Not Without Incident: Questioning Big Brother's Platitudes

“Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?”[i]– Mary Shelley

“I would do it again in a minute.”[ii] This was how Dick Cheney responded to the torture report released in 2014, which outlines the various methods the CIA used to torture, or in their words, interrogate, detainees, including forced rectal feeding, sleep deprivation, and waterboarding. Cheney said in an interview with FOX News that the torture report was “full of crap”, and he said “The question is what are you prepared to do in order to get the truth about future attacks against the United States,”[iii] One of the points made in the torture report is that no substantive intelligence was acquired from the use of torture, however, Cheney, who admitted that he had only read parts of it, was adamant that torture was essential in finding and bringing to justice the perpetrators of 9/11.

This issue of the effectiveness of torture resurfaced in the media when Trump, in his first term, had chosen Gina Haspel to be his head of the CIA. Haspel had not only recorded torture that she witnessed in journals, but she was also responsible for having tapes of torture destroyed.[iv] At the time, Cheney’s daughter, Liz, said that torture, or as they call it, enhanced interrogation, was integral to uncovering the 9/11 attackers.[v] Cheney never expressed any regrets about the Bush regime’s torture program, or its adventurism in the Middle East. Further, the entire illiberal liberal class is awash with mindless, solemn tributes for the life and legacy of Cheney. The furthest most of them go to criticize him is to say that he was polarizing or controversial. Aside from a few op-eds, political and media elites are giving him respect that he does not deserve and they are not calling him out for his complicity in not only giving rise to Donald Trump in 2016, but in his avid imposition of unitary executive theory which we now see Trump and his acolytes attempting to implement.

Liz said of her father, “I want people to remember that my father chose country over party,”[vi] This absurd quote and variations of it are attached to many conservatives who left the GOP after Trump’s ascension. Trump and ‘Trumpism’ made them feel ashamed to be a Republican, and this embarrassment made them many of them migrate to the Democratic party and endorse Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris for president. The Cheney’s endorsed Harris for president in 2024, as they saw Trump as a dangerous person who is a dire threat to democracy. The rehabilitation of people like Cheney, simply because they utter the proper claims about Trump, is a sickening spectacle. Cheney’s record of carnage and mayhem should not be sterilized for the sake of advancing the fantasy that there are “good Republicans”, and that these “good Republicans” should be supported by the Democrats who value debate and true democracy. If Cheney passes for a “good Republican”, or good in general, because he hated the person who you must hate if you want to be a member of polite society, then what does that make Trump and the illiberal class? What does that make us when we allow the ruling class to dupe us into believing that Cheney was anything but what he was?

Anyone who would say of Cheney that he was not so bad because he hated Trump and put country over party when it came to Trump should be ashamed. As I have argued before, Cheney is not the moral better of Trump. He is more depraved and insidious than Trump or his minions could ever hope to be. Cheney created the foundation for a figure like Trump, just as Barrack Obama did, and instead of calling him out for this, our ruling elites want to pretend that Cheney may have been ‘controversial’, but that he was a man of principle and character. They should be ashamed as well, and during Bush’s presidency they harshly lambasted him and Cheney, who was called Darth Vader. He embraced this title, and after 9/11, he exploited the fear of Islamic terrorism to justify turning the US into a militaristic police state. Despite a humble foreign policy being a key tenet of Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign, the regime proceeded to do the exact opposite. Cheney even said that it would be necessary to work on “the dark side”, and he said at the time that “We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world.”, and of terrorists like Osama Bin laden, he said “That’s the world these folks operate in, and so it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.”[vii] When someone in power says that they will use any means necessary at their disposal to achieve any goal, they are outing themselves as a tyrant. The tyranny that Cheney and Bush began is directly linked to the tyranny we are seeing now in the Trump regime. Of course, the concentration of power in the executive branch was further consolidated under Obama and Biden, but in Trump’s second term, we are seeing the inevitable results of the imperial presidency, a project decades in the making but now more powerful and ruthless than ever.

Cheney is the epitome of the illiberal liberal class, as he claimed to defend democracy and liberty as he totally undermined them and sowed the seeds of its destruction.[viii] As George Cassidy Payne writes, “The man who professed to honor institutions helped birth a movement that scorns them. The leader who claimed to defend freedom helped create conditions for its dismantling.”, and he goes on to note that what makes Cheney’s legacy tragic is that “He genuinely thought America could preserve its dignity while denying it to others.”[ix] The illiberal liberal class, in its fight to preserve itself, instead made the rise of a figure like Trump inevitable, and allowed him to inherit vast, unchecked powers that he is abusing in numerous ways now, just like his predecessors did. Trump doesn’t just put an ugly face on the empire Cheney avidly tried to retain, he puts such a grotesque face on it that it is impossible to ignore or evade the reality of its actions.

Cheney may have genuinely despised Trump, but it cannot be because he is despotic. It is because Trump is not a proper steward of Cheney’s vision of what the executive should be. As Chip Gibbons notes, the danger of Trump’s unchecked power through the shadow government is power that Cheney devoted his career to building.[x] If the Democrats and others in the illiberal liberal class were truly alarmed by the Trump regime, they would have flipped their stance on the likes of Cheney. As I have argued before, it is evident that it is not autocracy that bothers them, it is the identity of the autocrat, who is being autocratic. The illiberal liberal class is not furious about Trump doing autocracy; they are furious that he is not doing autocracy correctly. This is why Cheney hated and opposed Trump, just like the plethora of now former Republicans who signed that letter back in 2016 which condemned Trump as dangerous and unfit to be president. Trump horrifies them because he is a perfect embodiment of what they advocate for, brutal, unrelenting, zero-sum, merciless, carnal, shameless empire, run by a shadow state, the permanent regime.

