de·fen·es·tra·tion noun
1: a throwing of a person or thing out of a window
2: a usually swift dismissal or expulsion (as from a political party or office)
Memories of January 6th will always include broken windows. Our first dispatch from inside was cellphone footage of a battering ram ultimately breaking through frosted glass. A veteran attempting to disrupt a constitutional procedure was shot and killed through a broken window leading to the House Chamber. MAGAnauts climbed higher to use a baseball bat to break glass in the arch above one of the entrances door to create a way around the police barricade. A broken window can be a sign of a riot, a media trope indicating a personal threat, or a catchphrase for Rudy Giuliani’s preferred style of policing.
They didn’t actually throw Liz Cheney through any of the broken windows in the Capitol, but the breaking of those windows led to her defenestration.
There is endless commentary on the prime actors in this drama: the vacuity of Kevin McCarthy, perfidy of Elise Stefanik, or integrity of Liz Cheney. I want to consider this last one. It is undoubtedly better to not repeat the Big Lie than to repeat the Big Lie. Obviously she should not pretend that the election was stolen from history’s least popular incumbent president because of an interlocking series of disproven and increasingly desperate conspiracy theories. But just because all of the people supporting The Big Lie deserve scorn does not mean that Cheney deserves praise.
He who rides the tiger is afraid to dismount -Ancient Chinese Proverb
My predictions and fears about the executive branch under Trump all came true. What I was wrong about was the Department of Justice, the apparatus of the Republican Party, and the behavior of Congress. I thought that there would be more spine. Gerrymandering with surgical precision will, on a long enough timeline, eliminate moderates. The radicalization then becomes a feature, not a bug. It is a feedback loop that is part of the endless campaign. The race-to-the-bottom has now gotten to the point that claiming that a not-close election was stolen, refusing to support the first President since Hoover to lead your party into losing the Presidency, House, and Senate. The problem is that these people are afraid to dismount from the dangerous creature they used to retain power. But Cheney decided to ride the tiger just as much as any of the rest of the GOP.
In his rallies, Donald Trump often butchered a version of Aesop’s Scorpion and the Frog fable to malign non-white immigrants. But the GOP would be the better recipient of this message. You will be stung, it is just a matter of when. This should not be surprising, Donald Trump has discarded dozens of high-profile relationships over the decades when they stop serving his id.
“I have not disobeyed my sovereign. I truly believe no man in England is safer than myself.” - Sir Thomas More, later beheaded (in A Man for All Seasons)
“Dad, [that] I’m sitting here today in the U.S. Capitol, talking to our elected professionals, is proof that you made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States of America in search of a better life for our family. Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth.” - Alexander Vindman, fired.
The Trump Era did create moments of high-profile visible bravery. But the actions of quiet career people who are entirely beholden to political folks who will absolutely fire them - Sally Yates, Fiona Hill, Marie Yovanovitch, Alexander Vindman -are more noble than the McCains and Romneys and certainly Anonymous.
Liz Cheney is not one of them. She is not Thomas More giving a warning that if you cut down the forest of laws to get to the devil you won’t be able to withstand the wind. She is the one who refused to listen and is learning the hard way.
The GOP cannot say out loud that it is because she will not repeat The Big Lie that Liz Cheney is being punished. They claim it is because the is not ready to move on. This is rich from a party who has weaponized nostalgia to seize power, used ‘Make America Great Again’ in three separate Presidential campaigns, held dozens of hearings about Benghazi - the most similar but much more minor security catastrophe - for nearly a decade following the deaths of the same number of Americans, and still talk about how the real bombshell that will blow Hillary’s emails or Hunters laptop is just around the corner. But up until Cheney’s OWN life was threatened, she was fully on board.
Think on the character of the people one wishes to please, the possessions one means to gain, and the tactics one employs to such ends. How quickly time erases such things, and how many has it wiped away already. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6:59
This seems to be the very first time Cheney is experiencing consequences for not just repeating red meat. Liz Cheney blew up her relationship with her sister to win election in 2013, when the country-but not Wyoming Republican primary voters- had already swung towards the legalization of same-sex marriage, which came just two years later. That is enough to tell you what this ‘stance’ really was: a work.
I have a sister. If someone told me that gaining power meant burning that relationship, I would tell them to kick rocks. Family is more important than winning a primary for a house election, especially for the party that yammers on about ‘family values.’ I know what it is like to face professional and personal repercussions for taking an inconvenient stand on principle. The fallout is often miserable and leads to disappointment and shattered ambition. But the thing worse than those consequences is capitulation. The complicit will, in this case, live long enough to see how they are judged by history. But if they ever looked inside, they will find themselves lacking.
This has not been one of the public mea culpas from some of the former apparatchiks who led us here. For these, I have tremendous respect and much forgiveness. Cheney is merely gambling the the Trumpers will lose and that she will look good. She is gearing up for a Cheney/Ryan 28 ticket, not owning a Profile in Courage.
Best,
Kingman
Thank you for not applauding Liz. She doesn’t deserve it. And defenestration is a great word - big fan of the defenestration of Prague.
After reading the title, I thought the post was going to be about your mom.