Kagan, Cheney, Romney Repudiate Their Party, Warn of Existential Threat Trump Poses to US
...describe cowardice, hypocrisy, lies, and fealty to a would-be tyrant
In this blog I try to highlight and amplify issues and news that (I think) people need to hear about if we are to have a functioning, vibrant society, economy, and political culture.
My writing will my feelings and views, and try to provide context, but I also include a liberal smattering of quotes and links to material from reputable sources with editorial standards, so readers can wade into those issues in more depth if they choose.
Those links will take you to material created by people who spend all day gathering their facts from sources they have cultivated for years, and documents they have gained access to that you and I can’t.
In a sense, I am curating material for my audience. Thus the blog’s title, “Out-Takes and Sidebars.”
In that vein, this post will present you with content from Republicans who finally have had enough, and stood up to say, “this is crazy…my party (former party in some cases) is totally dysfunctional, corrupt, and heading towards enabling a narcissistic psychopath to become a dictator.”
I’ll highlight the warnings and admonitions from three people deeply rooted in Republicanism before Trumpism and MAGA took over the party, Robert Kagan, Liz Cheney, and Mitt Romney.
First, Robert Kagan: Kagan is a co-founder of the neoconservative Project for the American Future and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. As a member of the Foreign Affairs Policy Board, Kagan has been a foreign policy adviser to Republican presidential candidates and to Democratic administrations. He left the Republican Party in 2016 due to the party's nomination of Donald Trump and endorsed Hillary Clinton for president…
He wrote a breathtaking column in the Washington Post last week, titled, A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending. Kagan first asks if Trump can win. He then paints a picture of what a vindictive Trump unhindered by institutions he proved he could ignore and Republican legislators who follow his orders like the underlings of a mob boss would be like. Cronies and sycophants replacing career employees…press censorship…prosecution of those he feels wronged him in his first administration, and persecution of those he calls “vermin.” It’s a long article, but one I would highly recommend. Read it here.
Next, Liz Cheney: Daughter of former VP Dick Cheney, she represented Wyoming in Congress from 2017 until 2023. A conservative’s conservative, she voted with Trump 93% of the time. But she lost her primary race because of her efforts and vote to impeach Donald Trump for his actions (and inactions) on January 6, 2021. Despite her short tenure in Congress, she rose to be the chair of the House Republican Conference—the third-highest position in the House Republican leadership—from 2019 to 2021, when the Republican caucus ousted her from that role because of her stance on Trump. She served as co-chair of the January 6 Committee….
Her book, “Oath and Honor, a Memoir and a Warning” was released today. It is an inside look into the complicity, cowardice, and hypocrisy of individual elected Republicans, who obviously knew Trump lost the election but were willing to lie and cheat and steal to try to hold on to power.
Haven’t read it yet, but early releases show it to be a devastating tell-all and reproach of many former colleagues, prominent among them Jim Jordan,1 Kevin McCarthy, and new Speaker Mike Johnson.2
A host of sources can fill you in far better than I. I recommend checking out:
In The Guardian: ‘Bait and switch’: Liz Cheney book tears into Mike Johnson over pro-Trump January 6 brief … you can read it by clicking this link.
Listen to an interview with Cheney on NPR’s Morning Edition, or read the transcript, here.
CNN reports on Cheney’s book: Liz Cheney’s new book blasts GOP as ‘enablers and collaborators’ of Trump, whom one member called ‘Orange Jesus’…you can read and/or listen at https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/28/politics/liz-cheney-trump-mccarthy-book and find more here…
And finally, Mitt Romney: Former Governor of Massachusetts. The Republican nominee for president in 2012. Current Senator from Utah. The ONLY R Senator who voted to impeach in Trump’s first impeachment…one of 7 to do so in 2021.
A true conservative, who has often been a bit too weathervane-like in his policy positions for my taste,3 but who has been steadfast in his opposition to Trump.
The Atlantic’s preview of a book written by McKay Coppins based on extensive interviews and notes provided by Romney shares Romney’s breathtakingly honest and blunt criticisms of Senate colleagues who he calls out for dishonesty and cowardice…I’ve culled a few tidbits below, but you can go here to read the article.
Here’s a few teasers:
A text Romney sends to Mitch McConnell after receiving word from a Senate colleague warning of very disturbing social media traffic regarding the protests planned on the 6th conveyed by a high-ranking Pentagon official…which McConnell apparently ignored:
“In case you have not heard this, I just got a call from Angus King, who said that he had spoken with a senior official at the Pentagon who reports that they are seeing very disturbing social media traffic regarding the protests planned on the 6th. There are calls to burn down your home, Mitch; to smuggle guns into DC, and to storm the Capitol. I hope that sufficient security plans are in place, but I am concerned that the instigator—the President—is the one who commands the reinforcements the DC and Capitol police might require.” But McConnell never responds.
