But the threat goes deeper. Trump isn’t just courting violence. He’s trying, in Cheney’s words, to “delegitimize” the American system. “Trump is seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work—confidence in the result of elections and the rule of law,” she wrote in her op-ed. Like other Republicans, Cheney often accuses “unelected judges” of overstepping their authority. But if candidates and their supporters won’t accept judicial resolutions of election disputes, the country will collapse into anarchy. On Tuesday, she reminded her colleagues that more than 60 courts had rejected Trump’s arguments for overturning the election. “That is the rule of law,” she said. “Those who refuse to accept the rulings of our courts are at war with the Constitution.” In this war, Cheney sees the GOP, under its present leadership, as the party of appeasement. In her op-ed and in the NBC interview, she recalled how Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, abandoned his initial criticism of Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack. Three weeks after the attack, McCarthy flew to Trump’s country club to beg for reconciliation. “Leader McCarthy’s visit to the former president at Mar-a-Lago was really stunning,” Cheney told Guthrie. “Leaders in my party have decided to embrace the former president who launched that attack.”