Live Free Or Die

by Sean Hannity

  Prior to the virus, we watched Democrats and the media deny the spectacular success of the American economy under President Trump. Their message during the post-virus recovery is predictable: they’ll say the economy was a disaster waiting to happen and the virus just hastened the inevitable. Or they’ll admit that there were signs of growth but that they benefited only the rich—despite all the evidence to the contrary. But we can’t let them get away with it.

  No matter how much devastation the virus caused, it in no way erases Trump’s phenomenal economic record. Without it, we wouldn’t have been able to absorb those losses. This makes resuming his agenda even more important going forward. Just as he led the fight against the virus, he has been leading the fight to unleash our economy once again.

  President Trump knows America can recapture its economic vitality—and he leaped into action to prove it. Having fulfilled his campaign promises on economic growth and demonstrated decisive crisis leadership, hasn’t he earned our trust? Having resurrected the American economy when ill-informed economic policies had driven it into the dirt, how much more so will he lead us to recovery?

  Not only must President Trump’s economic agenda be reinvigorated, but his contagious spirit of hope and optimism is every bit as essential. His patriotism, his love for the American people, his faith in the American worker, and his unwavering belief in the free market are indispensable to America’s recovery.

  The left, of course, will portray Joe Biden as a steady hand, ready to deliver this nation from chaos, in stark contrast to the volatile and combative Trump. Biden, they’ll say, is a moderate, perfectly situated to heal our deep divisions. But as we’ve seen, Joe Biden is no moderate. He is a chameleon—willing to be whomever he needs to be and say whatever he needs to say to win votes. While wooing his party’s base, he is an untrustworthy panderer—moving further to the left with each passing moment, even if he conveniently veers back to the center as the election nears. If elected he’ll either push, or be a pawn of others who will push, a leftist agenda.

  Media propaganda aside, Biden is not a seasoned force of stability and leadership. He is a walking gaffe machine who should be nowhere near the Oval Office. He is light-years away from the person Democrats portray. In reality, he doesn’t even know what office he’s running for. On February 25, 2020, he mistakenly proclaimed himself “a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate.” Apparently believing that some family member of his was also a candidate, he said if you don’t like him you should “vote for the other Biden.”2

  Nor is President Trump the unstable monster his obsessed haters depict. He rose to the unique challenge the outbreak presented, outperforming even his strongest supporters’ best expectations. No president in modern history could have better led the nation through this crisis, coordinating the public and private sectors and balancing health and economic concerns to produce the best possible results amid an unprecedented catastrophe not of his making.

  It’s unsettling to consider what would have happened if Biden had been in power during the crisis. He would have been wholly ill-equipped to lead America even under normal circumstances, and would certainly be ill-suited to lead during possible future outbreaks. Biden at his best would be a disaster for these times, but his obviously declining mental condition—and I say this without malice but with deep concern—makes the prospect of his presidency foreboding and alarming. We have no idea who will really be pulling the strings if he’s elected. It is inconceivable that the Democratic leadership is unaware of Biden’s incapacity to handle the demands of the most powerful position on the planet, but they found themselves without any other viable option when Bernie survived as his last remaining rival. If the Democrats finally throw Biden overboard because of his incompetence or allegations of sexual assault, we can be sure that his replacement—to pass muster with the leftist Democrats and their base—will be equally disastrous for the nation.

  My fellow patriots, I trust that you understand as well as I do the gravity of the times we are living in. As such, I implore you to get engaged and work harder than you ever have to reelect President Trump and deliver Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. The fate of this nation and of my children and yours depends on this election. Let not your hearts be troubled. Have faith and work hard. We can and will make this happen. God bless you and God bless America.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I always said I would never do another book, yet here I am. We are at a pivotal point in our nation’s history, and I felt compelled to lay out what is at stake, which I hope I have accomplished to your satisfaction.

