On Tuesday, speaking in New Hampshire, Cheney described Jan. 6 as the latest in a history of momentous battles. She recalled America’s victories over Nazism and Soviet communism, praised the U.S. armed forces, and lauded “the heroism of the passengers on Flight 93.” She also spoke of her great-great-grandfather, who had fought for the Union in the Civil War. In every generation, she observed, Americans had stood up “to defend our freedom.” The new heroes, she argued, were the “140 law enforcement officers who fought for hours and held the tunnel on the West front of the Capitol.”

This perspective leads Cheney to regard her party’s collaboration with Donald Trump in a particularly grim and hawkish way. Republican leaders who conspire to thwart the Jan. 6 investigation aren’t just corrupt. They’re betraying national security. At the Aspen Institute, Cheney described multiple backstage maneuvers by Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, to sabotage any inquiry into the attack. In New Hampshire, she warned that Trump, in his ongoing campaign “to unravel the foundations of our constitutional republic,” was being “aided by political leaders” who, together with the former president, posed a “domestic threat.”

In raising these alarms, Cheney is echoing her father’s administration. President George W. Bush framed the war on terror as a binary choice, telling foreign governments, “You are either with us or you are against us.” His running mate, Dick Cheney, used that us-or-them message to pummel Democrats for questioning the war in Iraq. On Tuesday, Congresswoman Cheney delivered the same message: “There is no middle ground.” But she was talking about the invasion of the U.S. Capitol, not the invasion of Iraq, and she was challenging her own party.