In 2018, I told my wife that I was convinced then-president Donnie Trump was engaging in behavior and language reminiscent of any number of totalitarian "leaders" throughout history. I knew then he would never relinquish the Office of the President of the United States of America peacefully. He would use any means available -- including military -- in order to remain in power. My wife -- and everyone else who heard me make that claim -- insisted I was being reactionary. "That can never happen here", they retorted.
Then the 6th of January, 2021, happened.
Liz Cheney's new memoir, Oath and Honor, recounts the aftermath of the 2020 Presidental Election. On January 6th a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. As the rioters attempted to break down the doors to the House chamber, members were told they needed to prepare to hide under their chairs. "We need to get the ladies off the aisle", announced Trump loyalist ringleader Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, who reached a hand out to Cheney, offering, "Let me help you up". Cheney understandably went ballistic (this was not the first time she'd been treated with clueless condescension by her GOP colleagues) and swatted his hand. "Get away from me", Cheney reports she retorted. "You f--ing did this."
Cheney's adamant position on Trump's loss and her role as co-chair on the House Select Committee on the January 6 attack killed her own reelection bid in Wyoming, a genuine sacrifice many of her fellow GOP officials lacked the guts to make. She helped secure the testimony of dozens of witnesses, overwhelmingly Republicans, to Trump's multiple schemes to overthrow the election. Her stern, composed demeanor during the televised hearings, where she deftly managed to embody implacable authority without triggering the usual misogynist reaction, earned her surprised fans on the left. She plausibly claims some credit for the failure of Trump-endorsed, election-denying candidates in the 2022 midterms.
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It won't come as a shock to readers that Liz Cheney and I have been on the opposite ends of nearly ever policy decision she made while in office. But I also have to be honest about the relentless calling out of GOP hypocrisy that saturates Cheney's account. Cheney condemns former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy as "craven" and lacking in "the courage and the honor to abide by his oath to the Constitution". Mike Johnson, the current speaker of the house, she reports, tricked Republican members into signing onto an amicus brief supportive of Trump's false claims of election fraud by lying to them about the document's contents. Of New York Republican Elise Stefanik, Cheney writes, "Many of us who had known Elise since before she abandoned all principle were curious about how she had lost her sense of right and wrong".
And Cheney's account is absolutely damning about Donnie's continued attempts to overthrow American democracy using any deceptive and illegal means possible. You simply can't read Oath and Honor without coming away with a clear understanding of the events that made January 6th, 2021, possible. And of the lasting efforts of "the Orange Jesus" to destroy the very foundations of American democracy -- things like the Constitution.
Oath and Honor is therefore a must-read.
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But I still have some issues and lingering questions for Ms. Cheney. The very thing that makes her book so compelling also leaves unanswered some background questions that go unanswered because they're simply not asked.
What makes these memoirs fascinating is the varieties of self-deception the authors have to use in order to make these books so compelling. Cassidy Hutchinson, for example, was simply too naive and dazzled by the glamour of national politics to realize what she were getting into. Others, like former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, could not resist Cabinet positions that represented the apotheosis of their careers. One-time national security adviser John Bolton made the mistake of thinking he was the smartest guy in any room and therefore could bend Trump to his own ends.
And Liz Cheney? Well, reading this book, I got the impression that she suddenly awoke in December 2020 to find American democracy under attack.
The problem here? Liz Cheney is no fool. She knew Trump cared nothing for the American principles she says she cherishes, that he had no idea how to govern, and that he can't even conceive of a motivation beyond egoistic self-interest. I knew as much by 2018. Nevertheless, as a representative, she voted with Trump 93% of the time during his presidency. Her outrage that Trump refused to honor the peaceful transfer of power and tried to overthrow the election is well taken, but what did she expect? As the old adage goes: You pays your money and takes your choice. (Or, alternately, you can't lay with pigs and not expect to get muddy.)
Cheney makes a big deal about "the Founding Fathers" -- all those brave revolutionaries who fought English royal tyrrany, Abraham Lincoln and the fight for the soul of the Union, Ronald Regean and the war against Communism. It's a touchstone of American patriotism, and it's heartening to hear any politician take an oath to protect the Constitution seriously. But Cheney seems incapable of recognizing the pink "elephant" in the room: How did her beloved GOP degenerate to the point that this man was invited to lead it?
Cheney's brand of Republicanism is "pro-business" and favors "small government" -- euphemisms for eliminating taxes on the rich and allowing large corporations to do whatever they want to the environment and their workers, while the government limits its activities to handing out fat military contracts and securing corporate economic interests overseas. These policies aren't very popular, and after decades of free-market economics, wealth has become concentrated in so few hands that the people who actually stand to benefit from Cheney-style conservatism could barely fill a convention center, let alone constitute a significant voting bloc.
To win over enough voters to keep themselves in office, the GOP has had to drum up culture-war division and redirect working-class resentment from the rich to the educated. Just how much Republican leadership actually believes in the social conservatism it uses to attract voters is forever up for debate. Cheney herself is ostensibly pro-life, yet Oath and Honor displays an attitude toward women and their competence and potential that can only be called feminist. Would Cheney insist that one of her own daughters bring to term an unwanted pregnancy that endangered her life or threatened her career? Cheney's sister, Mary, is married to a woman. In 2013, while running for the Senate, Liz said she opposed same-sex marriage, causing a rift in her family. She later admitted on 60 Minutes that she was "wrong", but did she ever really mean that opposition in the first place, or was she just pandering to the same base she condemns McCarthy, Johnson, and Jordan for appeasing?
Here's the thing that most bugs me about Oath and Honor: That base is never far from every page. It's the boogeyman under the bed that Cheney never mentions and certainly never critiques.
The problem, Cheney insists, is that Trump, in his seemingly omnipotent malevolence, has misled American "patriots" and lashed them into a paranoid frenzy. That he did so using a well-developed propaganda apparatus long employed by Republican politicians to stoke culture-war hatred and fear goes unacknowledged. See, the modern GOP has made Donnie possible and certain portions have willingly followed him down a treasonous road in order to preserve political power.
Donnie's following is a modern political Frankenstein -- a monster built for the sole purpose of winning elections, a monster that has then turned against the very democracy it was made to defend.
Kudos to her for realizing how dangerous it has become and doing the best she can to fight it; she has made and is making a genuine contribution to beating back Trumpism, and we can't afford to smack her away and say, "You f--ing did this!" But this understanding has come awfully late. If only she and the rest of her party had woken up sooner.
Like I did, in 2018.