Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) suggested Monday that the problem with American politics is that “we’re electing idiots.”
“Look, I think that the country right now faces hugely challenging and fundamentally important issues,” Cheney said at an event with the cultural and community center, 92nd Street Y, New York. “What we’ve done in our politics is create a situation where we’re electing idiots.”
Cheney, who is a staunch opponent of former President Trump, offered the reflection in response to a question about whether she would run for president if polling showed that it would hurt Trump’s third White House run.
“I don’t look at it through the lens of, you know, is this what I should do or what I shouldn’t do,” the former congresswoman said. “I look at it through the lens of, how do we elect serious people? And I think electing serious people can’t be partisan.”
“Because of the situation that we’re in, where we have a major-party candidate who’s trying to unravel our democracy — and I don’t say that lightly […]
The people we disagree with, who we see dismantling democracy, who are oppressing people who struggle to fight back, are NOT idiots. They are very intelligent, competent, focused psychopaths. And the people who follow them are not stupid. They are people who have been emotionally manipulated by psychopaths to give them power. Our form of government is nowhere close to democracy. It is a psychopathocracy.
Calling other people idiots, stupid, etc. is an act of intellectual laziness. And so is calling them “serious”. We need a way to avoid being manipulated by psychopaths of all political stripes. We need leaders who have compassion and are willing to promote the greater good without harming the scapegoat du jour. Liz Cheney is an enemy of my enemy, but she is not my friend.