A life-long party hardliner like Cheney recognizing that you are the better option, crossing the aisle, and unconditionally endorsing you *against his own party* is an unambiguous victory. It speaks to the strength of your message, not against it, that it works so well even on an enemy.
I mean I fucking hate the guy, but the message was clear to me: even this guy sees what a fucking disaster his party has become.
I go a little nuts when people yell that Dems aren’t understanding the risk to democracy … because often it’s the same people who willfully missed the point of the Cheneys - they were sounding the alarm
Yeah, when one of the most evil motherfuckers to ever hold elected office in my lifetime looks at Trump and Project 2025, goes, "oh hell no, this must be stopped at all costs, even if it means betraying my party", that is a HUGE alarm bell. And the Harris campaign listened!
The idea that we are all ontologically who we are from birth until death, and that none of us can ever actually change, is an incredibly pervasive and deeply toxic belief in political discourse at present, and it is profoundly harming all of us.
This is how I felt with John Kerry being portrayed as a “flip flopper”. Why wouldn’t we want someone who, when presented with new information, changes their mind. Obviously the source/intention of that information matters. But to portray it as a general character flaw is weird.
And conversely: W. Bush declaring himself "the Decider." No! A leader unwaveringly certain of their decision-making abilities and unwilling to consider counsel is BAD. We don't want that!
I've said it before and I'll say it again ad nauseam: When they attacked Hillary for being friends with Byrd - a man who should be all rights be a shining example of how it is possible to drastically change your beliefs to such an extent that you go from being a grand wizard of the KKK to being
feted by the NAACP for doing all that you can to atone for your past sins - it became obvious that they fundamentally do not believe people can change. And if you believe that, then all politics is nihilism.
Right? Like, Newsom could publicly apologize for his anti-trans comments, spend his remaining term signing every single piece of pro-trans legislation that crosses his desk, center trans rights as part of a POTUS campaign, and people still wouldn't be satisfied that he was making positive change.
They'd scream that he's just pandering, which.... What the fuck do these people think politics is, precisely?
The problem progressives have with the Cheneys is that they are against fair wages and fair taxes. What have progressives gained in the past decade from Never Trump Republicans? I can't think of a single thing. 1/2
Yeah, it's great that Cheney and Cheney recognized that Harris / Walz was the better option. We ended up with Stephen Miller, Russell Vought, "Big Balls", concentration camps and the medical quackery industry running the Department of Health and Human Services anyway. 2/2
I do agree that there is profound power in redemption and in dropping your guard and realizing that you need to cross over. However, I think the muddled messaging of the 2024 campaign made it feel like a hollow "reach across the aisle" maneuver that we'd been burned on previously.
I'm not disagreeing, but I also don't believe that is necessarily the fault, nor within the power of, the campaign itself. It's hard to convey that message to an audience that is conditioned to believe that redemption of any sort (I do not believe Cheney is "redeemed" per se) is....
...not actually possible, and that any association with someone deemed "bad", even a short-term mutually-beneficial alliance, permanently taints you as bad yourself. Especially when there is an entire pundit class very cynically benefitting financially from encouraging that perspective.