Nobody (Including Kamala Harris) Will Ever Need Dick Cheney

We Don’t Need This Black Hole To Extinguish Our Joy

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According to Liz Cheney, former Vice President and eternal ghoul Dick Cheney is voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election. I will be perfectly honest with you: This hits my ears as Satan announcing his position on the 2024 election.

Dick Cheney — diplomatically — is a terrible collection of cells and wires resembling a human being. The term “has a dark heart/soul” was created to describe what lies within the center of Cheney’s personality.

This is a man who lied, knowingly, over and over again to get the country into a war in Iraq after 9/11. Cheney and NBC’s willing stooge, the late Tim Russert, pushed the fake story of aluminum tubes purportedly being used by the regime of Saddam Hussein to build weapons of mass destruction.

This was all a lie. Every word of it. The lies used by Cheney and his boss, George W. Bush, killed thousands of people. Their lies killed Iraqi men, women and children. Their lies killed American soldiers and contractors. Their lies helped to further destabilize the Middle East, and their lies put a black mark on the reputation of the United States that has made life more dangerous for the average American.

Even worse, Bush and Cheney used these lies, standing on the skulls of dead Americans and Iraqis, to further their own venal political ambitions – first in the 2002 midterm elections and then in the 2004 presidential election.

They aren’t good people.

But it is often asked, doesn’t the threat of Donald Trump serving another term as president make acceptance of this Cheney support a necessary evil? Don’t the Democrats need “all hands” on deck to prevent disaster?

In a wider context this is true. People of varying political backgrounds and differing views should be able to back Harris as the candidate of democracy over Trump, who is a xenophobic fascist. I think Vice President Harris should welcome Republicans into the tent and actively seek out their vote because the stakes are so high.

But Dick Cheney can go pound sand. Cheney is not an influential figure in the world and hasn’t been since he and his running mate presided over a flood of caskets delivering the bodies of fallen soldiers to Arlington National Cemetery.

Cheney is not an influential Republican figure with sway over a wide swath of the party. He hasn’t held the vice presidency for over 15 years and has been living in a bunker or cave in Wyoming since.

More importantly, he is a bad person. Cheney isn’t a naïve, wet-behind-the ears political operative who got in over his head when selling the Iraq War. He was a former congressman and Secretary of Defense who was well aware of the lies he was peddling and certainly had an inkling of how many Americans and Iraqis would die as a result.

And he never cared, not a single bit. Clawing his way into power was always primary in Cheney’s mind and operation, and he was more than willing to tell the public any lie necessary to get his jollies off with an invasion of Iraq.

This is all unforgivable. Cheney isn’t going to swing Wyoming to Harris nor is his support (like John Kasich’s support of Biden in 2020) likely to change a single mind. If anything, his support could rightly lead voters to be even more cynical. If the Bush-Cheney sins against humanity can be forgiven for a mere demonstration of support and some random warbling about returning to normal, can we seriously argue that things have gone very far off the rails?

As I have said before, I see very little difference between the Republican Party of George W. Bush/Dick Cheney and the Republican Party of Donald Trump. One is better about papering over the extremism to sell themselves to the public, but ultimately, they exist on the same coin together.

I think at some point a line has to be drawn. Even though coalitions are important and rational dissenting support from Republicans and conservatives should be accepted, at a certain point we have to reassert our allegiance to core, rational principles.

I believe that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz can win this election. I believe that the grassroots support Harris has received is very real and very beautiful and a manifestation of the same organic drive that went for Obama in 2008.

But I also believe that they can win this thing without darkening our collective souls with the sins of the Cheney-Bush axis. There is the vital need in the world for people to stand in the light, and for practicality, yes, but also principles. Cheney is a bridge too far. Even when faced with a threat like Trump, the backing of someone like Richard B. Cheney is not a moment for celebration or rejoicing. He is a bad man of the worst sort and his every action should be treated with rejection and skepticism.

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— Oliver

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