A Flaccid Dick is no Dick at All: The Total Collapse of Dick Cheney [View all]

[mikelewis]

The Man Who Was Feared

A long time ago... a long time before Donald Trump and Vlad the Impaler Putin... there used to be someone people were really afraid of... his name was Dick Cheney.

For a generation, Dick Cheney represented raw, unapologetic American power. He was the vice president who didn’t wait to be asked. The puppet master behind George W. Bush’s throne. The mind behind the Iraq War. The unapologetic voice of torture, black sites, and "enhanced interrogation." He shot his friend in the face and made the friend apologize. That was Cheney: feared, calculated, untouchable.

But fear fades. And power, when not rooted in principle, crumbles.

What we are left with today is not a titan, but a shadow. A man who once shaped nations now trembles before a party he helped mutate. This is the story of Dick Cheney’s collapse—political, moral, intellectual. Not the fade of age. The failure of character.

Part I: The Rise — Vice President as Warlord

Cheney was never supposed to wield that much power. But in the wake of 9/11, while Bush found religion, Cheney found opportunity. He consolidated defense contracts, directed intelligence flows, and embedded corporate interests into military strategy.

He didn’t just influence foreign policy—he privatized it.

Halliburton profited massively from wars he promoted.
The unitary executive theory was normalized under his command.
He treated Congress with contempt and diplomacy as weakness.

To his supporters, he was pragmatic. To history, he was the executive branch’s first war profiteer in a suit.

Part II: The Machinery Fails

The military-industrial complex Cheney nourished did not die. It calcified. It became self-referential, risk-averse, and bloated. Weapons programs ballooned, wars stretched endlessly, and even victories felt like liabilities.

Meanwhile, the system Cheney fed began to forget him.

Boeing collapsed during the 737 MAX disaster.
Lockheed Martin flatlined.
Contractors lost their edge as stock prices stalled.

And then came Trump—the showman Cheney could neither predict nor control.

Part III: Trump Takes the Wheel — and Cheney Buckles

Trump mocked the military. He undermined NATO. He called for martial law. He pulled aid from Ukraine. And Dick Cheney? The man who built a global surveillance apparatus? Said nothing.

The irony couldn’t be louder: the man who invented the playbook for permanent war watched silently as a cartoon strongman torched it.

When Trump insulted the intelligence community, Cheney didn’t defend it. When Trump called fallen soldiers “suckers,” Cheney didn’t object. When Trump pardoned war criminals, Cheney barely cleared his throat.

He once told Senator Leahy to "go f*** yourself" on the Senate floor. Now, he can't even muster a tweet.

Part IV: Liz Stands Alone

Liz Cheney stepped into the arena, facing death threats, exile from her party, and Trump’s wrath. She stood at the center of the January 6th hearings. She named names. She called it a coup.

And her father? The man who once moved aircraft carriers across oceans?

He showed up in a campaign ad. Quiet. Scripted. Safe.

That’s not leadership. That’s legacy laundering.

Part V: The Ghost of a War Machine

Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex. Cheney became its personification. But what Ike never foresaw was that the complex wouldn’t overpower democracy. It would wither, outmaneuvered by populism, entertainment, and apathy.

Cheney isn’t the dark prince anymore. He’s the failed patriarch of a machine that got outsmarted by algorithms, anti-vaxxers, and a man who thinks windmills cause cancer.

Cheney isn’t Trump’s enemy. He’s Trump’s little bitch.

Trump took Ukraine from him. He took the GOP. He gutted the national security establishment. He pissed on the Pentagon, and Cheney held the towel.

Conclusion: The End of the Illusion

Dick Cheney isn’t a villain anymore. Villains act.

He’s a relic. A silent observer of a party he once commanded. A powerless figurehead of a machine that lost its teeth.

He built the war state. And now he watches it crumble under the weight of a carnival strongman with no ideology and infinite contempt.

This isn’t about age. It’s about exposure. Without the smoke and mirrors, Dick Cheney was never the master of anything. Just the last guy holding the leash before the dog turned around and bit.

The warlord didn’t fall. He deflated.

Cheney is done. History will remember him not as feared — but as hollow.