Sixteen months ago, Liz Cheney framed the stakes: “The Republican party is at a turning point, and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth.”

They’ve already made their decision. They doubled down last night by bouncing Liz Cheney from her House seat. By a 37-point margin in a GOP primary, Wyoming’s cultists – a grand total of 149,000 people in a state with more cows than people – embraced Duh Leader’s lies and told Liz that she’ll be jobless in January.

Jobless in terms of elective office, that is. Methinks she won’t be idle for long. She’s already signaling a run for president, and today she launched a political action committee called The Great Task. The task, of course, is to thwart, by any and all necessary democratic means, the re-ascent of the feral fascist who’s currently flirting with indictment on multiple fronts – for stealing highly classified materials, or fomenting a violent coup, or ginning up fake elector slates, or pressuring Georgia officials to overthrow Joe Biden’s statewide win, or some combo thereof.

Indeed, Cheney appears to be calculating that her message will resonate as Trump’s legal woes accelerate. (Assuming they do.) It may seem counterintuitive to think that Cheney can seize the national stage after being tossed from office, but, in history both distant and near, that has been known to happen. Abe Lincoln won the presidency after losing House and Senate races. Beto O’Rourke is nationally prominent even after losing a Senate race and bombing in a presidential bid. Pete Buttigieg is a prominent Cabinet member who routinely outfoxes inquisitors on Fox News even though he lost his White House race and hails from a small-city mayoralty.

And for most Americans (at least those who’ve tuned in to our national crisis), Cheney’s Wyoming loss won’t matter a whit once she’s back in her chair on the Jan. 6 committee, which returns to action next month. In all likelihood, there will be more revelations about Trump’s wanton criminality – with more cowardly Republicans yearning in private that it’s time to dump the guy and turn the page.

Could Liz Cheney actually outfight Trump (and Ron DeSantis) in the ’24 Republican primaries? Not a chance. The cult’s sick commitment to lies, lawlessness, and magical thinking would even make it impossible for a latter-day Ronald Reagan to survive the opening round in Iowa. But how delicious it would be to see Cheney and Trump on the same debate stage (assuming the alleged strongman doesn’t flee the event with all deliberate speed).

And meanwhile, an independent presidential bid is not so far-fetched; reportedly, there’s money on the table for such a quest. Dmitri Mehlorn, a well-connected business investor who works with big donors, tells The Washington Post that if Cheney were to woo them “and say, ‘you know, with an extra $10 million, I can make sure that Republican voters are reminded of how bad Trump is in a way that might allow someone else to emerge from the primary or might weaken him for the general, but I need another $10 or $20 million’ – look, we would take that seriously.” (Um. She’d need quantum more bucks than $20 million.)

But her free media hits and speaker bookings would explode, if only because it’s exceedingly rare that a politician will sacrifice an elective job for a greater cause – in this case the greatest cause of all, the defense of democracy. And some of the math is arguably in her favor. If she can attract a sizable minority of Republicans (the remaining sane ones), who will replace those voters in Trump’s camp? Certainly not any Democrats, nor the independents who already loathe the two-time popular vote loser.

Some progressives remain wary of Cheney, not just because her dad helped lie us into war with Iraq, but because Liz voted with Trump on policy more than 90 percent of the time and because she’s was anti-choice during Roe and remains so. But we’re currently mired in a national emergency that will only grow more dire if Trump is indicted. Forging alliances with those with whom we disagree will be more essential than ever. And more than ever, Cheney rates a listen because she hasn’t just talked the talk, she has walked the walk and put herself on the line.

Last night, in the wake of her landslide loss, she framed her long game:

“No House seat, no office in this land is more important than the principles that we are all sworn to protect, and I well understood the potential political consequences of abiding by my duty…It is said that the long arc of history bends toward justice and freedom. That’s true, but only if we make it bend…

“Ladies and gentlemen, freedom must not and will not die here. We must be very clear-eyed about the threat we face and about what is required to defeat it. I have said since January 6 that I will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office…Let us resolve that we will stand together – Republicans, Democrats and independents – against those who would destroy our republic.”

To borrow from Churchill, Liz’s loss in Wyoming was not the beginning of the end. It was merely the end of the beginning.