The most insulting response to Liz Cheney endorsing Kamala Harris came from a mainstream Republican, not from a MAGA slobberer. Which makes sense.
The reason Donald Trump is in a position in 2024 to threaten his political enemies with mass arrest isn’t because of right-wing populists, of whom there aren’t enough to make a majority. It’s the partisan conservatives who know better—who could have followed Cheney but stuck with Trump—who have made this nightmare viable.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw was asked this weekend at an event in Texas what he thought of the Cheney endorsement. Crenshaw has distinguished himself as the rare House Republican who’s willing to throw a punch at Trump sycophants, which earned him a primary challenge in his district this year and charming nicknames from his detractors like “Eyepatch McCain.”
So if anyone still in the party might muster some grudging respect for her for refusing to bend the knee, one might think, it’s him. Nope. Crenshaw’s theory of why Cheney and former Rep. Adam Kinzinger are backing Harris is, to borrow a bit of internet lingo, that they’re butthurt. Trump’s frequent attacks on the two have made this “very personal” to them, he alleged, and now they’re “putting those feelings above, I think, basic conservative policy.”
Nick Catoggio is a staff writer at The Dispatch and is based in Texas. Prior to joining the company in 2022, he spent 16 years gradually alienating a populist readership at Hot Air. When Nick isn’t busy writing a daily newsletter on politics, he’s … probably planning the next day’s newsletter.
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