The Idea of US Hegemony Was Finished Off in American Backcountry*

*Editor’s note: On March 4, Russia enacted a law that criminalizes public opposition to, or independent news reporting about, the war in Ukraine. The law makes it a crime to call the war a “war” rather than a “special military operation” on social media or in a news article or broadcast. The law is understood to penalize any language that “discredits” Russia’s use of its military in Ukraine, calls for sanctions or protests Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It punishes anyone found to spread “false information” about the invasion with up to 15 years in prison.

Something has happened in the deeply provincial state of Wyoming that is quite symbolic for international politics. Wyoming’s voters ousted Liz Cheney from Congress, defeating the leader of the anti-Trumpists, daughter of a once almighty vice president, and supporter of the neoconservatives’ cause. From the Russian perspective and that of the whole world, neoconservatism is the worst of what U.S. policy has to offer.

The U.S. party system is drastically different from the European systems. There are no party meetings, where members can be expelled from the party, and there are no party-list systems. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are confederations of certain individuals, whose political views may vary significantly.

That’s why primaries are so important. They not only define which nomination candidates appeal the most and have a better chance to prevail during the general election. They also define the political platform of the party’s majority and what the majority will look like: left or liberal, libertarian or religious.

The recent Republican primaries in the provincial state of Wyoming are so important that their results made history in the U.S. Specifically, the primaries were about the fact that incumbent Rep. Liz Cheney suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of her opponent, Harriet Hageman (receiving fewer than half of the votes for Hageman); hence, she’ll be leaving Congress in December.

In the best case scenario, this will serve as the ultimate defeat for the neocons, the conclusive end to their agenda that was so destructive for our world, having created millions of refugees, hundreds of thousands of random victims, and hundreds of ruined cities.

In any case, this is a painful personal blow for Cheney. Her results were remarkably low for an incumbent member of Congress, particularly considering that Wyoming is home to the powerful Cheney political dynasty. Liz’ father, Dick Cheney, held the same seat she now holds back in the 1980s – before the dynasty reached the peak of its political power under President George W. Bush. Those were dark days for planet Earth.

Today’s neocons did not emerge from the depths of the Republican Party, but from the Democratic Party. They addressed a number of domestic matters with a liberal point of view, or, using their preferred term, progressively, whether it had to do with minority rights or state interference in the economy. But in the field of foreign policy they posed as “hawks,” protesting against the U.S. and Soviet détente, ready to fan the flames of conflict with the Soviet Union right up until the ultimate victory over communism.

By the beginning of the 21st century, communism was already considered defeated, and the prominent neocon Francis Fukuyama called it the end of history. However, the election of yet another member of the Bush family dynasty as president with Dick Cheney as his vice president breathed new life into the neoconservative wing – but this time within the Republican Party.

Simply speaking, you could boil this faction’s ideology down to the idea of world domination, like Hitler and Napoleon.

In the neocon worldview, the U.S. is a global hegemony without any confining national borders. Moreover, regimes that dare to resist it should be eliminated by a targeted use of American power.

The neocons themselves call it “spreading democracy and freedom,” but in practice, it almost always has catastrophic consequences. The world is still recovering from one of these forays by the neocons: the invasion of Iraq.

Dick Cheney was considered the real head of state in the administration of the oafish and shallow-minded George W. Bush; the liberal press also actively pushed this narrative. In fact, although there were gaps in what the upstart Bush knew, Bush used his acting skills and appeared dumber than he actually was.

Vice President Cheney, however, was exceptionally influential, despite his less than influential position. It’s hard to imagine that Bush had the strength to argue with a master of intrigue and other members of his father’s team, who were named to George W. Bush’s administration. (Dick Cheney served as defense secretary under George H.W. Bush.)

The two of them served two full terms in the White House but in the end, the White House was despised and hated by everyone; the private and apparently dangerous Dick Cheney caught even more flak from the voters than George W. Bush because the public blamed most of America’s problems on Cheney’s cynical and underhanded schemes.

One could even have sympathy for America, if only all of these misfortunes remained misfortunes for the U.S. alone. But the thundering financial crisis of that era turned out to be a global crisis as well, as the entire Middle East erupted in flames in the wake of the Bush-Cheney policy, and relations with Russia entered a new Cold War.

However, the neocons were not entirely extinct; Liz Cheney, one of their seedlings, threatened to sprout. Her father obsessively wished for a dynasty of his own, but had limited options with two daughters, one of whom is an LGBT activist. Although neocons, like other globalists, are usually compassionate toward minorities, and even patronize them, such a dynasty line is a bit too much for the Republicans.

Liz, however, climbed high. From 2019 to 2021, she even chaired the House Republican Conference, the Republicans’ third-highest position in the House of Representatives. Now everything has come crashing down for her, and Dick Cheney, the evil neocon genius, has lost his political heiress.

It would be nice to explain her devastating defeat by saying that the Americans have finally opened their eyes to the destructiveness of holding to the policy that says if you still don’t have democracy, we’re coming for you. In reality, however, everything is much simpler and more prosaic: Liz Cheney lost because she opposed Donald Trump.

The conflict between them was inevitable. In many ways, Trumpism rejects neoconservatism. It’s anti-elitist, populist, prone to being xenophobic, but most importantly it pits its egocentric isolationism against the neoconservative policy of intervention.

The situation was further exacerbated by Liz’ ambitions – she tried to lead an anti-Trump revolution within the party. She was one of the few Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the Capitol insurrection, and afterward remained the unofficial leader of anti-Trumpists – not the largest but still quite an influential group, especially considering the fact that the current majority Democrats favor Liz for her globalist and anti-Trumpist views.

That’s why Liz Cheney’s defeat is Trump’s personal triumph. With this loss, a very symbolic figure for the neoconservatives has been expelled from Congress, which is much more important than Trump’s ambitions.

But not everything is going smoothly for Trump, either. Liz Cheney has lost, indeed, but one of Trump’s bitter enemies, the incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski, won her primary in Alaska the same day Cheney lost. Thus, Trumpism among the Republicans is not absolute, although dominant, and Trump is not so powerful that he can rely on his personal support to guarantee the candidates he backs will be successful.

The important thing is that the neoconservatives walked the plank of the U.S. political ship, and that their fellow gloating party members feel the gravity of the moment. After Liz Cheney’s defeat, Wyoming’s Republican Party hosted a grand celebration present, including the party bosses, and Elon Musk, the richest person on the planet was spotted, a man who joined the Republicans because of the cultural wars and the mediocrity of the Biden administration.

This is how an unremarkable regional event in the U.S., in a backcountry mountainous state, in which the largest city has a population of barely 65,000, became a geopolitical event instead. Hageman’s triumph over Cheney resembles the Battle of Poljana – the last large European battle of World War II, which occurred in the middle of May when the outcome of the conflict had already been decided.

Indeed, the globalist project of the neoconservatives left many fewer victims and destruction in its wake than Hitler’s globalist project. So, perhaps, they were stopped just in time.