Trump is the logical endpoint of what Cheney spent his political career creating. Just like the rest of the illiberal liberal class, Cheney eyed his creation, Trump, with the same horror as Victor Frankenstein eying his monstrosity. Contrary to those who acknowledge Cheney’s role in setting the stage for Trump’s lawlessness but then note that his disdain for Trump at the end of his life is to his credit, he does not deserve any credit for this. His hatred for Trump is not because he is dangerous or demagogic- it is because he is not doing demagoguery properly. 

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[i] Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones, 1818.

[ii] Gerstein, Josh. “Dick Cheney: ‘I’d Do It Again in a Minute’ – POLITICO.” POLITICO. Politico, December 14, 2014. https://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/dick-cheney-white-house-113566.

[iii] Breitman, Kendall. “Cheney on Torture Report: ‘Full of Crap.’” POLITICO. Politico, December 11, 2014. https://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/dick-cheney-cia-torture-report-113482.

[iv] Queally, Jon. “CIA Operative Gina Haspel Who Tortured, Ordered CIA Torture Tapes Destroyed, and Now Wants to Lead CIA Did Nothing Wrong, Says CIA | Common Dreams.” Common Dreams, April 21, 2018. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/04/21/cia-operative-gina-haspel-who-tortured-ordered-cia-torture-tapes-destroyed-and-now.

[v] Lima, Cristiano. “Meghan McCain, Liz Cheney Spar over Torture on Twitter.” POLITICO. Politico, March 15, 2018. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/15/mccain-cheney-spar-over-torture-465532.

[vi] Gangel, Jamie, Jeremy Herb, and Nicky Robertson. “‘Country over Party’: How Dick Cheney Helped Liz Cheney Stand up to Donald Trump.” CNN, November 4, 2025. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/04/politics/liz-cheney-trump-dick-cheney.

[vii] Cheney, Dick, and Tim Russert. “The Vice President Appears on Meet the Press with Tim Russert.” georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov, September 16, 2001. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/vp20010916.html.

[viii] Boot, Max. “The Cheney Effect.” Foreign Affairs, November 5, 2025. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/cheney-effect., Dodds, Graham. “Dick Cheney’s Expansive Vision of Presidential Power Lives on in Trump’s Agenda,” November 4, 2025. https://doi.org/10.64628/aai.ar9emqh7w., Greenberg, David. “How Dick Cheney’s Lack of Restraint Paved the Way for Donald Trump.” POLITICO. Politico, November 6, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/11/06/cheney-presidency-power-00639794. and Nichols, John. “Dick Cheney Paved the Way for Donald Trump.” The Nation, November 5, 2025. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/dick-cheney-death-donald-trump-legacy/.

[ix] Cassidy Payne, George. “How Cheney’s Destructive War on Terror Became Trump’s Authoritarian War on Truth | Common Dreams.” Common Dreams, November 5, 2025. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/how-cheney-s-destructive-war-on-terror-became-trump-s-authoritarian-war-on-truth.

[x] Gibbons, Chip. “Dick Cheney’s Legacy Is One of Brutal Carnage.” Jacobin.com, 2025. https://jacobin.com/2025/11/cheney-war-terror-iraq-trump.

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References

Boot, Max. “The Cheney Effect.” Foreign Affairs, November 5, 2025. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/cheney-effect.

Breitman, Kendall. “Cheney on Torture Report: ‘Full of Crap.’” POLITICO. Politico, December 11, 2014. https://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/dick-cheney-cia-torture-report-113482.

Cassidy Payne, George. “How Cheney’s Destructive War on Terror Became Trump’s Authoritarian War on Truth | Common Dreams.” Common Dreams, November 5, 2025. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/how-cheney-s-destructive-war-on-terror-became-trump-s-authoritarian-war-on-truth.

Cheney, Dick, and Tim Russert. “The Vice President Appears on Meet the Press with Tim Russert.” georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov, September 16, 2001. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/vp20010916.html.

Dodds, Graham. “Dick Cheney’s Expansive Vision of Presidential Power Lives on in Trump’s Agenda,” November 4, 2025. https://doi.org/10.64628/aai.ar9emqh7w.

Gangel, Jamie, Jeremy Herb, and Nicky Robertson. “‘Country over Party’: How Dick Cheney Helped Liz Cheney Stand up to Donald Trump.” CNN, November 4, 2025. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/04/politics/liz-cheney-trump-dick-cheney.

Gerstein, Josh. “Dick Cheney: ‘I’d Do It Again in a Minute’ – POLITICO.” POLITICO. Politico, December 14, 2014. https://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/dick-cheney-white-house-113566.

Gibbons, Chip. “Dick Cheney’s Legacy Is One of Brutal Carnage.” Jacobin.com, 2025. https://jacobin.com/2025/11/cheney-war-terror-iraq-trump.

Greenberg, David. “How Dick Cheney’s Lack of Restraint Paved the Way for Donald Trump.” POLITICO. Politico, November 6, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/11/06/cheney-presidency-power-00639794.

Lima, Cristiano. “Meghan McCain, Liz Cheney Spar over Torture on Twitter.” POLITICO. Politico, March 15, 2018. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/15/mccain-cheney-spar-over-torture-465532.

Nichols, John. “Dick Cheney Paved the Way for Donald Trump.” The Nation, November 5, 2025. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/dick-cheney-death-donald-trump-legacy/.

Queally, Jon. “CIA Operative Gina Haspel Who Tortured, Ordered CIA Torture Tapes Destroyed, and Now Wants to Lead CIA Did Nothing Wrong, Says CIA | Common Dreams.” Common Dreams, April 21, 2018. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/04/21/cia-operative-gina-haspel-who-tortured-ordered-cia-torture-tapes-destroyed-and-now.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones, 1818.