In 1949, five contemporary writers Andre Gide, Richard Wright, Ignazio Silone, Stephen Spender, Arthur Koestler and the American foreign correspondent Lewis Fisher wrote essays for a collection entitled The God Who Failed in which they present their acceptance, rejection and denial of communism. Liz Cheney - one of the most prominent critics of Donald Trump from the ranks of Republicans, who was just defeated in the party primaries, which prevented her from defending her seat in the US House of Representatives in November - may be able to join this discussion.
The twentieth century was a period of ideological commitment and political disillusionment. To many people, especially writers and intellectuals, it seemed that the communist cause offered a path to self-knowledge and social justice, and even to a kind of salvation. By the time the Jew, Kestler and the others put their disappointment on paper, that belief was already a thing of the past for them. But they realized that for many - especially their intellectual peers - the spell of Communism had not yet worn off.
After all, it was only the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 by the Soviets that made the "half-witted" Jean-Paul Sartre question his belief that the Soviet Union was leading humanity into the future. George Bernard Shaw, prone to shocking statements, never expressed doubt about the Soviet experiment, regardless of the number of victims.
Shaw's devotion was so unwavering that even my great-grandmother Nina, who was a lifelong Bolshevik, noticed it. While working on a biography of Nikita Khrushchev, my great-grandfather, I learned that Nina was so enchanted by Sho after meeting him in Moscow in 1931 that she even learned to read English thanks to him. She insisted that Shaw was superior to most Westerners and many Soviet people because he never betrayed his revolutionary beliefs.
However, for those who committed such "treason", one thing was practically guaranteed: their rejection of the communist creed would be as diligent as their acceptance. No matter how fervently they worship their secular god, they will work even harder to counter the danger he poses to the world. From books to treatises, they denounced the Soviet Union as a diabolical experiment that became the inevitable consequence of an arrogant idea.
It is possible that they were speaking out to protect the world. But they were probably protecting themselves that way. Communist apostates were at a loss, and even - as in Silone's case - ashamed of their initial reliance on a god that later proved false. So they compensated for it, to the point of overcompensation.
Political and ideological disillusionment seems to fuel the same oppositional fervor in the United States today, and Liz Cheney is a prime example of this. Cheney was Wyoming's only representative in the House of Representatives for three terms, each time winning a convincing majority. But this time, Wyoming voters handed her a crushing defeat.
The reason is as simple as it is undeniable: Cheney refused to bow to Trump and his "Big Lie" that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen." Cheney has long denounced the "cult of personality" that has taken over the Republican Party and is co-chairing a House investigation into the role of Trump and his allies in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
However, voters in Wyoming are still captivated by Trump. That's why they chose Harriet Hedgeman, a Trump-backed opponent of Liz Cheney, a vocal proponent of the "Big Lie" and most of the other conspiracy theories that have emerged in "Trump World."
But Cheney is not giving up. She announced the formation of a political action committee that will deal with identifying threats that threaten democracy and oppose any attempt by Trump to secure a second term. She is even considering running for president in 2024, a move that many believe will not lead to victory but could help prevent Trump from entering the White House.
To be clear - Cheney is speaking out against Trump, but not against Republican conservatism as such. On political issues, she voted with her party and Trump in 93% of cases. She rejected Trump and his "cult of personality" only after admitting that he is a deadly threat to American democracy and the Republican Party, which her family represents.
This is a kind of historical irony, because the administration of President George W. Bush, in which her father, Dick Cheney, was vice president, was far from being a beacon of democracy. In fact, Trump's presidency probably wouldn't have been possible without the violations of rules and regulations that occurred under Cheney's watch. And even though Cheney himself could have spoken out against Trump's nomination back in 2015 - he didn't. In a private conversation, he told me that he would support Trump simply because he is the candidate of the Republican Party. His daughter then followed the same logic. I later heard that he regretted this decision, but it was already too late for him, his daughter and America.
In any case, it is necessary to get rid of the old myths about the American West with its supposedly straightforward and open people, or about practical and pragmatic Midwesterners and warm and social Southerners. Six years after Trump's revolution, most Republicans in these regions prefer conspiracy theories to the truth, tribal loyalty to the country, and false gods of democracy. When Wyoming voters were asked to choose between the handmaiden of Trump's "Big Lie" and the daughter of the cowboy aristocracy, Wyoming voters accepted the psychopathic god gone wrong.
The author is a professor of international affairs at the New School of New York University
(Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2022.)
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