I watched Rachael Tonight
She interviewed Liz Cheney
Tonight, I watched Rachael Maddow’s show on MSNBC. I’ve been a fan of hers for years now, as she’s smart and quick thinking, and gets to the meat of a matter rapidly.
Now, she always starts her shows with a monologue — a screed about the elements of her show and what’s behind her interests, the history, the often little known facts of whatever it is, and so forth. Always interesting, because you really get a look inside her mind. Tonight was no different, but tonight, she’s interviewing a woman she’s wanted to interview for over thirteen years, and she tells you why and shows a clip of a few seconds from a full on thirteen years ago when that spark got lit.
She tells us clearly that the reason she wants to interview her is because she and Cheney are so diametrically opposed on the political spectrum. She describes that separation as “She’s over here at infinity and I’m over there at infinity-minus!” Or words to that affect. (Not a direct quote, but close.) And she goes on from there.
Eventually, you see that not only has Rachael not pulled any punches about how diametrically opposites they are and said so in a rather blunt way, but Cheney is sitting across the table from her as she was speaking.
Her point, and Cheney agreed completely, was that this situation about Trump that they both agree is critical to the defense of our democracy, is one in which even people like the two of them must — must — put all that aside to defend democracy in this moment of extreme peril. Nothing else is as important as that.
Rachael went on to go through Cheney’s book (that comes out tonight) about the dangers we face, and a lot of the history that Cheney talks about as examples of what has happened behind the scenes.
I highly urge anyone reading this to go to Rachael’s site on MSNBC tomorrow after they post the video to watch it. It is compelling, and it is important. It is one of her most important interviews, and as usual, she does it extremely well.
But. (Yep, you saw that coming, didn’t you! Can’t put anything past this readership…)
My real purpose in writing this was near the end, where Rachael was explaining how the Republican colleagues of Cheney’s had reacted to her standing up for principle in defending democracy. In short, they’d treated her like a small girl child who couldn't understand a simple schoolhouse lesson. In the words Cheney wrote in repeating what they said. The tone, of course, is missing, but the sheer naked misogyny, at least to me, was almost beyond belief. It easily overwhelmed the supposed purpose of their speaking, it was so obvious.
Now, Rachael was gobsmacked at the reactions Cheney described, but it seemed to me that her focus was on their amazement that Cheney was refusing to go along with Trump. It was like both women completely ignored the misogynistic manner in which those men reacted to Cheney. They were supposedly surprised at her defense of principle. But it was how they spoke that mattered, at least to me.
Now, obviously, I’m a guy, right? 71 years old, raised in Texas. In my world, women were indeed second class citizens, but not in my family. Strong, determined women, one of whom drove herself and her two great grandchildren, both girls, from Texas to Michigan in the 1920’s, carrying her shotgun for protection. Really, I’ve still got that picture. So while my world looked at women that way, I wasn't taught to do that. The woman I married, a German like my father’s mother, is another strong woman. Gives no ground, takes no shit.
So be sure, during the first beginnings of the women’s rights movement, I was cheering them on. I cheered with the Roe Vs. Wade’s ruling and how it empowered women. My wife and I raised our three girls to be that kind of strong woman also.
So don’t be confused here. I am truly and totally gobsmacked that two strong TV personality ladies said NOTHING at all regarding the misogynistic manner in which Cheney was spoken to. So, to the ladies out there, please. Go watch the show. Watch that part in particular, then come back here and tell me I’m wrong — or that I missed something.
I say that because it seems to me — were I a women in Cheney’s position as a strong historically conservative supporting woman who’d voted in lockstep with the Trump GOP — that being looked at and spoken to like that while I stood up and defended both the Constitution and democracy as my Oath of Office demanded would shock me so deeply, so very blatantly that I’d have to sit down and rethink my loyalty to Conservatism. Not just the Party at that moment, but to the very political spectrum of belief that would allow my colleagues of twenty years or more to treat me so badly and so harshly as a second class citizen because I stood up for a basic principle that Conservatism is supposed to have at the foundation of its beliefs.
I just cannot understand that any women, after the GOP’s attacks on women and women’s rights could ever stand up to support that party and anything it is supposed to stand for. Yeah, I know, some folks are single issue voters, and they’ve been ignoring that stuff in favor of their favorite things.
But like Cheney, there must be a red line somewhere. A red line over which a Party steps and you call it quits. Not just to set the Party straight again, but to rethink it all — everything that Party is supposed to believe in, and how strongly they truly believe it.
Can you support the ideology they say they do when they betray the very foundation of that ideology? It seems to me that there must be a line beyond that red one, the first one that got your attention, that when they step over that one, you just have to rethink it all.
After all, she was responding to the threat to democracy — to the Constitution — and she was then treated as a wayward female child who didn't understand something. That’s not only a foundational principle, but that hits her where it should hurt, in her very gender identity, who she is.
Because they showed their true colors — misogynists tried and true. They never respected her, they respected her support for their cause. In spite of her gender, not because of it.
So, please, ladies, tell me I’m wrong, set me straight, or did I get this right?
I’ll be watching, both for your answers, and for Liz Cheney’s moment of enlightenment.
Thanks for reading, and for your remarks.
