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Dick Cheney did it. Arnold Schwarzenegger did it. Adam Kinzinger did it, of course. So did Jeff Flake. Mike Pence walked right up to the edge but ultimately declined to take the plunge, but even George W. Bush’s daughter, Barbara Pierce Bush, and Dick Cheney’s notorious daughter Liz (that is, former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Jan. 6) jumped right in. And now Liz Cheney is calling upon the biggest prize of all, former President George W. Bush, to join the party for the uniparty and endorse Kamala Harris for president.
Fox News reported late Friday night that Liz made her plea on The New Yorker Radio Hour, which was an appropriate forum for an establishment mouthpiece to issue a call to a former president to affirm his commitment to that establishment. After all, the New Yorker is a pillar of the political and media elite class that finds Donald Trump so intensely threatening.
Cheney expressed puzzlement over why Bush hadn’t already come out for Kamala. “I can’t explain why George W. Bush hasn’t spoken out,” she said, “but I think it’s time, and I wish that he would.” Fox notes, however, that “the former president and his wife, Laura, have said they have no plans to endorse a presidential candidate.” Yet even that was a semi-endorsement of Harris, as it was conspicuous in the extreme that the eighteenth Republican president in American history was refusing to endorse the nineteenth in the latter’s bid for reelection.
Remember also that Bush was steadfastly silent during the eight years of the Obama administration, fastidiously declining to criticize his successor. When Trump became president, however, suddenly Bush decided that it was just fine for a former president to criticize the man who currently occupied the Oval Office.
Whether or not Bush heeds Cheney’s call, the defections have not all been on one side. While a significant group of high-profile Republicans have endorsed Harris and the Democrats endorsing Trump are fewer in number, nothing can match the spectacle of a scion of Democrat royalty, a son of Robert F. Kennedy himself and the bearer of his very name, endorsing Donald Trump. Then there is Elon Musk, who just a few years ago called Trump a “dumb**s,” and a former candidate for the Democrat nomination for president, Tulsi Gabbard.
This is not just a matter of a few switches on both sides. We are in the midst of a political realignment unlike anything we have seen since the 1850s (which, incidentally, was the run-up to the Civil War). For roughly thirty years until that tumultuous decade, America had two major parties, the Democrats and the Whigs. Gradually, however, the slavery issue became so heated that the old political alignments were no longer relevant.
Both the Democrat and Whig parties had Northern and Southern wings, and thus pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions. As slavery inexorably became the defining issue of American politics, this became impossible to sustain. In 1854, a party devoted to the abolition of slavery, the Republican party, was founded; the Whig party disintegrated as anti-slavery Whigs joined the new party and pro-slavery Whigs joined the Democrats. Meanwhile, as even Northern Democrats embraced the idea of “popular sovereignty,” which held that any state or territory could have slavery if they voted for it, anti-slavery Democrats and Whigs joined the Republicans.
Ever since Donald Trump was first elected president in 2016 amid stiff internal opposition from the John McCain/Mitt Romney wing of the Republican party, Trump’s supporters have decried the “uniparty,” the Washington establishment of Democrats and country-club Republicans who support the status quo and don’t see any need to Make America Great Again. There didn’t (and doesn’t) seem to be what George Wallace once called “a dime’s worth of difference” between Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell on the one hand and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi on the other.
Meanwhile, the supporters of the freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, and the ability of Americans to live their lives without the all-powerful, all-pervasive interference of the Nanny State have been gravitating to Trump. This is as large a political realignment as the one America experienced in the 1850s; it may be even larger. Whatever names they might bear, the parties of the post-Trump era are shaping up to be one that stands for statism, socialism, and internationalism and another that upholds freedom, individual rights, and American sovereignty.
George W. Bush may decline Liz Cheney’s entreaties to endorse Kamala Harris; it would be refreshing, however, for him to reaffirm publicly his commitment to freedom, individual rights, and American sovereignty. Whether that is as important a priority to Bush as it should be, however, remains unclear.
Kevin says
George Bush got us in a war in Iraq- in fact demanded a war. As stupid as it was to start a middle east war, what was totally inexcusable was Bush’s decision that the IED factory in Iran would not be bombed to save the lives of American troops being killed and maimed by IEDs.
Mo de Profit says
Well said sir, he is an establishment stooge along with anyone who’s family are nothing but political hacks.
