Liz Cheney's Commencement Speech at Colorado College: "The Truth Shall Make You Free"

Liz Cheney at Colorado College

Have we ever had a year when so many people gave speeches about truth? 

Ceremonial speeches teach us about values. What value can be higher than truth? In her May 28, 2023 commencement address at her alma mater, Colorado College, former Republican representative Liz Cheney explained to the graduates that truth matters. She started with this thesis:  

“The first thing we ask of you is that you live in the truth.” 

Continuing, Cheney cited the inscription on a building on Colorado College’s gorgeous campus: “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

Cheney immediately followed that noble premise by reminding the graduates that:

“…after the 2020 election and the attack of January 6th, my fellow Republicans wanted me to lie. They wanted me to say the 2020 election was stolen, the attack of January 6th wasn’t a big deal, and Donald Trump wasn’t dangerous. I had to choose between lying and losing my position in House leadership.”

Continuing, Cheney talked about her final meeting as Chair of the Republican House Conference:

“As I spoke to my colleagues on my last morning as chair of the Republican conference, I told them that if they wanted a leader who would lie, they should choose someone else.”

How can we disagree? Cheney was right that it is, indeed, a basic life rule: to be free, we must embrace truth. Cheney continued:

“It is a fundamental fact - we cannot remain a free nation if we abandon the truth. As you go out to change the world, resolve to stand in truth.”

Yes, truth is life’s most basic virtue. How can we expect our plans and ideas to work out if they arise from falsehood? Why should it surprise us that lies never turn out to be true? That relationships based on lies mean nothing? 

For her second value, Cheney asked the students to “do good and be kind to each other.” That is also a basic value, but it is, once again, subordinate to truth. If we live in lies, all else falters.

Liz Cheney concluded by repeating her values:

“Class of 2023, go forth. Stand in truth. Do good and be kind. Always do the next right thing. Be heroes. Be incandescent with courage. Defend our democracy. Love and serve our country. She – and we – have never needed you more.”

Yes, it’s easy to talk about truth. It is easy to say that we each have our own truths. It is, unfortunately, all too easy for us to fabricate beliefs that we know, deep inside, to be false. We often admire the truth as a principle, while rejecting its harsh reality. Truth challenges us. In contrast, all too often, lies comfort us. 

Cheney was not only applauded but booed during her speech, perhaps partly by Trump supporters, but also by many students who protested her conservative views. More generally, Cheney paid a price for her integrity. She was essentially expelled from the Wyoming Republican Party. She was censured by the Republican National Committee, which, astonishingly, held that the January 6 Capitol riot was “legitimate political discourse.” Rejected by Democrats for being too conservative, rejected by most Republicans for being too honest, she wanders without a political home. She chose to rely, instead, on truth. 

Cheney was absolutely correct to tell the students to honor truth. She rightly told them that this requires courage. It is, after all, often much easier to tell lies. Her successor as Republican Conference Chair, Elise Stefanik, happily and falsely tells people that the 2020 election was stolen, and her voters and the caucus alike seem to love her. Stefanik won almost 60% of the vote in her rural New York State district. The point is not that liars never prosper. Nor is it even true; indeed, we all know that liars often triumph. No, the point is that people tell lies when they know they are in the wrong, and yet do not care. The point is that liars never know what it means to be free. 

Ceremonial speeches are about values. Cheney talked about the most important value of all, the value of truth. Although she is just as dedicated to right-wing policies as the typical Republican voter, she refused to lie about Donald Trump or the 2020 election. That ended her political career. She discovered that it was too much to speak even one word of truth to people who didn’t want to hear it. Truth could turn her into an exile, a pariah. So it was.

Liz Cheney Used Examples to Remind Us of Our Values in Her Courageous Speech about Trump's False Election Claims

Liz Cheney and the Firehose of Truth: Using the Republicans' Text Messages Against Them

Liz Cheney is a very smart woman. She knows that her party has rejected truth. She knows that she will never again win any election as a Republican. She gave this speech, I imagine, because she hopes that the new generation of leaders can learn more integrity than the old ones.

Almost a year ago, Liz Cheney told the Select Committee investigating January 6 that, “Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.” In this remarkable commencement address at Colorado College. Cheney was speaking to history. This was not only a speech for our times, and not just a speech about the danger that Trumpism still poses to the United States of America. It was a speech for the ages.

Liz Cheney's Courageous Speech Asking Republicans to Reject Trump's False Election Claims

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Research Note: Speech scholars have various theories of ceremonial or epideictic speaking. A good ceremonial speech is never just empty show. A good ceremonial speaker appeals to basic values, reminds the audience about what is important, and aims for social cohesion. In his Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle said that epideictic speaking aims at the goal of honor. That is true enough, and Cheney honored truth. Belgian philosophers Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca expounded the idea that epideictic speeches promote social cohesion by stressing shared values.

Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca also introduced the postmodern idea that the audience exists in the speaker's mind. From that viewpoint, Cheney spoke to multiple audiences, not just to the students, but also to the audience of the future. She spoke for history. 

Of course, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” is from the King James Bible, John 8:32.

Image: Lonnie Timmons III / Colorado College. Used by permission.