Yesterday, at the Texas Tribune Festival (which Glenn Youngkin spoke at Friday), Rep. Liz Cheney – a conservative Republican by any metric, but also someone who is willing to fight for our democracy – had a few thoughts about Youngkin planning to campaign for extremist/election denier Kari Lake in Arizona (and note that Youngkin hasn’t campaigned for Lake yet, as Cheney incorrectly states, but plans to do so next month).
Of course, it should be obvious that campaigning for someone as horrendous as Kari Lake should be completely unacceptable to all Americans, as well as the end of the political career of anyone who does so. Yet Youngkin on Friday *defended* his decision to do just that, with the mindlessly partisan statement that “all states deserves a Republican governor,” which in Youngkin’s “reasoning” (in air quotes) includes people like Lake who are by pretty much any definition fascist, without the “semi” part.
So Liz Cheney was asked about this, and after (incorrectly) praising Youngkin as supposedly “doing a good job” as governor of Virginia (which he most certainly isn’t) and hasn’t “bought into the toxin of Donald Trump” (also not true), she said the following:
“But [Youngkin] campaigned recently [sic] for Kari Lake, he went and campaigned…who’s an election denier, who is dangerous, and that’s the kind of thing we cannot see in our party, we cannot see an accommodation like that…I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that Kari Lake is not elected.”
And, in stark contrast to Youngkin’s stance that he’ll campaign for basically ANY Republican, because Republicans are all awesome or whatever (even, apparently, if they’re racists, extremists, nutjobs, fascists, whatever), Rep. Cheney even said she’s willing to campaign for Democrats if that’s what it takes to save our democracy. Which is, of course, the correct stance at this point in our nation’s history. And yet, sadly, Cheney is one of VERY few Republican politicians willing to buck her party to defend our constitution and our democracy. Here in Virginia, for instance, have we seen a single Republican elected official (not counting FORMER Republican elected officials like Barbara Comstock and Denver Riggleman) do that? Nope. Pathetic.
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