Laughter, groans, and 'amen': Liz Cheney leads a cathartic bipartisan revival in Des Moines.
The former congresswoman brought her book tour to an arena crowd that felt hungry for reassurance in a tense presidential election year.
It felt less like a lecture and more like a mass therapy session for the nervous center-left body politic of urban, college-educated America.
Liz Cheney was the featured speaker March 27 in the latest annual Bucksbaum lecture at Drake University. She drew a throng to the Knapp Center basketball arena—maybe close to 2,000 people casting a wary eye at Nov. 5 as time runs out for Donald Trump to face the bulk of his 91 felony counts before Election Day.
By birth, Cheney is eldest daughter of the 46th vice president of the U.S., Dick Cheney. By experience, she’s an attorney who served in the U.S. State Department during the George W. Bush administration and helped lead the Republican caucus in the U.S. House as a representative from Wyoming (2017-2023). But her opposition to Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection put her at such odds with the GOP that the Drake-blue color palette of the arena also may have reflected that the majority party affiliation in the room was Democratic.
Cheney titled her recent book “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning.” Wednesday night was all about warning. She promised to devote much of her year to preventing a second Trump term—especially in swing states.
Cheney was interviewed on stage by Lee Ann Colacioppo, a Drake alum and editor of the Denver Post who previously worked at The Des Moines Register. Cheney didn’t take questions from the audience, yet there seemed to be an ongoing exchange: Her observations and exhortations triggered a steady stream of emotional outbursts. Nobody tends to confuse an Iowa audience with the atmosphere of a tent revival, but for demure Midwesterners there was palpable energy in the arena drifting in that general direction.
The mere mention of Cheney’s name by Drake President Marty Martin at the start of the event drew an enthusiastic “Wooo!”
Rachel Paine Caufield, political science professor, in her introduction of Cheney, cited the Ron and Jane Olson Institute for Public Democracy’s mission to “reclaim the American project of forming a more perfect union.”
A voice in the crowd: “Amen!”
Cheney was lavished with a standing ovation as she took the stage, before saying a word.
Her father—who probably wouldn’t have received a standing ovation from the same crowd 20 years ago—came up in the first question due to the death earlier that day of Joe Lieberman, the former senator from Connecticut. Lieberman was Al Gore’s running mate in the 2000 presidential election who also became a lawmaker distanced from his own party; he became an independent, supported John McCain for president over Barack Obama in 2008, and helped found the No Labels party that this cycle has yet to sign a candidate to its cause. Cheney cited Lieberman’s vice presidential contest with her father in 2000 as an example of substance and civility from what now feels like a bygone era.
Elected officials who know the danger posed by Trump yet enable him “will be judged very harshly by history,” she said.
“Treason!”
Just think of “the kind of people (Trump) will appoint” this time.
Groans arose from the audience.
“A crackpot with power is really dangerous.”
“Yeah!”
We need “leaders who are serious, leaders who are mature.”
Wry laughter rippled around the arena.
“I know that’s a low bar,” Cheney added, playing off the crowd’s reaction.
“You would never hire many of the people we’ve elected to public office.”
That triggered more laughter and applause.
One of Cheney’s key points included prodding the U.S. Supreme Court to pick up its pace: It shouldn’t be possible, she said, that prosecuting Trump over Jan. 6 must wait until after the next presidential election. How does that promote an informed electorate?
She accused Trump of delay tactics because he and his allies are well aware of all the damaging evidence yet to emerge from the U.S. House Select Committee’s investigation of Jan. 6.
She also criticized Ronna McDaniel, former Republican National Committee chair and NBC political analyst for less than a week, for how she “enabled and spread the big lie” in the wake of the 2020 election. Cheney shook her head at McDaniel’s excuse uttered last weekend on “Meet the Press”: “When you’re the RNC chair, you kind of take one for the whole team.”
More groans from the arena.
By contrast, Cheney’s comment near the end of her hour that Biden should have acted more aggressively earlier in his term to secure the border inspired perhaps one person to clap.
The more popular big finish was a plea to come together as Americans: We need to set aside partisan differences when it comes to the peaceful transfer of power, so we can keep having debates about the direction of our country.
“Yes!”
As a journalist and writer I try to stay measured in calling for a return to civility—knowing there’s always a danger in speaking from too much a privileged, centrist view. It may be well meaning to pine for an earlier era of what feels like politics as normal, but which era, really, is immune from injustice and venom?
To paraphrase a Billy Joel song, the good old days weren’t always good, and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.
But there’s obvious hunger for political figures, like Cheney, willing to cross a party line like they’re crossing the Rubicon. (The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in 2022 even honored Cheney with its Profile in Courage Award.)
America can survive bad policy, Cheney said, but it can’t survive a president willing to torch the Constitution.
Applause, applause, applause.
Sitting among 2,000 fellow Iowans who seem to agree with that sensible sentiment is reassuring.
Less reassuring is knowing we live in a jittery world of growing news deserts, manipulative social-media algorithms, and artificial intelligence that lead to a more distorted reality. Crowds everywhere are eager to give the standing ovation before they hear a word—too often for no good reason at all.
The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative has grown to include nearly 50 members and a Letters from Iowans column. Subscribe to the main account for a convenient way to be notified each Sunday about most posts by most members. You can support individual members according to your unique interests by becoming a paid subscriber to any newsletter. We are also proud to be affiliated with Iowa Capital Dispatch, where some of our content is regularly republished.
We were there Kyle. You captured the atmosphere of the Knapp perfectly. Ms. Cheney was electric. I hope she left knowing how much we appreciate what she has done and is doing for our country. She is a patriot.