  It takes tremendous time and effort to write a book, especially one as comprehensive in scope as this one. With my incredibly busy schedule I had to rely on the research assistance from my radio and television teams, and advice from certain valued friends, without which I simply wouldn’t have been able to complete this project as efficiently. As such I want to sincerely thank my radio team: Lynda McLaughlin, James Grisham, Blair Cullen, Jason Mosse, Eric Stanger, Ethan Keller, and Katie Holcomb; and my television team: Tiffany Fazio, Porter Berry, Robert Samuel, Ben Miller, Christen Bloom, Andrew Luton, Drew Lynch, Stephanie Woloshin, Tim Rhodes, Irena Briganti, Carly Shanahan, and Hayley Caronia.

  Thank you to everyone at Fox News for their consistent support, including Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, Suzanne Scott, and Dianne Brandi. Much appreciation also to the radio executives with iHeartMedia whose support is also invaluable, including Bob Pittman, Rich Bressler, Julie Talbott, and Dan Metter.

  Thanks to the entire team at Threshold Editions of Simon & Schuster, who believed in this book from the beginning. Specific thanks to my editor, Natasha Simons, publisher Jennifer Bergstrom, associate publisher Jennifer Long, executive publicist Jennifer Robinson, editorial assistant Maggie Loughran, production editor Al Madocs, managing editor Caroline Pallotta, art directors Lisa Litwack and John Vairo, copyeditor Tom Pitoniak, and interior designer Jamie Putorti.

  Thanks also to my long-time friends Mark Levin and David Limbaugh, who reviewed the manuscript and offered valuable feedback.

  Thank you to my family, who are always loving, supportive, and understanding of my long work hours and job demands.

  And as always, thank you to the American people who join me in this fight to preserve America as the greatest nation in history.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  SEAN HANNITY is the host of Hannity on Fox News and the nationally syndicated radio program The Sean Hannity Show, as well as the author of three New York Times bestsellers—Conservative Victory, Deliver Us from Evil, and Let Freedom Ring.

  FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:

  SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Sean-Hannity

  SimonandSchuster.com

  ThresholdEditions

  @Threshold_Books

  ALSO BY SEAN HANNITY

  Conservative Victory

  Deliver Us from Evil

  Let Freedom Ring

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  NOTES

  CHAPTER 1: “A REPUBLIC—IF YOU CAN KEEP IT”

  1. Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen, A Patriot’s History of the United States, From Columbus’s Great Discovery to the War on Terror (New York: Sentinel, 2004), xxiv.

  2. Kay Cole James, Terry Miller, et al., “2019 Index of Economic Freedom,” Heritage Foundation, 2019, https://www.heritage.org/index/book/chapter-4.

  3. Robert Kagan, “Benevolent Empire,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 1, 1998.

  4. History.com Editors, “The Marshall Plan,”
History.com, December 16, 2009; Paul Johnson, A History of the American People (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 812.

  5. Sam O’Brien, “Questioning the Marshall Plan in the Buildup to the Cold War,” University of New Hampshire Inquiry Journal, Spring 2014.

  6. Jean-Louis Panne, Andrzej Paczkowski, et al., The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).

  7. Kagan, “Benevolent Empire.”

  8. Ibid.

  9. Paul K. MacDonald and Joseph M. Parent, “Trump Didn’t Shrink U.S. Military Commitments Abroad—He Expanded Them,” Foreign Affairs, December 3, 2019.

  10. Leo Shane III and Joe Gould, “The Military Could See Big Changes if Democrats Win Control of Congress,” Military Times, October 23, 2018.

  11. Maegan Vazquez, “NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo Says America ‘Was Never That Great,’ ” CNN.com, August 16, 2018.

  12. Ian Schwartz, “Eric Holder to Trump: ‘Exactly When Did You Think America Was Great?’ ” Real Clear Politics, March 27, 2019.

  13. Ronald Reagan, “Farewell Address to the Nation,” Reagan Foundation, January 11, 1989.

  14. Dinesh D’Souza, What’s So Great About America? (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2002), 32–33.

  15. Wilfred M. McClay, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story (New York, London: Encounter Books, 2019), 428.

