The Atlantic's McKay Coppins is out with the first excerpt of his highly anticipated biography of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), timed to the 2012 GOP presidential nominee's announcement today that he will not seek re-election.
Why it matters: Romney — the only GOP senator to vote to convict former President Trump in his first impeachment trial — was brutally honest about his Republican colleagues over the course of two years of interviews with Coppins, a fellow Utahn.
Highlights:
- On Jan. 2, 2021, Romney texted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to warn about extremist threats law enforcement had been tracking in connection with pro-Trump protests on Jan. 6. McConnell never responded.
- Romney kept a tally of the dozen-plus times that Republican senators privately expressed solidarity with his criticism of Trump. "You're lucky," McConnell once told him. "You can say the things that we all think."
- Romney shared a unique disgust for Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who he thought were too smart to believe Trump won the 2020 election but "put politics above the interests of liberal democracy and the Constitution."
- He also was highly critical of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who reinvented his persona to become a Trump acolyte after publishing a best-selling memoir about the working class that Romney loved. "I don't know that I can disrespect someone more than J. D. Vance," Romney said.
Zoom in: After House impeachment managers finished a presentation about Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, McConnell told Romney: "They nailed him."
- Taken aback, Romney said Trump would argue he was just investigating alleged corruption by the Bidens — the subject of House Republicans' present-day impeachment inquiry.
- "If you believe that," McConnell replied, "I've got a bridge I can sell you."
The bottom line: Romney said he never felt comfortable at a Senate GOP conference lunch after voting to convict Trump in 2020. "A very large portion of my party really doesn't believe in the Constitution," he told Coppins a few months after Jan. 6.
I don't think he's a classical liberal, he's just a moderate, old school, big government conservative.
When I think of "classical liberal," I think of Jefferson and the other founding fathers who wanted actual small government. Romney just seems to want restraint in growing government, he doesn't actually want a small government.
That's absolutely a fair point. I was actually excited for the 2012 election when he won the primary, but he absolutely changed in the general election to pretend to be more conservative than he was. I think he did poorly because people didn't really understand what he represented, because primary Romney and general election Romney felt like two different people entirely.
So since he didn't have a clear direction, he mostly looked like Obama, but with a conservative flavor. Obama was already quite moderate, so two moderates running didn't make for an exciting election so Obama won by inertia of being the incumbent.
But to be fair, that has been the case for some years, and the stark split is pretty recent. Look at Bush, Clinton, McCain, and Kerry, there wasn't a huge difference because they're all pretty moderate. But these days, we see more extremes imo. Biden is pretty moderate, but the field for 2016 had a lot of progressives who got a lot of support, and one of the most extreme conservatives got the nomination.
Worth also pointing out that all those progressives doing well in the dem primary had a BIG effect on Biden and the direction of the party. It made it very clear that a few issues must be on the table to get progressive votes -- climate and inclusion being the two most obvious. And go figure, Biden has the most diverse administration ever and passed the biggest climate bill ever.
Similarly, all these hard right and straight-up fascists doing well in GOP primaries have had a similarly profound effect on that party... in this case for the worse. Romney and McCain both lost likely directly because of it. Bush was probably the last moderate Republican anyone will ever see in a major position of political power, and even he has (rightly) gone down in history as a warmonger and fool.
Eh, "ever" is a strong word. I think the GOP will self-correct once Trump is out of the picture, and people like Boebart and Greene will likely just revert to the mean, just like AOC did recently on the Dem side.
I see the Trump thing as a fad like most cults of personality are. However, it's not over until Trump is done, so this next election will be very important.
I personally don't care much about partisan politics, and I largely dislike both parties. I guess I dislike the GOP more these days, but that's because of Trump, not because of anything Inherent in conservatism. I consider myself libertarian and I tend to vote on all sides, depending on the position and the candidate. My ballots are often ~50/50 GOP/Dem with some third parties and independents here and there. I think picking a side is stupid. I am currently registered libertarian, but I switched last election to Republican to vote in the primaries against Mike Lee (he courts libertarians, but he's far from it).
I hope I'm right and that this Trump storm will blow over, but he either needs to go to jail or lose spectacularly for him to truly be finished.
It won't blow over. There's a clear direction the GOP is been moving. They are worse every cycle and the next generation of Trumpist loons are lined up ready to take his place. Trump did not start this ball rolling and him leaving the picture will not change its inertia. They've been going further to the religious, police state, anti-civil rights far right for multiple generations. At least since Nixon. Even the supposed "moderate" staple Republicans like Kemp are invested heavily in the culture war over good governance at this point.
The Democrats were in a bad place within my lifetime, but there's also a clear direction they are moving. There's little left of the hawkish neoliberal bullshit in them and I see less of it every cycle.
Conservatism is not the philosophy of fiscal responsibility and light touch government. That's what the liberals and progressives do. Conservatism is about preserving traditional social hierarchies and morals. The GOP is conservative, not libertarian. They only invoke libertarian identity when it's convenient to prevent social progress.
If you are into fiscal responsibility and light touch government, read up on Chuck Marohn and Strong Towns. That's what it looks like done right. But they get arbitrarily labeled as some hippie dippy far left progressive group because that is how fundamentally broken American "conservatism" has become.
I hope you're wrong about the GOP's direction, for all our sakes.
And yeah, I've known the GOP wasn't actually in favor of small government for at 10+ years now, back when I switched my party affiliation to Independent. I'm only registered Libertarian now because I hope that communicates to someone that the two party system is broken. I disagree with a fair amount of the Libertarian Party lately, especially since the Mises caucus took over and seems to be turning it into some weird GOP alternative.
I don't know much about Chuck Marohn, but after looking into it, he sounds up my alley. I'm a huge fan of dense towns and people-focuses transit, instead of sprawling suburbs and stroads everywhere. I watch Not Just Bikes on YouTube and generally agree with the presenter. I think people would be more happy if the US worked more like the Netherlands than the Western US.
Maybe I'm a hippie, IDK, I just want smaller government, which means fewer laws, simpler services, and more transparency. The GOP is against at least two of those, and my impression is the Democratic party is as well.