It’s fall on Notre Dame’s campus. The sugar maples are deep hues of red and orange, with some golden standouts. Dappled others cling onto their green, not yet accepting that the weather has turned toward winter. Every other year since 2016, this has been the season when Congresswoman Liz Cheney is on the trail back in her home state in Wyoming, preparing to sail through another election for the state’s lone seat in the House.
But Cheney isn’t in Wyoming. On August 16, she lost her primary to Harriet Hageman, a lawyer who earned the decisive endorsement of President Donald Trump. It wasn’t close, either. Cheney managed to secure just under 29 percent, amounting to 49,000 votes. Hageman took more than 66 percent of the vote with just over 113,000. So Cheney is here, in South Bend, Indiana, refusing to admit she has lost her war on the former president. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Cheney’s October 14 lecture to students and faculty, “Saving Democracy by Revering the Constitution,” offered very little about what American democracy actually is, and even less on how revering the Constitution will save it. Rather, her address was mostly an anti-Trump tirade, focused on January 6 and what she has done with her colleagues on the January 6 Select Committee.
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