in high-minded op-eds for the street thugs who throw bricks through storefronts and urine on cops.

They were calling The Founders illegitimate and, by association, their ideas illegitimate. They were dividing and subdividing Americans with their loopy theories of intersectionality and white fragility. They even injected it into the public schools and the corporate boardrooms and your human resources training.

I’m sure, absolutely sure, that the daughter of Dick and Lynne Cheney noticed.

Her parents were among the smartest in D.C. 

I bring up her parents, because only old-school Republicans can truly appreciate what formidable opponents these two were to the political left. Hostile politicians and journalists who thought they could roll the Cheneys got a quick lesson in close-quarter combat from two of the savviest minds in Washington.

The Cheneys commanded the facts and commanded the language, and I witnessed many times when they walked into hostile interviews and walked out with the heads of their interrogators.

Younger Democrats will not remember just how much their party disliked the Cheneys – especially the former vice president – but the left put their white-hot hatred to paper and film.

I remember the field day media had when Dick Cheney showed up at the 60th anniversary of Auschwitz in a snow parka and snow pants.

“The vice-president ... was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snowblower,” the Washington Post’s Robin Givhan sniggered.

It takes courage to challenge badness

At an outdoor event in a frigid winter storm, Cheney was the one person fully dressed for the elements. He was then leading the fight against global terrorism after Jihadists planted airplanes in the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Sitting among those feckless Western European leaders who contribute little to defense, Cheney was alone in dress and probably comprehension of the kind of evil that murders thousands of civilians – the same kind of evil that informed the deeds at Auschwitz.

That was his tribute to the day.

But Democrats will no doubt remind that Cheney was the guy who promoted torture – waterboarding - of global terrorists.

Yes, there are many things we’ve done in war that give Americans pause, such as FDR’s internment camps and Harry Truman vaporizing Japanese cities. When you confront existential threats in real time you are prone to misjudgment – sometimes serious misjudgment.

There is bad in all degrees in this world and confronting it takes guts.

Neither side appreciates what Liz Cheney did

Cheney’s daughter saw the dark soul of Donald Trump and had the fortitude to confront it. She knows what should be plainly obvious to all Republicans after Jan. 6, that Trump is a blight on conservatism and a cancer to the party and country.

When it was clear that her fight against Trump had sacrificed her reelection, she pulled from the playbook of former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake and authored her own departure.

She went out with fist raised.

As for the Democrats, do not misread their reaction. They revere Liz Cheney today because she is undermining their opponents – the Republican leader and party – not because she had the gumption to stand against party and stand up for her own ideals.

Like Republicans, Democrats don’t appreciate that kind of courage.

And if I must prove that to you, I can with two words:

Kyrsten Sinema.

Phil Boas is an editorial columnist with The Arizona Republic. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Liz Cheney won't remain Democrats' darling for long