Cheney sees Trump through the lens of foreign policy. He's a character familiar in other countries: the ruthless demagogue and aspiring tyrant. In her op-ed and her speech, Cheney recalled her experiences with attacks on democracy in Kenya, Poland, and Russia. "I've worked in countries around the world that don't have peaceful transitions of power, countries that have autocracies," she told NBC's Savannah Guthrie. "It can happen very, very quickly."

There's no magic force field around America that protects us from falling into anarchy or tyranny. What protects us--what makes us "exceptional," in Cheney's words--is a system of elections, laws, and courts, which in turn relies on enduring popular support for these institutions. Cheney understands how easily this consensus can be shaken. In the NBC interview, she recalled her awe in 2000 when Al Gore, who had won the popular vote but lost a razor-thin recount in Florida, conceded the presidential election. In that moment, the stability of the system rested on the honor of one man. This year, on Jan. 6, Cheney saw what a presidential loser with no honor could do. She told Guthrie that after the attack on the Capitol, she wondered whether her sons, like people in other countries, could no longer count on the peaceful transfer of power.

Cheney is a hawk. She believes in standing up to tyrants, and that includes the tyrant in our own country. On Tuesday, she addressed the Trump menace in the language of deterrence and appeasement, just as she has addressed foreign aggressors. "Ignoring the lie emboldens the liar," she warned her colleagues. In the NBC interview, she spoke of threats from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. But it was even more vital, she argued, to protect the country from a man who had perpetrated what none of these enemies had achieved: "an attack on the Capitol of the United States."

That's why Cheney rebuffs pleas from fellow Republicans to leave Jan. 6 in the past. She would never forget an attempted coup in another country. To forget one in her own country would be insane.