Liz Cheney and Democrats' big tent strategy: Why courting Republicans works for Kamala Harris

I once wrote that Liz Cheney was the most dangerous woman in America. I thought she could easily be the nominee in 2024 and believed that she'd be worse than her father because she was just as right-wing but had served during the chaotic Trump era. I cautioned that "Democrats should work very hard to keep the loyalty of women who have left the GOP in recent years. Cheney or (Nikki) Haley could potentially get them back if the Dems are perceived to have failed them."

I concluded that it was likely that the first woman president would have to be a Republican because I didn't think independent men (and maybe some Democrats, too) would vote for a Democratic woman, fearing that they just aren't "tough enough." Cheney was in the GOP leadership at the time and made it up the ladder faster than anyone I could remember. She came into the job with a stellar Republican pedigree as the daughter of Dick "Prince of Darkness" Cheney and backed Trump to the hilt. She was tough as nails and also seemed to be a pretty savvy politician. She worried me — a lot.

Needless to say, I was wrong about everything.

Today Liz Cheney has been drummed out of the Republican Party and a Black and South Asian Woman from California, Kamala Harris, is running for president on the Democratic ticket. Cheney appeared in Wisconsin on Thursday and said "I tell you, I have never voted for a Democrat, but this year I am proudly casting my vote for VP Kamala Harris."

She added: "We are not going back!"

I will admit this is not entirely comfortable. I've seen so little true political courage from Republicans in the last couple of decades, and especially in the last eight years, that I reflexively mistrust it. I've been on the other side of Liz Cheney on virtually every issue for as long as I can remember and I'm sure I still am. And after all, she supported Trump for years and didn't speak up when he demonstrated his unfitness both at home and abroad.

But unlike others in her party who either stood silent or spoke out briefly then retreated into their comfy partisan rabbit holes, Cheney drew the line at Trump's attempt to overturn the election, his incitement of an insurrection and the Big Lie he perpetuates to this day. She became the voice of those Republicans who finally had enough of Trump and rejected the fascistic impulses that showed themselves in living color during that period between the election of 2020 and January 6, 2021.

And while it may have been uncomfortable for me to see my chosen candidate bask in the warmth of a Liz Cheney endorsement, I would imagine it was just as uncomfortable for Cheney to campaign for a pro-choice, gun regulating, Obamacare-loving, union-backing, billionaire-taxing, liberal Democrat. Yet she did it.

And for all of my distrust of her in the past, I believe Cheney is entirely earnest when she exhorts those listening, "so help us right the ship of our democracy so that history will say of us, when our time of testing came, we did our duty, and we prevailed because we loved our country more."

It was a good speech and frankly moving to see the two strong women with polar opposite ideologies come together to oppose the narcissistic authoritarian who tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power and is promising to do even worse next time.

Her reason for doing this is simple. She believes that Donald Trump is an existential threat to the nation and the world and she became convinced of this when he openly defied the Constitution and staged an attempted coup. That so few of her allegedly patriotic Republican brethren didn't draw that line is still shocking to me. I respect her for standing up against them when the cost to her was so high. The Republican Party as currently constituted, and as it will stay constituted for some time to come, Donald Trump or not, is never going to make Liz Cheney president.

The question a lot of Democrats are asking is why the Harris campaign wanted Cheney to campaign with her in Wisconsin anyway. Several other Republican apostates, including former Trump staffer Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified before the January 6 Committee, will be holding events in the final days in the swing states. They have launched a new ad campaign aimed specifically at these voters.

It would seem they believe that there are some persuadable independents and Republicans who could be moved by the type of argument Cheney made yesterday. This MSNBC segment featured some of those voters:

JD Vance's unfortunate gaffe the other night in the debate in which he could not say that Trump didn't win the election reminded everyone of the stakes in this election once again. And while they couldn't have predicted it, special counsel Jack Smith dropping the new detailed brief on the case against Trump for his actions on January 6 only reinforced it.

According to The Bulwark's Sarah Longwell, who has been doing focus groups with Republican and independent voters for the past year, there is, in fact, a group that is motivated by this topic. She points out that the reason Trump didn't want the Smith documents unsealed is because he didn't want January 6 to return as a "high salience issue this close to the election." Reminding these voters about it is "the number one way to sort of push those voters back away from Trump."

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

The polling shows that the race is very close in the battleground states, which is terrifying. For whatever reason there are tens of millions of Republicans and independents who still believe that Trump was justified in plotting to overturn the election in defiance of the law and the Constitution. Many of them don't think that storming the Capitol to stop the certification of the vote was any big deal either. But if there are a few swing voters out there who feel differently, it's well worth going after them.

I realize that there are Democrats who really hate this strategy. In the past I've railed against it too, worrying about the Democrats compromising their values and beliefs. But this is different. Liz Cheney and the other anti-Trump Republicans coming forward to endorse her are doing it to stand against the criminal Donald Trump and the extremist, authoritarian agenda he is running on. Kamala Harris isn't promising to back abortion bans or burn books about gay penguins to get their votes. It's about turning back the tide of fascism whether its face is Trump, Vance or Ted Cruz. (Cheney endorsed Cruz's opponent Colin Allred for just that reason.)

And Democrats need to remember that even as we are fighting to maintain some semblance of a working democracy, as shaky as it is, the stakes are extremely high and very personal for millions of vulnerable people who will pay the price if we don't win. I think former Harry Reid aide and Democratic strategist Adam Jentleson said it best:

Beating Trump means building as big and broad a coalition as possible. It's really that simple. The people who will suffer if he wins are counting on us to do it.

So thanks Liz and all the other Republicans who are pitching in to help make that happen. We need every voter we can get.