Liz Cheney and what it means to admire courage

 Liz Cheney For President.

Will it happen?  No.  Do I agree with her on everything?  No.  I disagree with her on rather a lot, including some of the most important issues of our time.  However, Liz Cheney has more courage and integrity than any other political figure in the country today.  Put her on the ballot against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and it's no contest.  I'm voting for Liz.  Yes, really, and if you pay any attention to what I have to say about the woman to whom I refuse to refer by initials-- endearing or deprecating-- you know I mean that.

It has become fashionable for a wide range of political observers to sing the praises of Liz Cheney, and while I may have been slightly ahead of the curve in my Cheney-crush, I think it would behoove us to think about what courage means in the political context, and what it means to admire it.  In short, you probably don't admire courage.  You probably just enjoy having an unexpected ally.

Right now, it is easy for Trump detractors to claim admiration for the courage and integrity of figures like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, but for most, such claims bespeak little more than the enthusiasm of making common cause with a one-time adversary.  This is a regular thing in comic books.  The hero has to team up with the villain because there's a bigger threat.  The story is more effective when you are talking about Professor X teaming up with Magneto, or some similar pairing, because Magneto has a moral perspective that can be understood.  He's only kind of the villain.  From a certain point of view, he's the hero, and Xavier is just a dupe who blunders so much as to cause more harm than he prevents.  So, if Magneto has to save the day, then cool.  There is a long tradition of the hero/villain team-up, and for many Trump-detractors, whatever paeans you hear to the courage and integrity of Liz Cheney, that's not really what is happening.  Instead, it is simply the pleasure of an unexpected ally in a heretofore villain.

Is Michael Cohen a hero?  No.  Trump's former shitbag lawyer went to prison, and did nothing at all courageous, but the left will have him along just because he turned on Trump.  Eventually.  And when dealing with something as vile as Donald J. Trump, one can understand the desire to seek allies in those who either have been, or might have been on the other side.  But that's not the same thing as admiring courage or integrity, neither of which are traits possessed by Michael Cohen.

He's a fucking lawyer.

A fucking lawyer.

If Giuliani flips on Trump to get out of jail, are you gonna get a Jones for that cousin-fucker?

No.  So let's get back to my current Congress-crush.  Liz.  Courage, and integrity.  Two distinct traits, yet there is an important relationship between how we observe them.  She is telling the truth, which is the integrity part, and she is facing the consequences, because she has courage.  More weight.  To admire this related pair of traits independently of the fact that Cheney is now taking your side would mean considering how you would react if someone told you something you didn't want to hear, knowing there would be a potential for punishment simply for saying it.

'Cuz maybe you've been blinkered, snookered, intellectually buggered.  Maybe you've bought into some kind of groupthink, in at least an innocent way.  I guarantee you, you have.  On something.  I don't know who you are, nor what you believe, but something you believe is bullshit, and you bought into it because you trusted the wrong people rather than doing the research yourself because you can't do the research on everything.  That's just not possible.  Not even for us narcissistic, self-important windbags known as "professors."

So what do you do when someone tells you you're wrong?  On a sacred, cherished belief?  Expecting a backlash?  Potentially a harsh one?

Right now, the anti-Trump faction of the polity is claiming to admire Liz Cheney for her willingness to face punishment as she "speaks truth to power," in that most insipid cliche, dying the political death of Giles Corey.  Courage!  Integrity!

Who's your Giles Corey?  To whose chest would you add stones?

I suppose that depends on a lot of things.  The whos, the hows, the whatnots...  However, if you claim to admire Liz Cheney for her courage and integrity, there needs to be a mechanism by which you listen and consider, at least sometimes, and don't join a mob pile-on when someone says something you don't like.

Stop burning and stoning heathens.  (Says the heathen...)

Why?  Well, plenty of reasons.  (Besides the self-interest of this particular heathen.  Tenured heathen.  We're clear on that, right?)  The big one is the acknowledgement that you might be wrong.  The point of that courage/integrity thing is that the person risking your wrath does so out of a belief in correctness.  Maybe that person is correct.  Maybe you're not.  Are you mad?  OK.  So what?  Fuck anger, fuck umbrage, fuck hurt feelings.  All of those things matter in interpersonal relationships, and not one whit in politics, and if you ever want to learn anything, you need to understand that anger doesn't make you right.  It doesn't make you wrong, but it doesn't make you right.  That's why we have these things called facts, and logic, but getting to that means putting aside the gut-level shit.

So.

Are you more interested in indulging your reactions, or being right?  If you want to be right, you need to develop a correction mechanism, and that means finding a way to figure out when the Liz Cheneys in your midst are calling bullshit on you, and that means when Giles Corey says, "more weight," if you actually do add weight, you're the fuckin' villain.

Instead, you should listen.  You don't get to say you admire her courage and integrity now just because she's on your side now, having both vilified her at every past point, Giles Corey-ed principled apostates who called bullshit on you, and basically just conflated "courage" and "integrity" with taking your ideological side.  If that's what you do, you don't have a correction mechanism, so praising the truth-teller who stands up to those who need correction?  Wanna think about that?

If you aren't willing to listen to those who might call bullshit on you, then you don't admire Cheney's courage or integrity.  You just get a kick out of someone named "Cheney" teaming up with you against the bigger villain.  The thing is, that's a comic book cliche at this point.  Been there, done that.

And of course, music.  OK, so there's a thumbnail telegraphing this.  After all of my Giles Corey references, you'd expect me to post "The Weight," and yeah, it's a cool song, but kind of overplayed, right?  Can't do it.  I just can't.  There are plenty of other weight-themed songs, but I haven't posted the Drive-By Truckers for a while, and the sub-theme of this blog is "Drive-By Truckers Tribute Blog."  Here's "Heathens."  Live, with Isbell rejoining them on stage.