I’m glad you asked actually, because I’ve been seeing a trend for the last few years and I think it explains the shift that people have been pointing out in the Democratic party. The way in which many Democrats felt railroaded into Hillary in 2016, I think the same is happening to the Republican party, albeit more unknowingly. There is a not insignificant amount of Republicans who have been disenfranchised from voting red because that’s just what you do. It all comes down to the Republican party being split by the MAGA cult, with those Republican voters wanting to return back to the status quo of red vs. blue. Of course what they don’t realize is that the culture war that the conservatives have been imposing is what created this whole situation in the first place.

Anyway, this is where Dick Cheney comes in. Yes, a representative of that culture war that brought us here, but not a MAGA cultist. An endorsement from one of the most recognized Republicans is an attempt to move back towards the classical conservatism, away from the clamoring fervor that the Trump presidency put the country in. Remember that the stock market is important to these voters (and his donors), and Trump had everything set up in his favor and still squandered it. Corporate America does not want a repeat of this and despite polling and the media playing everything up, I personally don’t think the MAGA voters will have enough voting power.

That is to say, if the Green Party is meant to siphon votes from Democrats, The Classical Republican Dick Cheney is meant to appeal to the votes from Moderate Republicans and maybe convince some Republican voters who would have voted red “because that’s what you do”, to instead vote for Kamala.

This isn’t to say his endorsement of her isn’t damning and that the leaders of the Democratic haven’t been shifting away from the left. Just positing that like many of us, there’s a portion of Republicans out there who are just as tired. There are still far, far too many who seem like a lost cause, but it’s easy to forget that just because they’re Republican’s does not mean they are MAGA, so hopefully we see the results of that this election.

Additionally, Trump was the figurehead. I realistically do not see someone being able to replace him, and I do not entirely see Trump supporters moving on from him to some other political figure. The are so many people who vote for him because he was a reality TV businessman, because of his personality, quite literally a parasocial relationship with the president. Even if Trump endorsed someone else, I would be somewhat surprised if it were effective. At the very least, it will need lots of pushing from FOX Entertainment News.

Cheney, for as much of a tool as he may be, at least hasn’t shown himself to be fully engulfed in the maga cult and recognizes that allowing Trump into power is a legitimate threat to the entire system. It’s less of an endorsement of Harris and more a rejection of Trump.

Edit: To touch on the ‘eventually’ aspect. I don’t want it to sound like an excusing of the slow pace of change in our modern world, but put into context that the USA is, by global comparison, a young nation. Look at the time spans that nations in Asia or Europe have existed by comparison and the length of time it took to change their ways, often through drastic social upheaval. In comparison the gains in social equalities here have come at a rapid pace in the past century. For a place founded in violence and oppression where it was originally codified law that only white landowning males where of consequences we’ve made some notable improvements in the span of a few generations. As it stands today we’re in a space where there are people legitimately clamoring for a second civil war due to the inability to find consensus on any number of issues. So many things that are common sense to the rest of the world are considered alien here, deemed ‘un-american’. As we move along the road people come around to these ‘radical’ ideals, but it often takes a generation for them to become the norm.