LIZ CHENEY WOULDN'T BE DOING THIS IF THE TRUMPERS WERE NEOCONS, WOULD SHE?

I have nothing good to say about Liz Cheney's career up to now, but I respect what she's doing at this moment to try to preserve democracy in America. I support her in this effort, although I don't expect to support her in any other effort.

But why is she doing it? I'd like to believe she's doing it simply because she believes our public officials should be elected legitimately. But I have my doubts.

The Trumpers think democracy can be dispensed with. The pre-Trump GOP worked hard to minimize Democrats' voting strength wherever they could, but the Trump GOP is taking this to dangerous new levels. It would be nice to believe that that's primarily what's bothering Cheney.

But I'm sure she's also noticed that Trumpists brag about their rejection of "globalism" and "endless wars." Trump, in his new blog, called Cheney "a warmonger whose family stupidly pushed us into the never-ending Middle East Disaster, draining our wealth and depleting our Great Military, the worst decision in our Country’s history." Trump's acolytes talk the same way: A Matt Gaetz press release from 2020 is titled "Gaetz Slams Forever Wars, Praises President Trump’s America First Foreign Policy."

Is that the real reason Cheney has made opposing Trump her life's work?

In her speech on the House floor last night, she suggested that without ever saying it. The speech was full of Reaganite neocon buzzwords:

"In 1992, I sat across a table from a young mayor in Russia and I listened to him talk of his dream from liberating his nation from communism. Years later, for his dedication to the cause of freedom, Boris Nemtsov was assassinated by Vladmir Putin's thugs.

"In Warsaw – in 1990 – I listened to a young Polish woman tell me that her greatest fear was that people would forget. They would forget what it was like to live under Soviet domination. That they would forget the price of freedom.

"Three men, an immigrant who escaped Castro's totalitarian regime; a young man who grew up behind the Iron Curtain and became his country's minister of defense; and a dissident who spent years in the Soviet gulag have all told me it was the miracle of America captured in the words of President Ronald Reagan that inspired them.

"And I have seen the power of faith and freedom. I listened to Pope John Paul II speak to thousands in Nairobi in 1985. And 19 years, I watched that same pope take my father's hands, look in his eyes and say God bless America...."

(John Paul is the Reaganites' favorite pope. There's no contest.)

"As the party of Reagan, Republicans have championed democracy, won the Cold War, and defeated the Soviet communists. Today, America is on the cusp of another Cold War, this time with Communist China. Attacks against our democratic process and the rule of law empower our adversaries and feed Communist propaganda that American democracy is a failure. We must speak the truth, our election was not stolen, and America has not failed...."

Liz Cheney is doing the right thing for the wrong reason. I'm glad she's doing the right thing. But I think it's likely that she's doing it because she wants to restore neoconservatism's place in the GOP, not because she wants to save deomcracy.