Republicans can’t handle the truth — or Liz Cheney,

WASHINGTON—More than four months after supporters of former president Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in response to his lie that he’d won the election, the insurrection still defined the business taking place in the building.

High fences marked “AREA CLOSED” continue to surround the grounds, officers with guns still guard the entry checkpoints, admitting only credentialed staff, the grand hall of the visitor centre that normally overflows with tourists is empty, its stone statues keeping watch over vast swaths of bare marble floor. You can wander for minutes at a time feeling the place, a palatial monument to American democracy, is abandoned.

But on Wednesday morning in the basement, there was a mob scene outside the women’s bathroom.

A few dozen photographers, videographers and reporters crowded near the door of the restroom as Rep. Liz Cheney made her way to use the facilities. The sound of shutters clicking and shouted questions filled the air.

“Do we have to take photos around the bathroom?” a staffer shouted.

The assembled press were eager to hear from the woman of the moment, staking out a hallway — coincidentally next to the ladies’ room — near the auditorium where Cheney was about to lose her exalted position as House Republican conference chair. That too was part of the ongoing response to — or continuation of, maybe — the actions of the insurrectionists.

Those who stormed the Capitol were responding to Trump’s insistence that he won the election and was being deprived of the presidency by fraud. Trump has continued, in his post-presidency residence in Florida, to insist on that lie.

As I wrote late last week, Cheney has been insistent on calling Trump out for it, saying his lies are dangerous and corrosive, and should have no future in her party. Her party has responded by saying instead that the party is decisively Trump’s, not hers.

She emerged from the restroom facilities and greeted the camera shutters by saying, “Seriously?” And then proceeded into the meeting to face the inevitable.

Out in the hallway, there was discussion of whether the meeting might last an hour, or two. But that speculation was interrupted 16 minutes later, when Cheney emerged and strolled past that same bathroom to address the press at a microphone, relieved now of her responsibilities as a leader of Republican House members.

“I said just now to my colleagues that we must go forward based on truth. We cannot both embrace The Big Lie and embrace the constitution,” Cheney said.

She had made a similar speech Tuesday evening in the House chamber, surrounded by empty seats after her party colleagues fled the room to avoid listening to her. In the end, there was little in the way of speeches, according to some of those who were in the room — just her remarks and a brief introduction calling for “unity” by House Leader Kevin McCarthy. There was no recorded vote; she was removed by an unceremonious voice vote.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a fellow Republican Trump critic, said a short time later, “It was definitely not what I expected.”

Kinzinger said his party needed to take stock of an election it had lost rather than trying to insist it had been stolen. “I stand with Liz, I’m proud of her. There’s a lot of people who are proud of her for what she’s done. And a lot of people who feel threatened by her.”

More threatened by her, it appears, than by the violent insurrectionists who had roamed the Capitol hallways chanting about killing members of Congress, repeating Trump’s rhetoric about a stolen election.

Out in the states, in places Republicans govern, legislatures have taken up that cry, demanding still more repeated audits of the 2020 vote, and passing legislation that would have the effect of making it harder to vote for more people — voting rights advocates say especially harder for Black people and other Democratic constituencies.

It is a continuation of the insurrectionist fight — if not to overturn the 2020 election to deliver it to Trump and Republicans, to fix the next election in their favour.

All day Tuesday, that very fight had occupied Capitol business on the Senate side, where a House bill — the For the People Act — to protect voting rights across the country and prevent gerrymandering was held up all day and into the night by Republicans putting forward obstructionist amendments while arguing bitterly that it was Democrats, through the bill, who were trying to fix future elections in their own favour.

On Wednesday, after the Cheney vote, House members continued to dwell on the siege in a hearing about the events of Jan. 6. There, some Republican members portrayed the Tump supporting rioters of that day as patriots who are now being unfairly harassed.

“It was Trump supporters who lost their lives that day, not Trump supporters who were taking the lives of others,” Georgia Rep. Jody Hice said.

McCarthy, who had condemned Trump immediately after the Jan. 6 insurrection but then presided over the dumping of Cheney Wednesday morning in the name of party unity, didn’t speak to the press immediately after the meeting. He did go up to the White House a few hours later to meet with President Joe Biden and other congressional leaders.

There, McCarthy told the press of the Cheney decision, “I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election. I think that is all over with.”

Of course, a certain former president is still questioning the election’s legitimacy, repeatedly and loudly. People continue to act on those lies. Wednesday morning, Cheney learned definitively that McCarthy and his Republican caucus will not accommodate those who insist on telling the truth.

“All over with?” It seems instead that it is all over, as in everywhere you look, dominating this building and its business still.