Caitlin Johnstone: Trump Party Vs Cheney Party

Two warmongering oligarchic parties are shoving the Overton window of acceptable opinion as far in the direction of imperialism, militarism and tyranny as possible.

Liz Cheney taking the congressional oath of office in January 2017 with her father Dick Cheney at right. (Office of Representative Liz Cheney, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

By Caitlin Johnstone

Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney, has officially endorsed Kamala Harris for president. His daughter, Liz Cheney, has also endorsed Harris.

“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” said the former vice president in a statement, adding, “As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.”

Cheney was a charter signatory to the notorious neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century, and as vice president played a leading role in the George W Bush administration’s soaring warmongering, militarism and authoritarianism, including most famously the invasion of Iraq. 

He has the blood of millions of people on his hands, and he should be living out the rest of his miserable life in a cage.

His daughter Liz is an equally bloodthirsty warmonger who has spent her career pushing for mass military slaughter at every opportunity.

After the Israeli assault on Gaza began last year she went on CNN to declare that all deaths which occur in the onslaught are “the responsibility of Hamas,” that protests against Israel’s actions are “anti-Semitic” in nature, and that the U.S. should escalate against Iran and Ansar Allah of Yemen because of their oppositional posture toward Israel.

 

The Cheneys join a growing list of formerly Republican warmongers who are migrating to the Democratic Party in droves to support Harris. Last month hundreds of staffers who served under Republicans George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney signed a letter endorsing Harris, saying that “re-electing President Trump would be a disaster for our nation.”

 “Abroad, democratic movements will be irreparably jeopardized as Trump and his acolyte JD Vance kowtow to dictators like Vladimir Putin while turning their backs on our allies,” the group writes, adding, “We can’t let that happen.”

It is here worth noting that contrary to the narratives circulated in both mainstream Democrat-aligned media and mainstream Republican-aligned media, Donald Trump actually spent his entire term ramping up aggressions against Russia and helped pave the way to the war in Ukraine. 

July 7, 2017: Russian President Putin and Trump on sidelines of G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany. (Kremlin)

 He also promoted many longstanding warmongering agendas against official enemies of the U.S. empire such as Iran, Syria and Venezuela. But even Trump’s insane hawkishness is insufficient for these freaks.

In June of 2022, author Sarah Kendzior made the following predictions on the Gaslit Nation podcast:

“I’m gonna wrap this up with a warning, which is that there is a new plan for our already broken two-party system. The plan is to have two parties. One, a batshit crazy MAGA party led by Trump or DeSantis that will bulldoze your rights. And the second one will be a far-right ‘respectable’ party led by Liz Cheney that will also bulldoze your rights. They will call the Cheney party the Democrats and pretend that a creeping capitulation to a right-wing agenda is some kind of act of healing bipartisanship.

…

When I mentioned this possibility on Twitter, someone wrote to me, ‘Liz Cheney is not becoming a Democrat.’ And I replied, ‘I agree. The Democrats are becoming Cheneys.’”

 

This is more or less what appears to have been happening, and it actually started several years ago. During the 2016 Trump campaign a bunch of neoconservative warmongers switched from defending George W. Bush as a saint and decrying Barack Obama as an Ayatollah lover, and began pivoting to endorse Hillary Clinton instead. 

After Trump won, this coalition between Democrats and Bush-era neocons grew even stronger with the creation of new Democratic think tank projects led by Iraq-raping neocons like Bill Kristol.

So now we’re seeing two warmongering oligarchic parties shoving the Overton window of acceptable opinion as far in the direction of imperialism, militarism and tyranny as possible under the leadership of some of the very worst people alive. 

By doing this they ensure that these matters are never on the ballot, and that elections are always about issues the powerful are completely indifferent toward like abortion and trans rights instead.

Progressives who want healthcare and a ceasefire in Gaza are being dismissed and ignored while alliances are being made with the world’s most blood-soaked imperialists. Things have been shoved so far to the right that this election is now a showdown between the Trump Party against the Cheney Party, and no matter who wins, the empire wins. 

Harris at a campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona, in August.  (Gage Skidmore, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)

A lot of fuss will probably be made about election-rigging after the results are announced in November, with the loser declaring that the results are the result of Russian interference or Deep State vote tampering depending on who that loser happens to be. But remember this: the worst election rigging is happening right out in the open, to ensure that oligarchs and empire managers are happy with either outcome.

Source: Consortium News