A double tragedy, in fact, for poor old Mitt was born with both no shame and no balls! A typical Republican, in other words!
I was, in fact, quite willing to let poor Mitt go gentle into that good night until pretty near incessant praise for the guy started to get me down, most particularly on the part of Damon Linker, in his substack post, The Romney Counterfactual, which springs, in turn, from his tweet (if that’s what they’re still called) on “X”: “Just finished the excerpt from the McKay Coppins’ Romney biography in the Atlantic. I never voted for Romney, and I don’t regret that. But this excerpt solidifies my judgment that he’s a genuine American hero in an age with far too few of them.”
Excuse the fuck out of me, but why is Romney “an American hero”? It’s true that Mitt stood up to Trump as no other Republican did, but he did so cautiously, refusing to endorse Trump when Trump won the nomination in 2016, but then so craven as to “interview” for the job of secretary of state after Trump won when he should have known that Trump would simply humiliate him—for the thought that Trump would ever forgive anyone who criticized Trump as strongly as Mitt did—especially anyone who is a loser, and a non-billionaire loser at that!—is laughable.
Much of Romney’s anti-Trump stance was simply pique at the way he had been treated, and his supposed “heroism” in “confronting” Trump after Trump began his barrage of lies regarding the “stolen” 2020 election, which so impressed Mr. Linker, was instead typical after the fact Republican “pseudo bravery”, closing the barn door after the horse is long gone. As Coppins tells it, prior to January 6, Mitt has a conversation—a very disturbing conversation—with Maine Sen. Angus King and immediately sends off a message to Mitch McConnell:
In case you have not heard this, I just got a call from Angus King, who said that he had spoken with a senior official at the Pentagon who reports that they are seeing very disturbing social media traffic regarding the protests planned on the 6th. There are calls to burn down your home, Mitch; to smuggle guns into DC, and to storm the Capitol. I hope that sufficient security plans are in place, but I am concerned that the instigator—the President—is the one who commands the reinforcements the DC and Capitol police might require.
And then? “McConnell never responds.”
Uh, so? Can’t Mitt “respond” on his own? Can’t he go public, instead of handing the ball off to Mitch? And then, when Mitch does nothing, do nothing himself? Why the fuck is this “heroism”? I guess this is heroism, Republican style, practiced endlessly by Mitch himself—telling someone else to bell the cat while you go home to sit on your Mormon ass and watch your 100-inch TV, which apparently really is a thing.
Romney had criticized Trump harshly during the 2016 primary campaign and refused to endorse him for the presidency, but he also refused to endorse Hilliary Clinton, when he should have not only endorsed her but campaigned for her, which actually might have made a difference. He then infinitely compounded this moral failure by seeking the job of secretary of state, practically begging Trump to humiliate him, which of course is exactly what happened.
Mitt had, of course, been humiliated by Trump before, engaging, in fact, in self humiliation, during his own run for the presidency in 2012, when he was promising to make illegal immigrants so miserable they would “self deport”. Trump was making his first foray into big-time Republican politics by accusing President Obama of being a Kenyan rather than an American citizen, and Romney wanted some of that sweet, sweet, racist, anti-Muslim, xenophobic mojo for his own campaign, flying out to Las Vegas to kiss Trump’s ring obtain Trump’s endorsement. As Politico informs us, Mitt was beside himself with excitement at the prospect of Trump’s blessing:
“There are some things that you just can’t imagine happening in your life,” Romney told the crowd gathered for the occasion Thursday at Trump’s eponymous casino here. “This is one of them. Being in Donald Trump’s magnificent hotel and having his endorsement is a delight. I’m so honored and pleased to have his endorsement.”
Are you starting to get the idea that Mitt Romney would say anything to get what he wanted? Well, there’s more—a lot more. While running for president in 2012, Romney lied endlessly about his record as governor of Massachusetts (2003-2007), where he pursued policies that could be called “moderate” in Massachusetts only, passing a near-universal health care program that was deliberately copied by the Democratic Party after Obama’s victory in 2008, aka the “Affordable Care Act”, a program that Romney naturally promised to destroy during his 2012 campaign.
“Massachusetts Mitt” was also a passionate defender of a woman’s “right to choose”, only to change course once his success in the Bay State caused him to raise his sights to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., claiming, as a man in his fifties, to be amazed at the “news” that a fertilized human egg (a “zygote”) had a full complement of human genes, thus making it, in his eyes, both morally and legally a human being. How he imagined a fetus developed without a full gene set, and how and when the fetus eventually got a full set, well, a guy can’t be expected to know everything, can he? That’s not really guy stuff anyway, is it?
Well, apparently not. But here’s another thing “early Mitt” didn’t seem to know:
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints must not submit to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange for an abortion. Church members who encourage an abortion in any way may be subject to Church discipline.
The so often so right Daniel Larison provides a palate-cleansing take on the “real” Mitt Romney that you won’t get from those at anti-Trump sites like the Bulwark (which I subscribe to) and the Dispatch (no thanks) who try to turn Mitt into a Moderate Republican demi-god:
Romney represented much of what was wrong with the Republican Party in the first two decades of this century. He was a plutocrat who defended the interests of plutocracy and militarism, and he personally embodied a lot of what most Americans dislike about both American business and politics. He was politically craven and would pander to almost anyone, and after he adopted a new position he would become the smarmiest critic of others that had held the same position for decades.
Dan highlights Mitt’s viciously right-wing attack on Obama’s foreign policy, destruction for destruction’s sake, sneering at Obama’s non-existent “apology tour”, but I prefer to choose as “ultimate Mitt” his infamous spiel dividing the American people into “makers” and “takers”, to wit:
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right? There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement, and that government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49—he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn’t connect.
Of course, that “47 percent” includes people on Social Security, Medicare, disability, working people covered by Medicaid, etc., etc., etc. If you are going to include those folks as “moochers”, you are either, well, lying or else so rich you feel contempt for anyone so wimpy as to need Social Security and health insurance. Or, maybe, just a little mixture of both.
