Is Liz Cheney Naive Enough To Run for President?

Settle a bet for me.

My dad and I had a bit of disagreement about Liz Cheney's future. Now, Liz Cheney is going to get throttled in her primary tomorrow. That is not the bet. And we both agree that Liz Cheney is fully aware she's going to get throttled tomorrow.

Where we disagree is on Cheney's next steps. My dad thinks she is gearing up for an independent presidential run. And I think she knows fully well that such a run will be utterly futile and useless, and is instead preparing for the life of "respected senior stateswoman". All the people breathlessly promising that She's Running in 2024 are the same people who come up with fantastical center-right independent candidacies for presidency every year (Bloomberg! Yang! Oprah!). It's a terminal illness amongst a certain type of pundit who has a just completely wrong idea of what is popular in American politics.

But maybe I'm wrong, and Cheney will throw her hat in the ring. What do you think?

Is a Coup Coming?

I've read a fair number of pieces -- and I'd call them "alarmist", except I don't think they're wrong to raise the alarm -- that the Republican Party is laying the foundation to simply not accept a Democratic victory in 2024. "Stop the steal" becomes "steal it back", if you will. Certainly, the defenestration of Liz Cheney is part of this dynamic. The branches of the GOP which are even nominally supportive of democracy in America grow more brittle every day.

But meanwhile, Politico is observing goings-on amongst retired military officials, and there's some cause for concern there too:

A day after 124 retired generals and admirals released a letter spreading the lie that President Joe Biden stole the election, current and former military officers are speaking out, calling the missive a dangerous news sign of the military being dragged into the trenches of partisan warfare.

The open letter on Monday from a group calling itself Flag Officers 4 America advanced the false conspiracy theory that the presidential vote was rigged in Biden's favor and warned that the nation is "in deep peril" from "a full-blown assault on our Constitutional rights."

The good news, such as it is, is that most of the flag officers are below three stars (and no four stars) -- not the heaviest hitters. The bad news, well, I'll kick it over to Peter Seaver (formerly on the NSC in the Clinton and Bush administrations) for the bad news:

Every military that coups or threatens to coup constructs a narrative in which the military is acting to save the country from something worse than military rule. Clearly the authors are attempting to write that narrative.

Not good. Not good at all.

Also, I'll just note that Thomas Sowell was flirting with supporting military coups to keep Democrats out of power since 2008. So this rot, while no doubt accelerated by Trump, did not begin with him. It has been percolating in conservative circles for awhile.