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Liz Cheney is an American Hero

NewsLiz Cheney is an American Hero

She understands the danger that the Party of Trump poses to the future of her country, and is seeking to reclaim the GoP for what it was.

In a unisex world, to insist on separate terms (heroine and hero) for female and male heroes is unnecessary, hence the placing of Barely Republican US House of Representatives member Liz Cheney as an authentic American hero. The lady has shown the steel needed for leadership, even though the Party of Trump (sorry, the GoP) is looking away from her. Not that the worthies in that often admirable, sometimes contemptible, outfit can be blamed. For in looking at Representative Cheney, they would be seeing reflections of their own moral cowardice and what has often been called suppleness of the lumbar region. In other words, a lack of spine. The Republican Party has a much better record on relations with India than the Democrats (who are more loaded with Wahhabis in the way that Republicans had been with those in the pocketbooks—sorry, pockets—of the Chinese Communist Party. Not that the Democrats have been immune to such treats. Check the Clintons and several of their buddies. Whether it be Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz, or even on occasion Lindsey Graham on the days when the Qatar connection is not at the top of his mind, they have stood by India in this age of intensification of Cold War 2.0 between China and the US in a manner that Democrats such as Pramila Jayapal or Ro Khanna have failed to do. Both seem in their own way as anxious to show their lack of feeling for the country of their ancestors as former Governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal. His actual first name, Piyush, has long ago been forgotten. This stands in contrast to Nikki (Namrata) Haley, who has roots in India and makes no effort to conceal them. She would make an ideal running mate for whoever gets nominated as the Republican candidate for the Presidency in 2024. Politicians can be understood not only by the traits they flaunt but those they hide. Barack Obama, who in his second term was an outstanding President of the US including in much of foreign and domestic policy, emphasised his African heritage while seeking to distance himself from the fact that his mother was of European descent, and the grandparents who looked after him so tenderly were both of European descent. His father, on the other hand, escaped his paternal responsibilities early on, and never looked back in any noticeable way, including at the child prodigy that he had helped to bring into the world. Kamala Harris, in contrast, was unashamed of either her Indian or her Jamaican roots, and was brought up by her mother, whose only love was almost certainly the father of the present Vice-President of the US. The pathways to success in politics is problematic even to those gifted with immense luck, but if the Democratic Party truly believes that they need to adapt to their country in the 21st century, a Harris-Buttigieg ticket would be the best test of whether the majority of voters (and electors, given the quirks of the US system of electing a Head of State) are willing to accept the 21st century rather than continue to be anchored to the past. The Democratic Party, which during the Civil War favoured slavery, has indeed evolved, as witness the (almost entirely of European descent) electors of Ohio plumping for Obama in the 2008 party primaries, and later the entire country making history by electing the tanned and fit B.H. Obama to the White House. In the 2016 elections, about the only Democratic Party nominee who was certain to be defeated by Donald J. Trump was Hillary Clinton, yet so powerful was the hold of the Clinton machine that the lady was anointed as the nominee by the party elite and the White House given away to Trump, with momentous consequences for US society. Overt racism got legitimised during Trump’s tenure in a replay of the 1960s, although there were successes as well.
It was the Democratic Party under a Texan occupant of the White House, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who got passed comprehensive social security and civil rights legislation during his tenure. Kennedy holdovers such as Robert McNamara finished their boss off politically by doubling down on the thankless mission of replacing the French as the colonial power in Vietnam, but his own team (and a leader always needs to put in place his own team, rather than depend on holdovers and retreads from a failed past) but Johnson will be remembered not for Vietnam but for the domestic agenda he shepherded into reality. An agenda that first Reagan, then Clinton and after that Trump sought to dismantle. The Clintons by stealth, the other two openly. Trump may have helped the CCP to succeed in its mission of melting down US society through his selection of US Supreme Court justices, who have shown that they regard several of the changes wrought within society in a 21st century direction as needing to be reversed. By the time the 2022 midterms take place, the fork in the road will become clear. Assuming that President Biden shows the spine to go forward with pushing for social and economic justice in the manner that he has been doing the past year, US voters can decide whether they want a 21st century country or a country embedded in the culture wars of the previous century, a conflict personified by the DINOs and the followers of Trump in the Republican Party. While her father may have gone by the advice of the Pentagon and the CIA (of those years of innocence) and joined with President G.W. Bush to hand over the keys to their own security to the Pakistan military, his daughter shows better sense. She understands the danger that the PoT (Party of Trump) poses to the future of her country, and is seeking to reclaim the GoP for what it was, what it represented rather than a grotesque parody of a medieval court, with its genuflecting courtiers and a monarch who considers reality to be not just irrelevant but inexistent. Her party has almost a year to rediscover itself, and those who wish the US and its people (of which an increasing number are of Indian descent) well will be hoping that Liz Cheney’s courage and clear vision prevails over the present-day King of the Republicans and his fawning court. Much rides on that, and not just in the US. In a world where the easy way out is to flow with the tide, leadership is personified by those who defy this when it is shown to be harmful to the country. It is a measure of how far removed the people of Wyoming seem to be from reality that instead of wanting Liz Cheney as their Senator and a future contender for the White House, many seek the extinction of her career for the unpardonable crime of pointing out that the Emperor of the Party of Trump no longer has any clothes.

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