Dick Cheney the Democrat
(Dick Cheney announcing he will vote for Kamala Harris).
Dick Cheney endorsed Kamala Harris to the shock of a certain type of center right commentator and glee of a subset of Democratic Party activist. This is the same Dick Cheney who orchestrated the Iraq war which killed over 1 million people all the while lining his pockets with Halliburton money as they contracted their way across the Middle East. A man who once evoked more hatred from the Jon Stewart liberal crowd than anyone else could have is now voting for that crowd’s chosen candidate.
On one end of the spectrum there is Dick Cheney, on the other end the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocascio-Cortez. Dick Cheney orchestrated the destabilization of the Middle East and over a million dead in Iraq off the back of lies to line his own pockets, the ramifications of which are still felt today. Bernie and AOC campaigned on healthcare for all, a Green New Deal, and building labor power for workers. They could not be more diametrically opposed and the Democratic Party cannot have its cake and eat it two. Both of these wings cannot be embraced without somebody, or everybody, selling out their values.
Nobody Gains Anything From A Dick Cheney Endorsement
The real answer is everybody. To the extent the Cheneys are stalwart conservatives they have endorsed Kamala Harris who rightly or wrongly is perceived as the most liberal candidate of the last century or so. Bernie Sanders and AOC are saddled with saying positive statements about probably one of the single most evil political actors in modern American history. That is especially troubling when principled truth telling is kind of core to the brand of the modern American left as revived by Bernie Sanders, at least in theory.
Throwing away the principle that war criminals are bad to defeat Donald Trump seems incredibly short sighted and likely very unpopular. It should be mentioned that Donald Trump came to power in no small part thanks to an anti-Iraq War message, just as Barack Obama did before him. American military adventurism in the Middle East is incredibly unpopular and if you could hold any single person responsible for that Dick Cheney is probably top of the list.
Kamala Harris and the Democrats can’t stop Dick Cheney from endorsing them, just as they can’t stop Vladimir Putin from endorsing them. But they shouldn’t thank him for it. They shouldn’t bask in the glow of winning an arch-conservative war criminal’s endorsement just because it would have been wild and unexpected 20 years ago and might win some infinitesimally small number of conservative voters.