'Liz Cheney’s book changed my mind' about Trump after voting for him — twice: columnist

05 March 2024

Former US Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) — once a supporter of Donald Trump — has vocalized her criticism of the ex-president since his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. In 2022, the longtime GOP leader was censured by the Republican National Committee after she voted to impeach Trump and chose to serve on the House January 6 investigative committee.

Cheney's book, "Oath and Honor, a Memoir and a Warning — released in late 2023 — sheds light on her experience as a Republican lawmaker on the committee investigating the former president, and, according to "staunch, almost redneck conservative" Jim Young, is "extremely detailed", "well organized", "objective", "factual", and "fair."

In a Sunday, March 3 op-ed for The Oklahoman, the Republican columnist — who says he thinks President "Joe Biden and his followers in Washington have been in the top five of the worst political leaders we have ever seen in this country’s history" — emphasizes the impact Cheney's book had on his decision to abandon MAGA world. He suggests "the future of our society depends on" Americans' understanding the totality of Trump's efforts to overturn the election.

"After reading Liz Cheney’s book, the committee findings and the DOJ indictment, I do not understand how Donald Trump can possibly be considered as a legitimate candidate for the most important job in the world. Frankly, I don’t understand how he is not in jail right now," Young writes.

The columnist writes:

This book is a very frightening story! It is scary because it shows how incredibly obsessed Trump was about being cheated out of the election. He was totally irrational and willing to believe anything he was told that would lead to a verification of fraudulent voting activities. No matter how hard his advisers and supporters tried to tell him there was simply no substantial evidence that the election was stolen, he continued to connive, coerce and threaten people to overturn the results. He filed some 60 lawsuits in various states attempting to show fraudulent voting activity, all of which he lost.

After he read Cheney's work, Young adds:

I was very surprised and proud of myself having read the entire book! More surprising is what an impact it has had on my thinking about Trump’s role in the whole process of attempting to overturn the results of the election and the incitement of the Jan. 6 mob attack on the Capitol. I even went further after finishing Liz’s book. I was inspired to read the entire Executive Summary of the official finding of the Jan. 6 Select Committee, which is about 100 pages of a pdf document not including about 800 footnotes! Finally, I have read the actual indictment filed by the Justice Department against Mr. Trump. All three documents, the book, the findings and the indictment are very clear, well documented and all tell a very consistent story.

Read Young's full op-ed here.

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