Michael Hayes is Professor Emeritus of political science at Colgate University, in Hamilton.
In a recent column for the Washington Post (”Liz Cheney needs to move on,” Post-Standard, Aug. 21, 2022), Gary Abernathy offered some unsolicited advice to Rep. Liz Cheney following her landslide defeat in the recent Wyoming Republican primary. Instead of “constantly reproaching Republicans for their choices,” Cheney should recognize that the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan no longer exists. It has been replaced by a populist party in the image of Donald Trump.
Cheney and her colleague Adam Kinzinger are “jilted lovers” who think the party has lost its way. In reality, Abernathy says, “Today’s GOP has no interest in being rescued by the people it ditched.” If Cheney wants to have even modest influence within the party, she can either “pick up an oar and row” or “jump ship.” In short, Cheney should shut up, accept her rejection, and stop obsessing. Like the jilted lovers in the 2008 movie, she needs to accept that the GOP is “just not that into you.”
Albert O. Hirschman’s classic analysis, “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty,” offers a better way to think about Cheney’s situation. Hirschman, an economist, examined the options available to consumers faced with inefficient institutions. Before UPS and FedEx existed, consumers whose packages arrived late or were misdelivered had no alternative to the U.S. Postal Service. They could only complain (e.g., use their voice) about shoddy service. With the arrival of UPS and FedEx, consumers had an exit option: They could ship their packages through one of the two new carriers — as many now do. The presence of an exit option eliminated the need for voice.
In short, where consumers cannot exit, they must use voice. Where new competitors enter the market, offering consumers an alternative to the badly performing firm, consumers can “exit” by purchasing from one of the new alternatives. They no longer need to use voice.
Hirschman’s analysis can be applied more broadly. Faced with a changed GOP, Cheney would seem to have an exit option: the Democratic Party. But it isn’t really available to her. She is far too conservative to accept membership in the Democratic Party. She would never be accepted there and would have no influence. Prior to Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, she was one of his most consistent supporters in the House.
Cheney has another option: She could become an independent, perhaps even running for president as a third-party candidate in 2024. However, she is loyal to the Republican Party. She loved the pre-Trump GOP and devoted most of her adult life to it. But the party has not just changed, it has been perverted, turned into a vehicle for chronic liars who are willing to cheat in order to hold onto power.
Cheney doesn’t really have an exit option. She genuinely loves the Republican Party, is reluctant to leave it, and could never fit comfortably within the Democratic Party. Voice is her only recourse.
And the GOP has lost its way. Throughout its history, Republicans steadfastly defended the Constitution with its system of checks and balances. Now they want to centralize power in the hands of an angry autocrat, even downplaying his attempt to remain in power through a violent coup.
Cheney is not alone in lamenting this. Many of us miss the pre-Trump Republican Party and want it to once again provide a responsible alternative to the Democratic Party. Cheney speaks not just for herself but for all traditional conservatives whom Trump would dismiss as Republicans in Name Only.
By contrast, Abernathy appears unworried by GOP voters’ willingness to put election deniers in offices charged with certifying election results. He believes, näively I think, that most Republican voters really know that the 2020 presidential election wasn’t stolen. They just say that it was because they view pollsters as part of the mainstream media.
The rule of law is foundational to our democracy, however, and it used to be foundational to the Republican Party. Those who would overturn election results based on nothing more than self-interested visions of election irregularities pose an existential threat to our system of free and fair elections. Calling the current Republican Party populist, and suggesting that Cheney should get on board with it, is bad advice — for Cheney, and for the rest of us.
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Liz Cheney’s options: exit, voice and loyalty (Guest Opinion by Michael T. Hayes) - syracuse.com
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