Steve says
One reason is that Bush 41 was the biggest cheerleader for the happy horseshit about Saddam Hussein as a “Moderate Arab” during the 1980s, along with TIME magazine (a news magazine for Biden’s intellectual peers) and James Baker. He led demands to censure and punish Israel after it destroyed the Iraqi nuclear site at Osirak before it went on line. Even Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons during the Iran Iraq War and and against Kurdish civilians did not make a dent in his fatuous narrative. His ambassador in Baghdad, April Glaspie practically told Saddam Hussein that the United States would not react if he invaded Kuwait. He did and suddenly the other Arab states in the Gulf (especially Saudi Arabia) were in full panic mode. Bush 41 was too dishonest and too much of a political hack to admit the truth to the American people- the first Gulf War was merely to put the Emir of Kuwait back on his throne and that our “Arab Allies” would only support a war of limited objectives. While the war was a success, the peace (which left Hussein in power in Iraq albeit under sanctions) was a let down which helped allow Slick Willy to whop his ass in 1992. Dubya fought the Second Gulf War in large part to vindicate Poppy.
Roark says
Perhaps the war was necessary. People forget how destabilizing Hussein was in the region. He had to be put down like the mad dog he was.
However, everything was done without any reason and consideration for the future. They left Iraq a vacuum which Iran has filled.
The country should have been molded into a pro-Western nation. Instead, they completely squandered the opportunity as they did in Afghanistan.
Don’t get me started. The country is run by subversive morons.
Jo Locke says
Old Geroge has the backbone of an ameba. It would not surprise me if he votes and supports Harris. He was very solicitous toward the Obama’s at his father’s furneral – disgusting and so inappropriate for the situation which was suppose to be about his father’s life, not for Geroge to steal the limelight…
john blackman says
cheney is such a miserable individual , i guess when you have terminal TDS and then canvas backup from other TDS sufferers who wont commit to anything but the political elite who dont like outsiders getting a cut . bush and his ilk are part of the problem not the solution . considering trump has almost no support from his own party tells you all you need to know about the conservatives who who supposedly represent their electorates , they dont ! hopefully she will go down in the anus of history , [ sorry that was meant to be annals ]
Spurwing Plover says
Get a Life you old Ding-Bat and go back to your Creepy Castle Halloween’s over
Allan Goldstein says
Liz Cheney … and her sister Lez … are embittered incels.
Gordon says
I have studied the Cheney endorsement of Kamala in great detail and also modeled in a potential George W endorsement. Because the Cheneys and Bushes are such towering figures in the American political landscape I spent countless hours of painstaking research to determine what effect their endorsements may have on the current election. My statistical analysis shows that Kamala will pick up 148 votes due to these endorsements, with 73 of them being family members, counting second cousins and in-laws, and 12 of the 148 live in one of the seven swing states. On the other side Trump will add 28,342 voters to his tally, which includes 28 of either Cheney or Bush family members with 8,761 voters in swing states. This is clearly a net benefit to Kamala and she should continue touting these endorsements.
jeremiah says
Going for the inbred vote. Look at rove. Doesn’t really need the banjo.
These people think they are so important.
Steve Kardas says
Poor Liz, she’s become mentally ill. Sad……
internalexile says
Maybe she redefines the phrase “bitter clinger.”
Intrepid says
Dizzy Lizzy Cheney, desperate is as desperate does.
Jeff Bargholz says
Lez Cheney and the Bush. Just thinking of them in a room together makes me want to puke.
Roark says
When so-called Republicans endorse a radical Marxist/Islamist, you realize that you have been completely conned.
Fortunately, we have woken up and are driving these subversives out of our party. The purge is underway.
jeremiah says
Except for the very last part I agree. We really don’t have a counter to the deep state manipulating, doing what they want. They are still the undead who have a 1000 ways to win and we have no counter to the left controlling the culture and the press.
MARYLOU LEEMAN says
Hear, hear!! sound the clarion call!!
Kathy S says
I live in Maine, where the Bush family retired to their seaside estate. If the town is anything to judge by, it is a bastion of Leftist thought with churches proudly displaying Trans/gay/BLM flags and (now) Harris/Waltz signs. Have met a few people thru Uber who were enroute to swanky, $500 a night beachside hotels, and they seemed nice enough, but still had that “I’m better than you” air.
However, the people of the working-class are pleasant and the food – though way overpriced, is good. The place is very clean: no homeless in sight, and certainly no open addiction allowed. Well-kept homes and yards and mostly new cars, majority hybrid or electric.
They are a wealthy town, for sure. Old money (at least American style, that is). I always feel a bit shabby pulling into a store for gas in my 7 yr old car polluting the air, lol, but at least the working class are very pleasant and not indifferent or downright rude, like the equally-leftwing but falling apart bc of unfettered migration and drug-addict full Portland area. There, the working class seems resentful, or maybe they’re just burned out, idk. I smile and try to lighten everyone’s day, regardless of how they seem.