Support The Bulwark and subscribe today.
  Join Now

Liz Cheney’s Fight Isn’t Over

The MAGA GOP may be done with her, but she’s not done with them.
August 16, 2022
Liz Cheney: Martyred For Democracy | Not My Party with Tim Miller

[Editor’s note: Watch Not My Party every week on Snapchat.]

Tim Miller: Liz Cheney died so that our democracy can live.

Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock): Thank you, Liz.

Miller: This is “Not My Party,” brought to you by The Bulwark. This week as the Fates commanded, Liz Cheney, the patron saint of Not My Party, was sacrificed at the altar of election-fraud hysteria.

ATF agent on South Park: Your freaky, religious cult will not succeed in its plan.

Miller: For the last few months she has done what any public servant with a conscience should have felt obligated to do.

Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer in Dark Shadows): It’s a desperately rare combination.

Miller: She told the truth about how the leader of her own party brought about the first non-peaceful transfer of power since the Civil War. She eviscerated all those who tried to spin and evade this dark reality. She investigated those responsible for crimes against our country, and she held in the palm of her hand the manhoods of all those who whispered behind the scenes that they knew she was right but were too scared to say so in public.

Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler on Parks and Recreation): It’s despicable.

Miller: Because of their cowardice she’s lost her seat in Congress. If more had stood with her, maybe things would’ve been different.

Spencer Strasmore (The Rock on Ballers): Ah, f***. We got bigger plans.

Miller: Standing alone in speaking truth to power is the only reason she was defeated. Want proof? If you look at her policy record she was “severely conservative,” to borrow a phrase. She voted with Trump over 90 percent of the time. Hell, I used to hate Liz Cheney because of policy. She came from the far-right part of the party, while I was a moderate. I was pissed that she sold out her gay sister when she opposed same sex marriage back in 2013.

Liz Cheney: This is just an issue on which we disagree.

Jacob Marley (Alec Guinness in Scrooge): I almost forgot.

Miller: Cheney was so conservative that her opponents in the primary didn’t even pretend to run against her on policy, and the woman that ran her out of congressional leadership in D.C., Elise Stefanik, used to be a moderate RINO cuck like me, until she flipped on a dime and went full MAGA. (If you want all the tea about Elise, I spilled it in Why We Did It.)

Maury Beverley, the Hormone Monster on Big Mouth: She knew what she was doing.

Andrew Glouberman on Big Mouth: Yeah, she did.

Miller: Nope. Liz’s only crime was speaking a politically inconvenient truth. So Republicans went out and did what they always claim liberals do when someone isn’t being PC: They canceled her. And it was the most shameful, pathetic cancellation that I’ve ever seen in politics.

Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons on Invincible): Pathetic.

Miller: But here’s the thing. For Liz, the fight isn’t over. Before the campaign ended, she ran this ad from her father, Darth Vader, er, Dick Cheney.

Dick Cheney: In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual that was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. . . . He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters.

Homeland Security tech (Nick Arapoglou in The Accountant): Again, play it again.

Dick Cheney: He’s a coward. . . . He’s a coward. . . . He’s a coward.

Peter Griffin from Family Guy: Ah, yeah.

Miller: Dick is somebody who knows a thing or two about words of aggression, and his message is clear: Liz may have lost this battle, but the war she is fighting is to ensure that—

Dick Cheney: Donald Trump is never again near the Oval Office.

Miller: —and her efforts might even win us the Donald Trump perp walk of our dreams. Come on, orange is his color.

Algernop Krieger on Archer: Stop. My penis can only get so erect.

Miller: This war against Trump is the one that Liz is vowing to win. She’s gonna follow that traitorous charlatan to the gates of Hell if she has to. And God love her for it. So as far as I’m concerned, for Liz Cheney—

Kimberly Guilfoyle: The best . . . is yet . . . to come!

Miller: We’re taking a one-week break for the end of summer. We’ll be back with “Not My Party” this fall for the midterms and LSU Tiger Football. We’ll see you then.

Tim Miller

Tim Miller is The Bulwark’s writer-at-large and the author of the best-selling book Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell. He was previously political director for Republican Voters Against Trump and communications director for Jeb Bush 2016.