Was the campaign appearance by Liz Cheney in support of Kamala Harris a singular striking moment in U.S. history, or was she the cusp of a wave of conservative Republicans jumping ship from Donald Trump, a RINO (Republican in Name Only)? It looks like the latter to me.
Almost simultaneously with their joint appearance at Ripon College Thursday, 20 local Republican leaders came forward for Harris. And several major business leaders in Milwaukee lead a group doing the same thing.
At the national level, a dozen like-minded coalitions have come forward, all thoroughbred Republicans, to make sure Trump never returns to the Oval Office. Examples are Evangelicals for Harris, military leaders for Harris, Republicans for the Rule of Law, former GOP governors and former Congressional members.
There was a strong air of bipartisanship at Ripon and genuine respect for the principled stance of Cheney in the face of MAGA attacks designed to overturn the 2020 election.
She lost her Congressional career to Trump’s revenge for her brilliant co-leadership of the Congressional hearings on his murderous Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. His orchestrated attack was trumped up to overturn his election loss by throwing out the votes of American voters, yours and mine.
It was more than a little symbolic that the mostly Democratic crowd in the heart of Republican territory, where the Republican Party was born in 1854 in a little school house in Ripon, Wisconsin, chanted, “Thank you, Liz! Thank you! Liz, Thank you, Liz!”
For the moment, party identification was brushed aside in common opposition to Donald Trump.
When Cheney, the most prominent Republican leader standing up for the traditional principles of the Republican Party, took the stage at the college outdoor amphitheater, she crossed the red line for the first time in her 58 years of life by announcing that she would be voting for a Democratic candidate for president.
She stressed that she and Harris would not agree on many issues, but had come together in defense of the U.S. Constitution. That’s the bottom line for Cheney. The Constitution calls for a peaceful transition of power from the loser of the election to the winner.
Before endorsing Harris, Cheney reminded the audience that she is a real conservative who is pro-low taxes, pro-business, pro-life and pro-strong defense.
Despite Trump’s fabrications to the contrary, the 2020 presidential election was free and fair. Wisconsin was a test case. More than 60 lawsuits, recounts and audits proved beyond all doubt that Joe Biden had won Wisconsin by a narrow margin.
Several of the biggest election deniers in Wisconsin were local, and I challenged them to bring me just one fraudulent ballot to support their positions. As a journalist, I asked one of them six times. Not a single bad ballot was forthcoming. Two of the election deniers bombed out in subsequent elections.
There are many big issues in this presidential campaign, but the commitment to fair elections have to be near the top. The scariest scenario facing the United States is that we have a repeat of Trump’s desperate tactics to seize power even if he loses on Nov. 5.
Trump still insists that he won in 2020 and that the election was rigged. He has presented no evidence whatsoever to make that case. It’s just hot air.
In the recent vice-presidential debate, his running mate J.D. Vance refused to answer the question of whether Trump won or lost in the 2020 balloting. His Democratic opponent, Tim Walz, called Vance’s evasion as “a damning non-answer.”
Trump himself has recently and repeatedly refused to commit to honor the outcome of the coming election.
For Cheney and for Harris, that stance by Trump and Vance defines their anti-democratic selves. They want power, whatever unconstitutional abuses it takes.
I drove to Ripon from West Bend to hear the two strong leaders from opposite parties publicly agree to keep our constitutional principles alive, win or lose. It was an historic moment. Their language and logic did not disappoint. “I ask you to meet this moment,” Cheney beseeched the people in attendance, “to reject the depravity of Donald Trump.”
“Help us right the ship of democracy.”
Harris said that she had taken an oath of office six times to preserve, protect and defend the constitution. “Therein,” she said, “lies the difference between Donald Trump and me.”
Ominously, she added that there is “an honest question about whether he (Trump) would uphold the constitution” if he lost on Nov. 5.
The last thing this country needs is battalions of lawyers abusing our legal system to challenge the outcome of the 2024 election.
If Cheney leads enough principled Republicans, the dissidents from MAGA, to put “country over party,” we won’t have to face that drama. Trump will lose decisively.
