Liz Cheney, like Margaret Chase Smith, will leave a legacy of standing on the right side of history on the issue most likely to define her political career.
Sen. Smith spoke out against Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s tactics in 1950. It took four years for her Senate colleagues to censure him, all the while his unconscionable actions encouraged the trampling of Americans’ rights. Cheney has spoken out against former President Donald Trump and his untruths and unconscionable actions.
Both women, staunch Republicans, criticized Democrats on policy issues. But they also saw men of their own party – McCarthy and Trump – as great threats to American democracy.
McCarthy’s legacy is so cemented that Merriam-Webster’s definition of McCarthyism includes “the use of tactics involving personal attacks on individuals by means of widely publicized indiscriminate allegations especially on the basis of unsubstantiated charges.”
