Dem here, I can offer the dem take, for what it's worth (i.e. little)

If I had to figure Cheney out, I'd say she saw the writing on the wall early on: Trump is too unstable, too erratic, too eager to bully. He fights for the common man, but he doesn't do it well and he rattles everything just by speaking up without much discipline/control.

Cheney recognized this (in fact, almost all R's recognize this, but are beholden to Trump because they'll be voted out of office by MAGA if they criticize him). Congressional R's faced a Faustian bargain and a really lousy choice: follow Trumpism nonstop and agree with everything he does (which R voters love), or go against Trumpism because it's doomed to fail (which R voters hate, and will punish for).

By "doomed to fail," I mean red flags like: Trump promises things that can't be achieved, postpones the follow-through ("two weeks"), and boasts about handling everything ("I alone can fix it"), but prefers to sit back and observe instead (because then he can say "I told you so" when it inevitably fails without his required participation).

Anyway, Liz Cheney (who isn't so worried about her career; she's in the Cheney dynasty) sees that Trumpism is (in her opinion) a dead-end road and wants to preserve her legacy (taking notes from Romney, who walks a similar line).

It's not that Cheney is a secret Dem; it's that she sees herself benefitting more from going against Trump, than with Trump, because the national temperature towards Trump is (in my opinion) much chillier than it is here on TGA. Cheney has put all her chips on "Trumpism isn't the way forward" and, well, history will decide.

And if you want my Kinzinger take, I'll place good money on him running for president as the R candidate, offering a (sane, stable) Republication alternative to Trump. I do not think he will succeed -- the boy's only quality is "Look at me, I'm not Trump!"

Dem here, I can offer the dem take, for what it's worth (i.e. little)

If I had to figure Cheney out, I'd say she saw the writing on the wall early on: Trump is too unstable, too erratic, too eager to bully. He fights for the common man, but he doesn't do it well and he rattles everything just by speaking up without much discipline/control.

Cheney recognized this (in fact, almost all R's recognize this, but are beholden to Trump because they'll be voted out of office by MAGA if they criticize him). Congressional R's faced a Faustian bargain and a really lousy choice: follow Trumpism nonstop and agree with everything he does (which R voters love), or go against Trumpism because it's doomed to fail (which R voters hate, and will punish for).

By "doomed to fail," I mean red flags like: Trump promises things that can't be achieved, postpones the follow-through ("two weeks"), and boasts about handling everything ("I alone can fix it"), but prefers to sit back and observe instead (because then he can say "I told you so" when it inevitably fails without his required participation).

Anyway, Liz Cheney (who isn't so worried about her career; she's in the Cheney dynasty) sees that Trumpism is (in her opinion) a dead-end road and wants to preserve her legacy (taking notes from Romney, who walks a similar line).

It's not that Cheney is a secret Dem; it's that she sees herself benefitting more from going against Trump, than with Trump, because the national temperature towards Trump is much chillier than TGA might admit. Cheney has put all her chips on "Trumpism isn't the way forward" and, well, history will decide.

And if you want my Kinzinger take, I'll place good money on him running for president as the R candidate, offering a (sane, stable) Republication alternative to Trump. I do not think he will succeed -- the boy's only quality is "Look at me, I'm not Trump!"