The Democracy of Our Discontent – Trump vs. Cheney August 16, 2022

By Colleen O’Connor

Apologies to Buffalo Springfield and their 1966 counterculture protest ballad, but the edited lyrics below are eerily prescient today.

“There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear”
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong”

That battle continues.

Here comes summer, August 16, 2022, where the ultimate electoral battle will be joined again, on primary day in Wyoming, the home state of recent “Profile in Courage” recipient, Rep. Liz Cheney.

A primary election that Cheney has to win to “save democracy,” and one Trump needs to win to save himself.

“I think this is the most important election we have,” Trump boomed at his anti-Cheney rally in Wyoming on Saturday, just days after the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

Calling her a leading proponent of the “Insurrection hoax,” Trump added, “She has gone crazy….Totally crazy.” More likely, “crazy like a fox.”

Do the math.

True, Trump beat Biden with 70% of the vote in Wyoming in 2020, but Cheney won her race with 69%. Also true, Wyoming is a solid red state.  As of May 1, 2022, the number of registered Republicans totaled 196,888; vs. Democrats at 45, 095.

An impossible hurdle, except for what Cheney has waiting in the wings.

Start with the money.

Cheney’s campaign contributions exceed $10 million, with $6.8 million cash on-hand, (breaking all Wyoming records); “while her opponent, Harriet Hageman, began her race with a bit more than $1 million in her campaign coffers.

Next the registration conundrum.  How can Cheney possibly overcome those numbers? Quietly, is the answer.

Though some evidence has already leaked out after Trump’s humiliating defeat in Georgia where both of his targeted opponents, the Secretary of State and Governor won re-election.

How?  With crossover Democratic voters and lots and lots of women and Blacks.  Think abortion and elementary school shootings.

So, too, this might happen In Wyoming where “any voter, regardless of previous partisan affiliation, may change his or her affiliation on the day of the primary.”

Ergo, Democrats and independents can change the calculus.

Again, the math. Rounding the Wyoming voter registration numbers as of May 1, 2022.   Dems = 50,000; GOP = 200,000. Miscellaneous independent and “others” bring the total to 280,000 registered voters in Wyoming.  Need 141,000 to win.

Insurmountable?  Not really.  Add several other GOP contenders and the numbers are fluid.

Suppose Cheney takes at chunk of the GOP tally; say 75,000 votes.  Given her family’s strong ties in Wyoming, not an impossibility.

Add an aggressive Democrat crossover “get out the vote” effort for same-day election registration and voting (fueled with at least $10 million) and, at least 35,000 heretofore registered and other brand-new Democrats become “Republicans-for-a-day” and vote for Cheney.

The Wyoming Secretary of State is already complaining about the Democrats who acknowledged changing their party registration to vote for Cheney.

Split the “unaffiliated” voters (35,000) = 17,000 for Cheney. Cheney takes 75,000 GOP votes; 35,000 Democrats cross-over and new registrants; and 17,000 “unaffiliated” =  127,000. Remember, as of now Need 141,000 votes needed to win.

So, Cheney is only 14,000 short of a victory.

Now, add the January 6th committee hearings this month where Rep. Jamie Raskin has promised, “the findings “will blow the roof off” the Capitol; the looming investigations, indictments, grand jury findings, and more Trumpian bad news and bad behavior.

The Wyoming rally came the day after Trump’s appearance at a National Rifle Association convention where he read the names of the Uvalde school shooting victims and concluded the speech with a dance.

Plus, consider the “stay at home” discontented, and you see how Cheney might not just win, but defeat Trump.

But, Definitely, “Something’s happening here.  What it is ain’t exactly clear.”