by Ray Keating
The Keating Files – May 12, 2021
After several years of experiencing sad political days, this conservative was hit hard once more today – May 12, 2021 – when Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives voted to oust U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) from her leadership position. It wasn’t a surprise, but it was nonetheless depressing.
This inexcusable action served as glaring evidence that the party of Reagan has been lost to the party of Trump. And this despite the fact that Donald Trump lost the White House, the Senate and the House while in office (oh yes, and was impeached … twice). Indeed, you have to go back to Herbert Hoover for the last time a Republican president managed such incompetence at the ballot box.
While Trump is all about an incoherent, victim-based, enemies-are-everywhere, ends-justify-the-means populism, Liz Cheney ranks as a solid, principled conservative with integrity in the Reagan tradition. As a result, she naturally spoke out against President Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, and against his role in stoking the violence of January 6 when his supporters invaded the Capitol. Cheney spoke the truth at the time, and has continued to do so.
But that apparently was too much for House Republicans – many of whom actually took Trump to task for his role on January 6, but now want to forget about that, and pander to Trump and his supporters in their party.
So, Liz Cheney had to go.
But at the same time, conspiracy kook Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, seems to suffer in no way with her Republican colleagues. As a reminder, Rep. Greene, as The Washington Post summed up, “Greene has made comments on social media suggesting that some mass shootings were staged by supporters of gun control, that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were orchestrated by government entities and that a Jewish cabal had sparked a deadly California wildfire with a laser beam directed from space. As recently as late last year, she was an adherent of the false claims of the QAnon ideology. She has renounced some of her most outlandish claims.” But that’s all okay, apparently, because Greene is a big Trump supporter.
Meanwhile, consider points from Cheney’s speech in the House last night (May 11):
“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 to seek freedom.
“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 later I watched that same pope take my father’s hand, look in his eyes, and say, ‘God Bless America.’
“God has blessed America, but our freedom only survives if we protect it, if we honor our oath, taken before God in this chamber, to support and defend the Constitution, if we recognize threats to freedom when they arise.
“Today we face a threat America has never seen before. A former president, who provoked a violent attack on this Capitol in an effort to steal the election, has resumed his aggressive effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from him. He risks inciting further violence.
“Millions of Americans have been misled by the former President. They have heard only his words, but not the truth, as he continues to undermine our democratic process, sowing seeds of doubt about whether democracy really works at all…
“As the party of Reagan, Republicans championed democracy, won the Cold War, and defeated the Soviet Communists. As we speak, 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.”
After being ousted from her leadership position, Cheney told reporters, “The nation needs a strong Republican Party. The nation needs a party that is based on fundamental principles of conservatism. And I am committed and dedicated to ensuring that that’s how this party goes forward. And I plan to lead the fight to do that.”
And during the GOP House conference, according to Politico, Cheney declared, “If you want leaders who will enable and spread his destructive lies, I’m not your person, you have plenty of others to choose from. That will be their legacy. But I promise you this, after today, I will be leading the fight to restore our party and our nation to conservative principles, to defeating socialism, to defending our republic, to making the GOP worthy again of being the party of Lincoln.”
I agree wholeheartedly with Liz Cheney, and I hope and pray for the sake of the nation that she plays a key role in successfully winning the Republican Party back to sanity and true conservatism. It’s clear that this will be no easy task – indeed, far from it.
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Ray Keating is a columnist, novelist, economist, podcaster and entrepreneur. Keating has two new books out. Vatican Shadows: A Pastor Stephen Grant Novel is the 13ththriller/mystery in the Pastor Stephen Grant series. Get the paperback or Kindle edition at Amazon, or signed books at www.raykeatingonline.com. Past Lives: A Pastor Stephen Grant Short Story is the 14th book in the series. Get the paperback or Kindle edition at Amazon, or signed book at www.raykeatingonline.com. And pre-order the 15th book in the series What’s Lost? A Pastor Stephen Grant Short Story.
The views expressed here are his own – after all, no one else should be held responsible for this stuff, right?
You also can order his book Behind Enemy Lines: Conservative Communiques from Left-Wing New York from Amazon or signed books at RayKeatingOnline.com. His other recent nonfiction book is Free Trade Rocks! 10 Points on International Trade Everyone Should Know.
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