Advertisement
Commentary
Mitt Romney's latest provocation
At a Trump campaign rally in 2020, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) suffered an hallucinatory breakdown in public, comparing the Donald to Moroni, the revered prophet in the Book of Mormon: “He seeks not power, but to pull it down. He seeks not the praise of the world or the fake news, but he seeks the well-being and the peace of the American people.” Fellow Latter-day Saints understandably denounced Lee for comparing a holy figure to a thrice-divorced, criminally investigated, bullying racist.
As a non-Mormon Republican, I’m more struck by Lee’s detachment from reality regarding history’s most famous narcissist. Trump “seeks not power” nor “the praise of the world?” Perhaps the senator baked too long in the western sun. Fortunately, heatstroke hasn’t addled his Utah Republican colleague.
Sen. Mitt Romney voted to convict during Trump’s first impeachment trial — the only senator ever to support removing his own party’s president. He was one of seven GOP votes to convict in Trump’s second trial, after the January 6 insurrection. (Lee supported acquittal.) Now Romney has enraged the GOP inquisition for the heresy of withholding his endorsement from Lee’s reelection bid this year. His stated reason is his friendship with both the incumbent and Evan McMullin, a sanely conservative independent candidate running for the seat.
Romney should stick to his neutrality. If the GOP is ever to trade reputable for repulsive, toadies like Lee must be exiled to retirement.
A weathervane decked out in suit and tie, Lee was against Trump before he was for him. From protesting Trump’s 2016 convention coronation to demanding that he quit the race after the Access Hollywood tape (the Book of Mormon doesn’t quote Moroni advocating, “Grab ‘em by the —--”), Lee couldn’t have been clearer about how he viewed the future president.
That is, until he mutated into a relentless cheerleader for Trump after he won the White House. Even the insurrection couldn’t coax Lee’s “yes” on impeachment. When the Republican National Committee deemed the January 6 attack “legitimate political discourse,” Romney condemned that fascist pirouette. Lee held his tongue, his muteness all the more damning after a federal judge ruled yesterday that Trump likely committed a felony by pressuring his vice president to overturn the 2020 election result.
Coddling a racist strongman who incited an attack on the U.S. Capitol may not violate the letter of the senatorial oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” But such political malfeasance indisputably tramples its spirit. That’s grounds enough for Utah voters to bounce Lee. Agreement with him on abortion, defense, or anything else pales in import when democracy’s at stake.
The party-above-country crowd sees it differently. “Regaining control of the Senate is one of the GOP’s most important objectives, and that means marshaling every conceivable vote to make that happen,” writes conservative columnist Henry Olsen.
But GOP Senate control is not important — rather, it is important to thwart it — given the party’s authoritarian makeover into a cult of personality. Some 21 million Americans endorse the indefensible (violence) to achieve the delusional (restoration of Tsar Donald after an allegedly stolen election that wasn’t stolen at all). “Legitimate political discourse” is not just imbecility on paper; it’s MAGA theology.
Abraham Lincoln’s spirit surely weeps over Republican officeholders who play to those cultists. Ketanji Brown Jackson deserves confirmation to the Supreme Court simply for abjuring a sickness bag at her hearing last week. Protocol required that Ketanji Brown Jackson remain looking serious while party brainiacs like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley could only grapple intellectually with children’s books and fevered wink-winks to QAnon loonies, respectively.
Agreement with [Sen. Lee] on abortion, defense, or anything else pales in import when democracy’s at stake.
Romney, to be sure, dallied with Trump before — as Republican presidential nominee in 2012, when he basked in Trump’s endorsement, and as an unsuccessful interviewee for the Trump Administration’s secretary of state. I voted for President Obama over Romney after Mitt did what Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz did at Brown Jackson’s hearing — tossed red meat to the GOP’s rabid base — by condemning Obamacare. That law was a necessary, conservative initiative. During the campaign, Romney played deadbeat dad, denying paternity for the measure, even though his own health care reform as Massachusetts governor helped sire it. (He came clean after Obama beat him.)
Yet since moving to Utah and the Senate, Romney has earned redemption for those missteps: that lonely, courageous vote after Trump’s first impeachment. The second impeachment vote, this time as a prophet who had warned his party of the president’s sociopathic unfitness. Then discarding a GOP commandment — thou shalt not work with Democrats, and certainly not when they help regular people — to help craft serious plans on matters such as infrastructure and child poverty.
The latest atonement is stiff-arming Lee’s reelection bid. If he doesn’t buckle under party pressure, Romney will be called Benedict Arnold by those who put party over country. A better description would be “patriot.”
