Former US Vice President Dick Cheney died this week at the age of 84. He was once a titanic figure of the Republican Party, controversial and influential; the svengali behind the United States’ “war on terrorism”, which hit its apotheosis (or nadir) with ill-fated military invasions in the Middle East.

But Cheney’s death was barely acknowledged by the Trump administration. At time of writing, President Donald Trump had not said a word about the passing of this once-legendary conservative figure. Neither had Vice President JD Vance.

Dick Cheney, pictured with US troops in southern Iraq in 1991.Credit: AP

The White House lowered its flags to half-mast following Cheney’s death, but Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, was at pains to tell reporters that the flag-lowering was “in accordance with statutory law”.

When asked, Leavitt said she did not believe that the White House was involved in planning for Cheney’s funeral, “or at least hasn’t gotten to it yet”.

Trump doesn’t extend grace to his enemies, not even in death, and Cheney had made an enemy of Trump by making sharp public criticisms of him. Cheney said Trump was the greatest threat the US republic had ever faced, and that the president was a “coward” who attempted to steal an election using “lies and violence”. Cheney said publicly he voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

That the death of this Republican legend was dismissed so rudely by a Republican president says everything you need to know about the state of conservatism in the US.

Conservatism carries no weight among the smash-it-up populists and the authoritarian-curious chancers of Trump’s White House.

Just as the newly victorious New York mayor,

© The Sydney Morning Herald