RUTHFULLY YOURS

As is invariably the case when a conservative of any stripe elects to publicly endorse a Democrat, Liz Cheney’s decision to actively campaign in support of Kamala Harris’s presidential candidacy has yielded a host of emotional paeans, a crush of sycophantic encomia, and a flock of confident-if-hollow assertions that, because she has now been endorsed by a scattering of right-wingers, the Democrats have at long last responded to the threat of Donald Trump by engaging in “Republican outreach.” I must report, alas, that all of these reactions are unsound. Insofar as Cheney’s wholehearted recommendation is likely to have any material effect on our present predicament, it will be to increase the supply of distrust in the political class, and thus to make our underlying problems worse. This, as the kids these days like to say, ain’t it.

I do not begrudge Liz Cheney her decision to endorse Kamala Harris. I do not question her sincerity in doing so, either. If, as she claims, Cheney believes that Donald Trump has not merely disqualified himself from consideration but represents a tangible threat to the U.S. Constitution, then the course she has chosen is the rational one. My issue is with Cheney’s strategic judgment. In the past, Cheney has described Harris as a “radical liberal” who “sounds just like Karl Marx”; as an outré ideologue who wants to reserve “absentee ballots for al-Qaeda”; and as an extremist who “would raise taxes, take away guns & health insurance, and explode the size and power of the federal gov’t,” and “recreate America in the image of what’s happening on the streets of Portland & Seattle.” Logically, there is nothing that prevents Cheney from continuing to believe all of these things while voting for Harris nevertheless. Cheney has already said that, “because of the danger that Donald Trump poses,” she “will be voting for Kamala Harris,” and, while it is not my own, this position is wholly defensible. But, by actively campaigning with Harris, Cheney has both undercut her authority and hurt the very cause that she is trying to serve.

Campaigning is an all-or-nothing activity. In a statement, one can convey nuanced ideas. In a statement, one can easily contend that one strongly disagrees with a given politician but that one intends to vote for that politician nevertheless. In a statement, one can keep as much distance as one likes. On the stump? Not so much. Stumps are agitated, zealous, monomaniacal places that demand the assiduous downplaying of differences and the careless showering of adulation. Expressing her support for Harris in Wisconsin this week, Cheney conceded that the pair “may disagree on some things” and “may not see eye to eye on every issue,” before proposing that Harris would be “a president that can inspire our children.” Which . . . well, which is absolutely ridiculous, isn’t it? “We may disagree on some things” is a fine and useful phrase, but, for all its advantages, it is not one that can be credibly used to describe a person who the speaker is on record believing is a “radical” who “sounds just like Karl Marx,” who wants to “recreate America in the image of what’s happening on the streets of Portland & Seattle,” and who must not be given “the chance” to exercise power. That Cheney has shifted from attacking Harris without reservation to transparently euphemizing her critiques will make some observers wonder which of the two accounts is the real one — or, worse, if either is.

Despite having covered American politics for more than a decade, I am not, by habit, much of a cynic. But others are, and their ranks are growing like Topsy. There are a great number of explanations for the rise of Donald J. Trump, but the most fructiferous among them has been the widespread belief that the Washington, D.C., establishment believes in nothing and will justify anything. Fair or not, the sight of Liz Cheney moving from arguing that Kamala Harris is a grave threat to our country to submitting that Kamala Harris will “inspire our children” — a transmutation that was accompanied by the Democrats moving from calling Liz Cheney’s father, Dick, a “war criminal” to proudly touting his support of their ticket — is precisely the sort of thing that creates more cynicism, and, in consequence, more Trumps. I can tell you now, without any doubt in my heart, that the next time I insist aloud that not everybody in our politics is an empty vessel, my argument will be met with five words: “So what about Liz Cheney?” And the question, I’m afraid, will resonate.