Cheney has become the champion of the pro-democracy conservative movement. She is staunchly conservative—more so even than her father. She could even be described as “doctrinaire,” at least until the doctrine of the Republican party became explicitly and aggressively undemocratic. But she’s unwilling to subjugate the American democratic experiment to her own policy preferences or the short-term electoral gain of her party. (As an aside, I’ve received many emails from angry Republican voters accusing Cheney of being a “traitor to her party.” This is a contradiction in terms. It’s not possible to be a traitor to one’s party—only to one’s country. Cheney is accused of being the former because of her unwillingness to become the latter.) What’s left but to keep leading? Having accepted the cause of American democracy and defense of the Constitution upon herself—not just in the formulaic, superficial way in which so many of her colleagues took their oaths of office, but in a deep and manifestly sincere way—what possible reason is there for Cheney to stop?