There is no image that personifies the position of Utah Senator Mitt Romney in the Republican party more than his standing up in congress to cheer for the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court as members of his own party bitterly slunk out of the room. (While two other senators in the Republican party joined Romney in voting for her, he was the only one to celebrate her victory). By refusing to engage in the disgusting political theatrics that Ted Cruz and Lindsay Graham had displayed during Jackson's senate hearing, and then voting for a Supreme Court candidate who was both groundbreaking and qualified, Romney's basic decency had left him applauding alone.
While I didn't vote for Romney back in 2012, he's always struck me as a reasonable man. His governorship of Massachusetts was mostly moderate, and the campaign he ran against Barack Obama mostly avoided demonizing the president and stuck to the issues. I say mostly because there was one moment that he would come to regret: during the campaign he met with then TV star Donald Trump and accepted his endorsement. At that time Trump was mostly known for promoting the "birther" conspiracy that Obama was not actually a legitimate president. While Romney never embraced this crazy theory, he was birther adjacent.
Then, to Romney's credit, he gave a speech on March 3rd of 2016 before Trump had won the Republican nomination, in which he blasted Trump, saying “Here’s what I know: Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University. He’s playing members of the American public for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House, and all we get is a lousy hat.” And unlike other Republicans who criticized Trump during his campaign, Romney continued to go after him even after he won. And he is the only Republican Senator to vote to remove Trump from office in both of the impeachment trials.
The fact that Romney has always been a Republican is no surprise; his father was a Republican Governor himself. And, before Mitt went into politics, he was a successful businessman. It's clear that the appeal of the Republican party to him was that it was seen as the party that was pro business and lower taxes. His anger at Trump is for what he revealed about the party; that at the end of the day, race was a far bigger factor than tax cuts. For years, wealthy Republicans like Romney had somehow convinced themselves that the backbone of the GOP, those middle class, blue collar white workers, cared about issues like capital gains tax cuts and regulations, when what they really cared about were issues like Mexican immigrants "stealing" their jobs and black people "exploiting" welfare. What Trump did was pull off the pro business band aid of the party and expose the gaping wound of bigotry underneath. And that stung Romney, who clearly was distressed to see the real feelings of Republican rank and file voters laid bare.
So what's a honorable man like Romney to do? He's no longer welcome at party gatherings, and he was even booed at a Republican rally in his home state of Utah, but I doubt he will ever switch parties or become an independent; the GOP's pro business image is in his blood. Sadly, with the passing of John McCain and the further Trumpifying of the party, Romney's brand of polite politics is fading in the GOP. That a former presidential candidate and strong party member could become an outcast in his own party just 10 years later is proof of just how much Donald Trump has stained the Republicans and the country as a whole. There's no place anymore for decent people in the Grand Old Party.
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