“ ‘A very large portion of my party really doesn’t believe in the Constitution.’ ...a few months removed from an attempted coup instigated by Republican leaders he was wrestling with some difficult questions. Was the authoritarian element of the GOP a product of President Trump, or had it always been there, just waiting to be activated by a sufficiently shameless demagogue? And what role had the members of the mainstream establishment—people like him, the reasonable Republicans—played in allowing the rot on the right to fester?”
[Romney] discovered…that his disgust with Trump was not unique among his Republican colleagues. “Almost without exception they shared my view of the president.” In public…they played their parts as Trump loyalists, often contorting themselves rhetorically to defend the president’s most indefensible behavior. But in private, they ridiculed his ignorance, rolled their eyes at his antics, and made incisive observations about his warped, toddlerlike psyche. Romney recalled one senior Republican senator frankly admitting, “He has none of the qualities you would want in a president, and all of the qualities you wouldn’t.”
One afternoon in March 2019, Trump paid a visit to the Senate Republicans’ weekly caucus lunch…[he] was met with a standing ovation fit for a conquering hero [AG Barr had just misrepresented the Mueller Report], and then launched into some rambling remarks…about the so-called Russia hoax and…the recent midterm elections and swung wildly from one tangent to another. He declared, somewhat implausibly, that the GOP would soon become “the party of health care.” The senators were respectful and attentive. As soon as Trump left, Romney recalled, the Republican caucus burst into laughter.
Romney had long been put off by Pence’s pious brand of Trump sycophancy. No one, he told me, has been “more loyal, more willing to smile when he saw absurdities, more willing to ascribe God’s will to things that were ungodly than Mike Pence.”
“…During a break in the proceedings [of Trump’s first impeachment trial], after the impeachment managers finished their presentation, Romney walked by McConnell. ‘They nailed him,’ the Senate majority leader said.
“…He turned to Josh Hawley…huddled with some of his right-wing colleagues, and started to yell…“You’re the reason this is happening!” …one reporter would recount seeing the senator throw up his hands in a fit of fury as he roared, “This is what you’ve gotten, guys!”
What bothered Romney most about Hawley and his cohort was the oily disingenuousness. “They know better!” he told me. “Josh Hawley is one of the smartest people in the Senate, if not the smartest, and Ted Cruz could give him a run for his money.” They were too smart…to actually think that Trump had won the 2020 election. [They] “were making a calculation that put politics above the interests of liberal democracy and the Constitution.”
“What happened here today was an insurrection, incited by the president of the United States,” Romney said. “Those who choose to continue to support his dangerous gambit by objecting to the results of a legitimate, democratic election will forever be seen as being complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy.” [Addressing]…the patronizing claim that objecting to the certification was a matter of showing respect for voters who believed the election had been stolen [Romney shouted] “The best way we can show respect for the voters who are upset is by telling them the truth!” Before sitting down, he posed a question to his fellow senators…“Do we weigh our own political fortunes more heavily than we weigh the strength of our republic, the strength of our democracy, and the cause of freedom? What is the weight of personal acclaim compared to the weight of conscience?”
“…as Romney surveyed the crop of Republicans running for Senate in 2022 [Blake Masters in AZ, Herschel Walker in GA, Mehmet Oz in PA] it was clear that more Hawleys were on their way. Perhaps most disconcerting was J. D. Vance, the Republican candidate in Ohio. “I don’t know that I can disrespect someone more than J. D. Vance,” Romney told me…“How do you sit next to him at lunch?”
Jordan tried to help Cheney off the isle as the rioters invaded, she told him, “Get away from me. You f*cking did this.
Of Johnson, Cheney writes that he “appeared especially susceptible to flattery from Trump and aspired to being anywhere in Trump’s orbit…When I confronted him with the flaws in his legal arguments, Johnson would often concede, or say something to the effect of, ‘We just need to do this one last thing for Trump.’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/29/speaker-mike-johnson-dishonest-january-6-brief-liz-cheney-book
Example: as a “moderate” Republican Governor in Massachusetts he implemented a very successful ObamaCare-like health care reform in MA before there was an ObamaCare. But instead of touting this accomplishment when running for President, he avoided it because the electorate in Republican primaries hated ObamaCare (or at least the “Obama” part of it).
Will do
Great article. Thank you