By Jack Hunter
The American Conservative
November 28, 2025
Twenty years ago, there was no greater villain to the left than Dick Cheney. The vice president was called a fascist. He was called a warmonger. He was Hitler. He was the center and soul of left-wing derision and Democratic identity.
Their ire? The George W. Bush administration's 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, for starters, considered today to be one of America's greatest foreign policy mistakes. Even a majority of veterans believe it was not worth fighting. Then there was the torture, the rampant due process violations, and the fact that Cheney's advocacy for extreme executive power made him an enemy of the Constitution.
Concerning Cheney and national depravity, there's a lot to work with.
The progressive pundit Rachel Maddow was once all in on this left-wing hate. She built her early career on it.
Last week, Maddow attended Dick Cheney's funeral.
Cheney never apologized for or even said he regretted Iraq. He was seemingly down to torture until the day he died.
Maddow was not at Cheney's funeral to show grace to a once wayward man who had since repented. Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald noted of MSNBC's biggest star, "Maddow's career as a commentator began during Bush/Cheney, when she'd frequently compare Cheney to the worst monsters in history (I was on her programs when she said it)."
Greenwald added, "For so many liberals, Cheney is now rehabilitated despite regretting nothing: solely for opposing Trump."
That's it. Cheney was against Trump. In 2025, even for dead fascists, warmongers and Hitlers, that's all it takes for the left to sing your praises.
If this sounds simplistically silly, it's because it is.
Once Donald Trump finally replaced former villains Dick Cheney or George W. Bush as the Great Satan in leftist minds, there was virtually no self-awareness in Democrats' drift into turning these neocon Republicans they once despised into heroes. Dubya gets the same love.
In their blind hatred for Trump, mainstream Democrats also ended up becoming something closer to 2003-era Republicans in their foreign policy. One X user commented on the service for Cheney, "Anyone that attended Cheney's funeral is going to be upset with an end to war."
Greenwald agreed, "Exactly: I bet if you were to survey the people in attendance at Dick Cheney's funeral-from Rachel Maddow and Kamala Harris to Lindsey Graham and George W. Bush-opposition to ending the war in Ukraine would be close to 100%, if not unanimous."
He has a point. After "Resistance" posters and Covid-era virtue signaling got stale for the left, pro-Ukrainian yard signs and social media flag icons became as popular with Democrats as they were with Lindsey Graham.
Democrats and neocon Republicans like Graham ended up with the same foreign policy. The former came to it as an emotional reaction to "America First" Trump. The latter just never changed, welcoming their reformed pro-war Democrats with open arms.
To be fair, mainstream Democrat attitudes toward Israel and Gaza have varied. On the United States' proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, they have not.
The 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris not only received an endorsement from Cheney and his congresswoman daughter Liz; Cheney fille hit the campaign trail with Harris, seemingly signaling to the neoconservative foreign policy establishment that she was their gal.
When candidate Harris repeatedly accused Trump of admiring dictators—that is, engaging in diplomacy as an alternative to war—she sounded like every GOP hawk who ever criticized Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, or any other antiwar Republican. "Putin's puppet" became an institutionalized Democratic attack on Trump.
Maddow attending Cheney's funeral wasn't surprising or a departure for the current American left. It was, however, an indicator.
She and the "War on Terror" Republicans in attendance weren't simply friendly adversaries paying their final respects. They're not adversaries anymore.
This has been true for some time. J6 helped seal the deal.
The "insurrection" mythology surrounding the January 6, 2021 Capitol Hill riots has been as important to Never Trump neocon identity as it has been to Democratic identity. Dick Cheney was on the Never Trump and Democratic side of that event. Donald Trump was on the other side. That line has long been crystal clear, at least on the Never Trump-Dem side—that it was an organized attempt by MAGA forces to overthrow democracy—even if that view is not based in reality.
But the reality of J6 as an actual insurrection was always beside the point. Political identity, and reinforcing it—Never Trump/Democrats good, MAGA bad—was the entire point.
Hence, longtime Democrat Rachel Maddow accepted the invitation to "maestro of terror" Republican Dick Cheney's funeral.
Bill Kristol was there too. Anyone who has followed politics for any amount of time would expect the neocon scion to be at the funeral service of the most impactful neoconservative of the 21st century. Kristol had wanted a U.S. war with Iraq since the 1990s, and 9/11 finally gave his small band of neocons an excuse to lie their way into it. Team Cheney ultimately delivered it.
Cheney is unquestionably their hero.
Kristol is a Democrat now. He appears to be pro-choice these days. He's flipped on immigration. The former Weekly Standard editor recently endorsed New York City's socialist mayor-elect. So Kristol has definitely changed some of his beliefs in joining his new party.
On foreign policy, Bill Kristol has never budged any more than Dick Cheney did. Both were always for all U.S. wars, anywhere, for any reason, by any means, no matter how much death or damage was wrought.
War is the goal. It is who they are. Their beef with Trump—in the most basic, concrete terms—is that he poses a threat to their mission at times.
Democrats hate Trump so much they now dismiss this evil, finding common cause with neocons in more ways than one.
President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance were not invited to the former vice president's funeral. They wouldn't have belonged, even if it is unusual for a sitting president and vice president to be excluded from such a service.
But Rachel Maddow belonged at Dick Cheney's funeral. The left she represents belonged too.