The passing of former Vice President Dick Cheney has reignited discussion about his complex political legacy — and how he and his family became estranged from today’s Trump-dominated Republican Party.
Once one of the most influential power brokers in Washington, Cheney’s résumé spanned decades: congressman, White House chief of staff, defense secretary, and vice president. Yet instead of being celebrated as a senior statesman of the GOP, he lived his final years as a symbol of the party’s past — a past that the modern, Trump-led movement has largely rejected.
When Donald Trump first ran for president in 2016, he openly defied the foreign policy orthodoxy that Cheney had helped shape — a worldview rooted in military strength, global intervention, and alliances built on American leadership. That ideological rift only deepened after the 2020 election, when Cheney and his daughter, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), publicly condemned Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat, calling him a danger to democracy.
The break was personal as well as political. In one of his final public gestures, Dick Cheney crossed party lines to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee in 2024 — a striking act of defiance that underscored his complete disillusionment with what the GOP had become.
“It wasn’t just about personality; it was about two completely different visions for America’s role in the world,” explained Matt Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University. “Cheney believed in projecting power abroad — Trump believes in pulling back. They were polar opposites on the fundamentals of U.S. leadership.”
That ideological divide still defines much of the Republican landscape today. The hawkish, establishment wing once led by figures like Cheney has been overshadowed by Trump’s “America First” movement, which rejects foreign entanglements and prioritizes nationalism over global alliances.
Dallek noted that the break between the Cheney family and the Trump camp was made even more bitter by the personal attacks on Liz Cheney, who lost her House seat after speaking out against Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol riot. “The Cheneys were disgusted by what happened on January 6 and by Trump’s behavior leading up to it,” Dallek said.
In the end, Dick Cheney’s death not only marks the passing of a political giant but also highlights the end of an era — a moment when the Republican Party fully transitioned from the old guard’s globalist conservatism to the populist nationalism that now defines it.