33 Comments

Anyone that honestly thinks Trump WON’T try for additional terms IF he’s elected in 2024 (sorry, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit when I wrote that...🤢), simply isn’t paying attention or is willfully ignorant or both. Over on X/Twitter, I’ve found SO many that are completely delusional that it pains me to even think about this coming year and just how high the stakes are.

While there’s hardly a policy issue I agree with Liz Cheney on, I am 100% behind her sticking to her oath to protect and defend the Constitution. She’s one of the few conservatives left that hasn’t sold her soul for a “seat at the table of power”.

And yet another excellent analysis, Chris! My paid subscription is worth every penny. And then some!

Expand full comment

It was very interesting last night, with Rachel taking 20 minutes to introduce Cheney by lining out the multitude of issues she has completely disagreed with Cheney on, and then saying "I say all this so you will understand how important it is that I am in complete agreement with Liz Cheney about the threat we face, and we stand together on that."

As Rachel and Cheney agreed at the end, we can go back to being opponents on policy (not enemies) after we save the system that allows us to do that without the loser facing a prison term.

Expand full comment

This will be the last election that any of us gets to vote in if Trump returns to power. So if you enjoy having that right to vote, use it wisely.

Expand full comment

After the 2020 election results were announced, a friend of mine hooped and hollered and said Trump is out! My response was, very seriously, I won't celebrate until Biden is actually inaugurated. Of course we know the rest of that story. Why ANYONE who has paid an iota of attention to Trump's early years is surprised is beyond me. Have you read Mary Trump's book? People thought it was sour grapes, but she was spot on as to DJT's thought processes and motivations. Roy Cohn as a mentor?? C'mon folks, this is reality. A very scary reality. I disagree with Liz Cheney on almost all policy, but 100% agree with her assessment of Trump.

Expand full comment

Liz Cheney is saying things today that were probable on January 7th, 2021; and likely the last day of the J-6 hearings. The current problem is the same as it’s always been: that voters are either too uneducated to recognize the danger or too myopic to consider Trump a danger at all.

Expand full comment

I agree with Liz Cheney on just about nothing in terms of policy, but she has integrity. She knew full well that she was sacrificing her political career when she took on the Mango Menace, and yet she did it anyway. She is warning us--if we are stupid enough as a country to put Trump back in the White House, knowing what we know, it will be the end of American democracy. Period, full stop.

Expand full comment

I have to say that this week feels like The Week The Press Corpse Woke Up To The Threat. Since Robert Kagan's seriously-alarming op-ed in the Washington Post last week, the threat of Trump's return to the White House has finally broken down the door to Denial World where too many of your friends had taken up permanent residence Chris.

Now, if the coverage continues, because it's going to have to be repeated many, many times, to wake up the sleeping American electorate and get them to leave Denial World, we may have a shot at keeping this 240 year old Republic.

And with any luck, Trump will die alone and forgotten in his windowless 8x10 cell on the third sub-basement of the Florence SuperMax. The fact he will die knowing he has been forgotten will be the best punishment of all for this traitor scum.

Expand full comment

Yes. Cheney is totally plausible. Scary.

Expand full comment

It's time -- past time, really -- to say that while the country needs both a liberal and conservative party (or politicians tending toward one or the other) we can no longer accept the Republican Party as legitimate. Sure, there are a smattering of principled Republicans like Liz Cheney or Mitt Romney or Adam Kinzinger or Chris Christie, but the overwhelming majority of Republicans are either in thrall to Trump or so afraid of him that they toe the line. They simply cannot be trusted to put America's interests first.

This is not about policy differences, it's about standing up to a would-be dictator. Since even so-called rational Republicans like Nikki Haley have already gone on the record that they would support Trump as the nominee, we need to treat Republicans as unfit for public office. And we need to convince people that protest votes for a 3rd party is simply another way to elect Trump.

Expand full comment

I do sincerely worry that I (and my children/grandchildren) may be present for the dismantling of the United States of America as conceived by our Constitution. I can't wrap my head around what that actually means in terms my day-to-day living. But, I have at least concluded that I would not approve or be happy.

