There is a legitimate and respectable case to be made both for and against Cheney’s choices.

First, the pro-Cheney case starts with the fact that she lost her job entirely for telling the truth. Sure, there are other critiques of Cheney, but she won a nine-way primary race by 18 points in 2016 and has romped over primary and general-election challengers ever since. She voted with Donald Trump during his presidency more often than Elise Stefanik did, and voted against impeaching him over Ukraine. The main reasons why her support collapsed so dramatically were (1) that she voted to impeach Trump, (2) that she served on the January 6 committee, and (3) how she handled those controversies.

Along the way, she has told many truths that Trump supporters did not want to hear, and that even many Trump-skeptical Republicans did not want to speak. It is true that Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, and that his defeat was not caused by fraud or misconduct by his opponents. It is true that Trump’s course of conduct from Election Day 2020 through January 6 amply justified his removal from office and warranted the political and moral judgment that he should never hold public office again. It is true that Trump’s efforts to overturn the popular vote in multiple states was an assault on American democracy, that Trump tried improperly and without legal justification to pressure Mike Pence and others to violate their oaths of office and their consciences, that January 6 was an unprecedented effort to use mob violence to intimidate the United States Congress, and that the ultimate responsibility for bringing about the events of January 6 belongs squarely at the feet of Donald Trump. It is additionally true that Trump behaved shamefully on that day as the events were unfolding. It is true that all of this ought to be recorded for posterity. Cheney’s relentless telling of these truths, and where and how she has chosen to tell them, is why she will be out of a job in January.