Let's just say for the sake of argument that I hated the Republican Party, hated it with every fiber of my very being. You know what I could do about it? Absolutely nothing.
Could I physically destroy it through domestic terrorism? Nope. There is no physical structure to vanquish that would cause the party to cease to exist..
Could I write a devasting series of articles that would cause its demise? Nope. Nobody cares what I have to say. No journalist could uncover any type of diabolical infrastructure that would cause the party to cease to exist.
What about a child abuse scandal? I drove by a Catholic Church just this mornig. For 70 years the sex abuse of minors by Catholic Priests has generated a collective yawn from the Western World. The Democrat Party should be embroiled in a sex trafficking scandal itself in relation to Jeffrey Epstein, but no one in this country seems to care about that either. There is no scandal that could crash the entire Republican Party. It is too big to fail.
This week Republican Lindsey Graham came out with this quote: "The Cake is Baked." What does he mean by that? That it's a done deal that Donald J. Trump will be the Republican nominee for President in 2024.
In response to that seemingly inevitable news, Liz Cheney said she's exploring a third party run.
I've heard that story before. In 2016, both John McCain and Mitt Romney flirted with third party presidential runs, citing the fact that Donald Trump had to be "stopped."
Just a reminder, from the Beacon of Speech Archives:
"Could I have done anything (in 2016) to stop Donald Trump from becoming President? No.
Could you have done anything (in 2016) to stop Donald Trump from becoming President? No.
Could John McCain have done anything to stop Donald Trump from becoming President? Ahhhhhh.....
In 2008, 60 million people voted for John McCain, no matter what you think of him now, that's a lot of people that went to the ballot box to cast a vote for a candidate. Even if Americans were sick of John McCain in 2016, I believe that he had enough influence to sway the 2016 election. Remember, all he would have had to do was to convince 1 in 10 people who voted for him in 2008 to not vote Republican 8 short years later.
In 2016, John McCain and Mitt Romney believed it was better to destroy the country with President Donald Trump than damaging the Republican Party with a third party run. They whined and moaned about stopping Donald Trump, but they didn't DO ANYTHING. All they would have had to do was either run third party, or endorse a third party candidate. They did neither.
One of the most voiceterous critics of Donald Trump in 2016 was John Kasich. After taking the Republican "loyalty pledge," he backed off his position and vowed to do everything in his power to stop Trump. Well, his definition of anything being throwing a temper tantrum. He said he was going to write in John McCain, but didn't encourage you to do it. Don't forget, McCain wasn't running.
Did Kasich encourage you to vote for Clinton? He did not.
Did Kasich encourage you to vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson? He did not.
Did Kasich encourage you to Constitution Party candidate Darrell Castle? He did not.
The reason it's important to mention Darrell Castle is because he was actually endorsed by Glenn Beck. Beck endorsed who he thought was the best candidate, running for president on a ballot, the Republican machinery be damned.
Which circles us back to Cheney. If she runs third party, it would show that Liz Cheney believes it is better to destroy the party than to destroy the country. I believe that if she ran, she would be the first third party candidate to carry a state, in the electoral college, since George Wallace in 1968. I would bet money that she'd carry Wyoming.
You scoff that's only 3 electoral votes? She would also skim enough votes in battleground states to flip a state from red to blue.
If her ultimate goal is to stop a 77 year old narcissist, who may or may not be heading to jail, she could probably do it. But the question becomes: What is her ceiling?
I think her best case scenario would be winning 2 or 3 states and coming in second in the popular vote. If Biden holds his voter base from 2020, and Trump and Cheney split the other half, the cartography would show a Reagan-esque landslide for Biden.
If Trump came in third, that might legitimately kill the Republican Party-
Which means Donald Trump would have done what no one else could do in 170 years, destroy the GOP. He could disintegrate the party from the inside. You think I'm exaggerating? Cheney is a principled Conservative. Trump is a Populist. If old Republican Blue Bloods, AND THEIR MONEY, followed Cheney, the Republican Party could collapse.
Donald Trump is not a Svengali or a fascist. If he killed the GOP, it wouldn't be because of some master plan, it would be due to ineptitude. But deep in my heart, I don't think Cheney will do it. I don't think any Republicans are jumping ship. They are too indebted to the mechanisms that got them elected. Just like in 2016, I expect a lot of noise.
Let's see if she actually does do it, or if she's a coward like John Kasich.
I could not destroy the Republican Party, but Trump could.
I think he's the only one in America who could do it.
Editor's Note: Just a reminder, we are a Libertarian-leaning website. I don't think Cheney would run under the (L) banner. I think she would run independent.
The Democrats and Republicans are just two giant corporations, I don't root for either of them.
Addendum: One day later.
I was pretty happy with my article. It didn't get picked up by WhatFinger or other people I presented the article to, but I wrote what I saw, right or wrong. It was ultimately read by a dozen or so people. Usually that's the end of the story.
But while I was writing this, Richard Galant at CNN came out with this article:
It was read by tens of thousands of people.
That Gallant piece was straight-up left-wing propaganda. Galants's theory is that he, and 4 like-minder writers, all agreed that if Trump was re-elected, he would install himself dictator--despite protections against such an event in the Constitution.
How about this bet? If it's the year 2028 and Trump has suspended civil liberties and installed himself as dictator, I will issue a public apology and pull the plug on Beacon of Speech.
If in the year 2028 Trump leaves office voluntarily, Galant has to resign from CNN and return his salary earned during the Trump Presidency.
Now the future isn't set in stone, I still hope Nikki Haley pulls out the nomination in the primaries, but Galant's prediction is basically science-fiction.
The smart money is Trump won't be elected in 2024, lots of things can still happen. But if I'm right about Trump crashing the Republican Party into the dirt in 2024, what do I win?