Expand full comment

I don’t doubt one bit Liz Cheney’s warnings and what Chris highlighted in his piece. I’m completely convinced and totally on board with the absolute danger (like no other in American history) that Trump represents. But those that are reading Chris’ work, I’m assuming we are all like-minded in that concern. Are we preaching to the choir here? My sincerest question is, and I don’t know the answer, how do we reach beyond the “choir” and connect this message with the people that are on the fence regarding Trump? Because for me, there is no fence.

Expand full comment

Cristo,

I appreciate the "fire-in-the belly" analysis you offer...but unfortunately you are writing to the "choir." Those who are realists and see the waving red flags and blinking lights that you justifiably report on.

But you are in a small sample of America. What is the circulation of the following media sources:

You

MSNBC

CNN

The Bulwark

The Atlantic

Some of the non-simps at the

New York Times

Washington Post

Boston Globe

L.A Times

Mostly, the "vast media conspiracy" culprit are tippy toeing with Trumps screeds of the way way he will run the country in 2025. They fear they will be pilloried for being honest. REALITY - they will be pilloried any way for being the "Lame-Steam Media."

[While that phrase was popularized by Sarah Palin in 2008, she didn't have the intelligence/creativity to coin it. Most likely, her Republican Political Consultant, Steve Schmidt, who the one to help in her lame speeches. She's a two time loser in trying to be elected Congressman from Alaska, and he is now an ardent anti-Trumper.]

Back on track...

Propaganda-feed Germans in 1945 couldn't believe that the Allies on the east and Soviets on the west were crashing down the Third Reich until they were. This is the magna that in MAGA. Spoon fed the bullshit from FOX-Entertainment and other propaganda outlets

The test of authentic America is at hand...

Unfortunately, too many paranoid White citizens are more than willing to hang onto the Gilded-Age "White-Is-Right" America with its 19th-century and 20th-century views when "coloreds" knew their place and immigrants scrambled to their rat-infested domiciles to work at a pittance on the factory killing floors.

Too many fellow citizens will be more than willing to vote themselves into a Third Reich/current Hungarian nation to feel secure in their phony-Christian Nationalism to protect themselves from the onslaught of "vermin."

Expand full comment
founding

I wholeheartedly agree with the warnings and predictions Liz Cheney is giving us of Trump's plans IF he wins in 2024. It's good that everyone is raising the alarm so that people would go out and vote against Trump in 2024. But I strongly believe that Trump is going to lose in 2024.(BIDEN WILL WIN IN 2024). Trump will not have a 2nd term let alone trying to stay in power for a 3rd term. I hope Liz Cheney's book sells like wild fire because it seems to contain a lot of facts (from the excerpts out so far). I have placed an order for mine already.

Expand full comment

I truly believe that if Trump is reelected, he will burn it all down and go for any and all possibilities that will keep him in office. It is an extremely dangerous place to be in and can not believe that this is the lunatic that may be in the Oval Office, AGAIN! If the first term wasn’t bad enough, people still love him and believe every word he says and will follow him off that cliff. IF Cheney is to run, I hope that the analysis indicates she would not be helping Trump. She has said that she will look at all angles and want to believe that she does. If running as a third party, what is the deadline to put her name in the hat? We are only weeks away from voting commencing. I fear for the next year.

Expand full comment

I think another thing to think about with the campaign is what would likely happen if somehow, Nikki Haley does gain momentum and become a true contender. Trump would only become more unhinged than he already is, and would perhaps scare enough voters to change the outlook for November 2024. It may not be likely, but I think it’s plausible.

Expand full comment

And why do all Trump’s “competitors” say that they’ll support him if he is the nominee….but he doesn’t reciprocate, and he never will. Trump is the nominee of the Republican Party, and if he gains the presidency (which, via the electoral college, he may do easily) then everything that Chris has described won’t be speculation. It will be a certainty.

Expand full comment

He's said in 2020 before the election he deserved a "redo" (or third) term. Chris reported it here https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/18/politics/donald-trump-third-term-2024/index.html

Expand full comment