"Liz Cheney is a bitter, horrible human being. I watched her yesterday and realized how bad she is for the Republican Party."

"She has no personality or anything good having to do with politics or our Country. She is a talking point for Democrats, whether that means the Border, the gas lines, inflation, or destroying our economy. She is a warmonger whose family stupidly pushed us into the never-ending Middle East Disaster, draining our wealth and depleting our Great Military, the worst decision in our Country’s history. I look forward to soon watching her as a Paid Contributor on CNN or MSDNC!" 

So blogs Donald Trump. I got there via Memeorandum, not because I check Trump's blog with regularity. The link went to the post page, not to the blog proper, and I was thrown for a moment by the words just above the post: "back to feed."

Those words appear right next to an image of Trump bent over a table, and, without looking more closely, I thought: He's back to feed — feed upon the other politicians, upon the journalists, upon random tidbits of American culture. We're all a grand feast for him! I think of Robert Bork's "I think it would be an intellectual feast...."

But of course, "back to feed" was a hot link, a place to click, that would get you back to his "feed," that is, his blog. If you're on an individual post page of my blog, the hot link to click on says "Home." It would be weird if it said "feed." But this is an out-and-proud blog, and Trump's blog is trying to seem like Twitter. Arguably, Twitter is a blog — "micro-blogging" — but it's different from a blog because all the blogs are interwoven in one humongous feed. There we feed/we are the feed.

Cheney defiant.

There's only one word for it — defiant. 

The word "defiant" is based on the root "fi" — which means "faith." The oldest meaning has to do with renouncing faith — such as renouncing allegiance to the king and declaring hostility or a state of war. But it's long meant to challenge and resist power openly. 

In the Liz Cheney situation, she's losing her own position of leadership as the group chooses a different leader. I don't think complaining about losing the support of the group is defiance. The group always had power to pick the leadership it wants, so the allegiance remains the same, to a process of choosing leadership. Is Cheney saying there's something wrong with that? She just thinks they're making the wrong choice. 

It's funny that all the press outlets are choosing the same word, "defiant," when it's not the right word. I understand that the word is often used loosely, just to mean staunch and feisty, but when everyone picks the same loosely applicable word, there's something fishy. 

But what's fishy? I think it's a desire on the part of the press to imbue Cheney with some sort of righteous entitlement to leadership. They have allegiance to her. They feel defiant. By rights, she ought to lead the Republicans. That's not factually true, of course. I'm spelling this out to expose it as ridiculous.

ADDED: "No one outside of Wyoming, except Peggy Noonan, cares a whit about Liz Cheney. The question is whether the NeverTrumpers, abetted by the Democrats, can kill Trump’s chances of a political resurrection" — writes Conrad Black, in "Liz Cheney and the ‘Big Lie’/When the No. 3 House Republican gets the high jump this week, the real loser will be the attempt to suppress any real examination of what happened in the last election" (American Greatness.)