Liz Cheney Zeroes In On Problem Of American Politics: “We’re Electing Idiots”

UPDATED: Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) has a succinct take on what’s wrong with American politics: “We’re electing idiots.”

Cheney, whose criticism of former President Donald Trump likely cost her her congressional seat last year, was interviewed at an event at the 92nd Street Y in New York on Monday by David Rubenstein, co-founder and co-chairman of the Carlyle Group.

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He asked Cheney whether she would consider an independent White House bid.

She answered, “What we’ve done in our politics is create a situation where we’re electing idiots, and so I don’t look at it through the lens of, is this what I should do or what I shouldn’t do. I look at it through the lens of, ‘How do we elect serious people?’ And I think electing serious people can’t be partisan.”

She went on to blame the problem in part on the closed primary process.

Cheney is now a professor at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

She also sat for an interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt from the Aspen Ideas Festival, with portions airing on NBC Nightly News on Tuesday.

“I’m not going to do anything that helps Donald Trump, and I think that I’ll make a decision about what I do and what comes next later this year,” she said about a potential independent presidential bid.

“I feel very strongly about how important it is that we not let slip away what is so special and magnificent about this nation.”

Cheney was vice chair of the January 6th Committee, which was dissolved at the end of the last Congress. She lost her Wyoming seat in the Republican primary last year, with then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy working against her. Republicans had already stripped her of her party leadership position because of her criticism of Trump.

Cheney told Holt that “the single most important issue is that Donald Trump never be anywhere near the Oval Office again.”

But she warned that, when it comes to the 2024 presidential election, “it’s really important for Democrats to take him seriously. There can be a tendency sometimes for people on the Democratic side to say, ‘Well, look, the Republicans will nominate him, the Republicans are a mess, but we’ll be able to beat him in a general.’ That is playing with fire and it’s a risk we cannot take.”

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