  16. Reagan, “Farewell Address to the Nation.”

  17. Ibid.

  18. McClay, Land of Hope, 26.

  19. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Mayflower Compact,” Encyclopaedia Britannica (Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., November 14, 2019), https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mayflower-Compact.

  20. Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and the Glory (Grand Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell, 1977), 120.

  21. Paul Johnson, A History of the American People (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 302.

  22. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Mayflower Compact”; M. Stanton Evans, The Theme Is Freedom (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1994), 188, 193.

  23. Alice M. Baldwin, The New England Clergy and the American Revolution (London: Forgotten Books, 2018).

  24. Governor John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity,” 1630. From the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston, 1838, 3rd series: 7:31-48), https://history.hanover.edu/texts/winthmod.html.

  25. Evans, The Theme Is Freedom, 194.

  26. Baldwin, The New England Clergy and the American Revolution.

  27. Verna G. Hall, ed., The Christian History of the Constitution ([n.p.]: American Christian Constitution Press, 1962), 253.

  28. Marshall and Manuel, The Light and the Glory, 251–52.

  29. Johnson, A History of the American People, 116.

  30. D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe, What if the Bible Had Never Been Written? (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 90.

  31. Benjamin Franklin, “Constitutional Convention Address on Prayer,” American Rhetoric Online Speech Bank, https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/benfranklin.htm.

  32. Evans, The Theme Is Freedom, 231–32.

  33. Thomas Jefferson, The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson (New York, New York: Modern Library Classics, 2004), 656.

  34. Michael Novak, On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002), 38, 42.

  35. McClay, Land of Hope, 41.

  36. “The Originality of the United States Constitution,” Yale Law Journal, June 1896, 239.

  37. W. David Stedman and La Vaughn G. Lewis, eds., “Our Ageless Constitution,” National Center for Constitutional Studies, https://nccs.net/blogs/our-ageless-constitution/our-ageless-constitution.

  38. Alexander Hamilton, “Introduction,” Federalist No. 1, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/fed.asp.

  39. McClay, Land of Hope, 76.

  40. M. E. Bradford, A Worthy Company (Marlborough, NH: Plymouth Rock Foundation, 1982).

  41. Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D., “Preventing ‘The Tyranny of the Majority,’ ” Heritage Foundation, March 7, 2018.

  42. Novak, On Two Wings, 42.

  43. David Barton, Celebrate Liberty! Famous Patriotic Speeches & Sermons (Wallbuilder Press Kindle Edition, 2013), Kindle Locations 2044-2048.

  44. Stedman and Lewis, eds., “Our Ageless Constitution.”

  45. Ibid.

  46. Abraham Lincoln, “Fragment on the Constitution and the Union (Jan. 1861), in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy P. Basler et al., eds., 1953, 168–69.

  47. Abraham Lincoln, “The Gettysburg Address,” November 19, 1863, https://www.historynet.com/gettysburg-address-text.

  48. McClay, Land of Hope, 181.

  49. “We the People: The American Constitution After 200 Years, Celebrating the Nation’s Charter as Problem and Solution,” Los Angeles Times, September 13, 1987; “Rediscovering the Ideas of Liberty,” National Center for Constitutional Studies, https://nccs.net/pages/resources, 2020.

  50. President Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at the Annual Convention of Kiwanis International,” July 6, 1987, Reagan Foundation, https://www.reaganfoundation.org/media/128817/kiwanis.pdf.

  51. McClay, Land of Hope, 240.

  52. Ibid., 240.

  53. David M. Kennedy, Lizabeth Cohen, and Thomas A. Bailey, The American Pageant: A History of the American People (Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning Center), Kindle ed., location 14603 of 25194.

  54. Ibid., location 14603–14620 of 25194.

  55. Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen, A Patriot’s History of the United States: From Columbus’s Great Discovery to the War on Terror (New York: Sentinel, 2004), xxiv.

