Oath and Honor by Liz Cheney

Book Preface

THIS IS THE STORY OF the moment when American democracy began to unravel. It is the story of the men and women who fought to save it, and of the enablers and collaborators whose actions ensured the threat would grow and metastasize. It is the story of the most dangerous man ever to inhabit the Oval Office, and of the many steps he took to subvert our Constitution.
Since 1797, when George Washington voluntarily handed the power of the presidency to John Adams, every American president had fulfilled his solemn obligation to guarantee the peaceful transfer of power—until Donald Trump. When Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, he attempted to overturn the results in order to seize power illegally and remain in office. When the violent mob he had mobilized laid siege to our Capitol, he watched the attack on television and refused for more than three hours to tell the rioters to leave. Donald Trump’s actions violated the law and the oath he swore to the Constitution.
Our founders built safeguards into our system of government to preserve our democratic process. But those safeguards require that men and women of goodwill—Americans elected to positions of public trust—put their duty to the Constitution above their party and above their loyalty to any one man. When our nation was tested after the presidential election of 2020, an alarming number of elected Republicans in Congress failed to do their duty. This is the story of how that happened, and why. It is a story that every American deserves to know.
The end of this story hasn’t yet been written. The threat continues. The outcome now is in the hands of the American people and our system of justice. The methods Donald Trump is using to undermine our democracy are not unique to him. I saw authoritarian leaders use many of these same tactics in Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine, and across the Middle East when I was working for the US State Department. History is full of similar examples in countries around the world, but never in the United States—until now.
Like other aspiring autocrats, Donald Trump cannot succeed alone. He depends upon enablers and collaborators. Every American should understand what his enablers in Congress and in the leadership of the Republican Party were willing to do to help Trump seize power in the months after he lost the 2020 presidential election—and what they continue to do to this day. So strong is the lure of power that men and women who had once seemed reasonable and responsible were suddenly willing to violate their oath to the Constitution out of political expediency and loyalty to Donald Trump.
In the aftermath of January 6, one senior Republican congressman—who knew the danger Trump posed but would not speak out because he feared the political consequences—said to me: “Surviving is all that matters, Liz.” It was a sad moment. Elected officials who believe their own political survival is more important than anything else threaten the survival of our republic, no matter what they tell themselves to justify their cowardice.

At the height of the Cold War in 1983, Ronald Reagan addressed the nation from the Oval Office. He said this about our duty to defend freedom:

It is up to us in our time to choose, and choose wisely, between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom, and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow stronger day by day.
The threat we face today is different but no less perilous. Our duty remains the same. It is up to each one of us to take seriously our obligation to safeguard the miracle of American freedom. We must abide by our duty to the Constitution, and demand that our political leaders do the same. Politicians who minimize the threat, repeat the lies, or enable the liar are not fit for office. Most importantly, we cannot make the grave mistake of returning Donald Trump—the man who caused January 6—to the White House, or to any position of public trust, ever again.