“His time has come,” says Mike Schaefer, a resident of the Cheyenne Capital, who doesn’t like that this 56-year-old woman is “so anti-Trump.” Because in Washington, the parliamentarian is co-chair of a commission investigating the role played by Donald Trump in his supporters’ violent attack on the American Congress on January 6, 2021.
Still very martial in tone, she has been trying for more than a year to dismantle the theory put forward by the Trump clan that the 2020 election was “stolen” from the former president, an argument that millions of Trumpists believe in despite the fact hold overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
“America cannot remain free if we reveal the truth,” insists Liz Cheney, who has vowed to do whatever it takes to ensure the former president never goes near the Oval Office again. And on Tuesday will seek re-election to his post in Wyoming, which voted more than 70% for Donald Trump in the last presidential election against Joe Biden.
In response to his role on that commission of inquiry, Donald Trump has made Liz Cheney his all-time pet peeve. Sparing not the slightest blow against the chosen one, whom he describes as “disloyal and warmongering,” he throws all his powers behind his opponent Harriet Hageman, a 59-year-old lawyer in long dark outfits and imposing turquoise jewels with whom he met in late May election campaign went.
An heiress to the traditionalist right
It doesn’t matter if Liz Cheney, heiress to a very traditionalist right and also known as the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, is pro-gun or anti-abortion. In Wyoming, America’s most sparsely populated state, it’s no longer conquered ground.
Since investigating Donald Trump and his entourage, the elected official has received multiple death threats and no longer travels without a police escort. This blonde, bespectacled woman was disowned by the Wyoming Republican Party, whose president himself took part in the demonstrations on the day the Capitol was attacked.
In her state, which first gave women the right to vote in 1869, as recalled by a large mural in downtown Cheyenne, the elected official is forced to conduct a kind of phantom campaign, without election rallies or public events.
“Spirit of the Cowboys”
Recent polls place her 20 or even 30 points behind her Trumpist rival, who grew up on a ranch and, according to Mary Martin, “embodies the Wyoming cowboy spirit: hardworking, honest, and committed to our country.”