  56. David Davenport, “Rugged Individualism: Dead Or Alive?” Defining Ideas, A Hoover Institute Journal, January 10, 2017; Kennedy, Cohen, and Bailey, The American Pageant, location 14603 of 25194.

  57. John Burgess, The Foundations of Political Science (New York, 1933), 89, 90.

  58. William A. Schambra and Thomas West, “The Progressive Movement and the Transformation of American Politics,” Heritage Foundation, July 18, 2007.

  59. C. Edward Merriam, A History of American Political Theories (New York: Macmillan, 1903), 311; William A. Schambra and Thomas West, “The Progressive Movement and the Transformation of American Politics.”

  60. Merriam, A History of American Political Theories, 307.

  61. John Dewey, Liberalism and Social Action (New York: Prometheus Books, 2000), 34.

  62. Ibid., 27; Schambra and West, “The Progressive Movement and the Transformation of American Politics.”

  63. Daniel J. Flynn, A Conservative History of the American Left (New York: Crown Forum, 2008), 131.

  64. Schambra and West, “The Progressive Movement and the Transformation of American Politics.”

  65. Ronald J. Pestritto, “The Progressive Rejection of the Founding, Introductory Remarks,” The U.S. Constitution: A Reader (Hillsdale, MI: Hillsdale College Press, 2012), 617.

  66. McClay, Land of Hope, 246–47.

  67. Madeline Osburn, “The Progressive Movement Rejected the Founders’ Model for Lawmaking,” Federalist, February 1, 2019; McClay, Land of Hope, 247.

  68. Flynn, A Conservative History of the American Left, 131.

  69. McClay, Land of Hope, 247.

  70. Madeline Osburn, “The Progressive Movement Rejected the Founders’ Model for Lawmaking.”

  71. Johnson, A History of the American People, 636.

  72. Flynn, A Conservative History of the American Left, 132.

  73. Schambra and West, “The Progressive Movement and the Transformation of American Politics.”

  74. Johnson, A History of the American People, 633.

  75. Schambra and West, “The Progressive Movement and the Transformation of American Politics.”

  76. M. J. Heale, The Sixties in America: History, Politics and Protest (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001), 13–14.

  77. D’Souza, What’s So Grea
t About America?, 147.

  78. Evans, The Theme Is Freedom, 42.

  79. Flynn, A Conservative History of the American Left, 132.

  80. David Davenport, “Rugged Individualism: Dead or Alive?” Defining Ideas: A Hoover Institution Journal, January 10, 2017.

  81. James Madison, “Notes on the Debates in the Federal Convention,” Tuesday, September 17, 1787, Avalon Project, Yale Law School, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_917.asp.

  CHAPTER 2: RISE OF THE RADICALS

  1. Nathaniel Sheppart Jr., “Chicago Home of a Friend Was Refuge for Miss Dohrn,” New York Times, December 5, 1980, A22.

  2. John Kifner, “A Radical ‘Declaration’ Warns of an Attack by Weathermen,” New York Times, May 25, 1970; “Women on FBI’s Most Wanted List,” CBS News, https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/women-on-fbis-most-wanted-list/4/; FBI’s Former Ten Most Wanted Fugitive #314, https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/topten-history/hires_images/FBI-314-BernardineRaeDohrn.jpg/view.

  3. Stanley Kurtz, “Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism on Schools,” Wall Street Journal, September 23, 2008; Bernie Quigley, “Obama and Bill Ayers: Together from the Beginning,” Hill, September 24, 2008.

  4. Mort Kondracke, “Democrats’ Far-Left Lean Risks More Than the Presidency,” Real Clear Politics, July 18, 2019.

  5. Hunter Schwarz, “Obama’s Latest ‘Evolution’ on Gay Marriage: He Lied About Opposing It, Axelrod Says,” Washington Post, February 10, 2015.