The Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and the former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney took to the stage of a Wisconsin auditorium in a stunning show of political cooperation. When the two women spoke at an event targeting swing voters in the pivotal state, both women geared their speeches to the threat that they see as coming from Trump to democracy, and not about policy but about the former president refusing to accept the outcome of the 2020 election.
She stressed that it was vital to protect the United States Constitution and that Trump’s campaign deceptions and refusal to back down in 2020 were immoral — which is why Cheney, a lifelong conservative and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, addressed what Trump has done since and on January 6th, 2021.
“Fidelity to our Constitution is the safest of conservative values,’ Cheney said: “There is no more man with power that could ever do these things. We need to beat Trump on November 5.” This was a strong Republican position that set political circles thumping. Cheney was even more famous in announcing that she would vote for Harris: “I’ve never voted for Democrat, but I’m happy to support President Kamala Harris this year.”
The Conspiracy of Democratic Loyalty to Cheney The Irony Of Democratic Love for Cheney.
Harris-Cheney’s alliance would have been unimaginable just a few years ago, given the Democratic Party’s raw contempt for the Cheney family for more than 20 years. Dick Cheney, George W Bush’s vice president, was a figure of Democratic derision known for the Iraq War, the increased methods of interrogation, and covert government activities. For decades, Democrats turned Cheney into the symbol of all that is rotten with the Republican party establishment.
Unless, of course, you consider Liz Cheney the political champion of Democrats over her relentless attack on Donald Trump. Her vocal defense of Trump’s fraudulent election and her membership on the House January 6th Committee have been admired by Republicans across the aisle because of how split the Republican Party is. Cheney’s partnership with Harris shows just how deep the anti-Trump movement is that the daughter of one of the most hated women in the history of the Democratic Party has found its mate in running against Trump.
This irony has even been recognized in politics. For decades, the Cheney name stood for the neoconservative king of the hill, and liberal pundits had no problem making up characters like Dick Cheney. But in the post-Trump era, Cheney’s courage to oppose her party’s president has made a strange new political situation where some Democrats now support the Cheneys, and this goes to show just how much Trump has changed the political landscape.
Harris’ Call to Action is About Trump — Not Policy
Even Harris was criticizing Trump and not her policies as a Democratic candidate. In a speech meant to mobilize Republican voters disenchanted with Trump, she invited the audience to vote in order to thwart Trump’s return to office: “Donald Trump lost the 2020 election,’ Harris said, ‘And as you know and have heard he refused to embrace the people’s will and the outcomes of a free and fair election.
Harris cast herself as a progressive for democracy, contrasted Trump’s actions with her constitutionally grounded approach, “I have never faltered from honoring my oath to the American people and democracy, unlike Donald Trump,” she continued.
This campaign event was held with massive glass barriers surrounding Harris and Cheney from the public — an image of the electoral mudslinging.
A Political Group Working to Block Trump.
Wisconsin’s Harris-Cheney event was one of the pivotal ones in US politics. Cheney voting for a Democratic candidate speaks volumes of how Trump has split the GOP. Party symposia might be collapsing, but the Wisconsin rally made it abundantly obvious: preventing Trump from being elected again is a nonpartisan priority.
And as Cheney stated at the end, “Vice President Harris is in the gap during a very special moment in American history.” The unique political arrangement of a Democratic vice president working alongside a Republican once shunned by Democrats makes it all too apparent just how radically the Trump presidency has rewritten American politics.
You can see more information on [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com) and [The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com).
