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By David Leonhardt

Good morning. Liz Cheney’s ouster is a sign of the Republican Party’s growing discomfort with democracy.

Representative Liz Cheney after she was ousted from a leadership position in the House.Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

‘Dangerously anti-democratic’

The Republican Party’s big recent moves — the ouster of Liz Cheney from a leadership position and the passage of new state voting laws — do not have much immediate impact on Americans’ lives.

Cheney’s removal doesn’t change congressional Republicans’ approach to President Biden’s agenda, and the voting laws will mostly start to matter next year. With Biden in the White House, Democrats controlling Congress and many Americans still focused on Covid-19, internal Republican debates can sometimes feel like an exhausting partisan sideshow.

They are not. The last few months have the potential to be a turning point for the country because of what is happening inside the Republican Party.

I don’t say that lightly. Readers of this newsletter know that I don’t believe any political ideology has a monopoly on truth. Democrats have their own problems, including an elitist intolerance for debate about some subjects and a set of Covid fears that are at times 

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