To let your politics be defined by loathing or adoration of a single political figure is to debase yourself.
To let your politics be defined by loathing or adoration of a single political figure is to debase yourself.
O n the American right, we have Reagan Republicans, Trump Republicans, anti-Trump Republicans, and anti-anti-Trump Republicans; RINOs and True Conservatives™️, a Freedom Caucus and Tuesday Group; reformocons and first-, second-, and third-wave neocons; Kirkian traditionalists, Meyerian libertarians, and Buckleyite fusionists. Of all the varieties of American conservatism, though, one new contingent stands alone in its ridiculousness: anti-Romney Republicans.
Willard Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, 2012 GOP nominee for president, and sitting junior senator from Utah, has been the recipient of considerable ire from Republican politicians, pundits, and operatives for some time now. Badmouthing Romney first became popular among Republicans when he maintained his opposition to candidate Trump throughout the 2016 general election, and intensified when he voted to impeach President Trump for abuse of power earlier this year.
Romney is an imperfect man and an imperfect politician. William Rusher, National Review’s inaugural and longtime publisher, said that politicians will always disappoint us. Romney certainly has. Michael Brendan Dougherty has written the definitive case for that, but even he admits to admiring Mitt’s personal and professional excellence. Yet there is a far less charitable group of successful and ostensibly talented “conservatives” who seem to believe that a primary — if not the principal — tenet of conservatism is virtue-signaling distaste for the GOP’s former presidential standard-bearer.
Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU), the organization responsible for running the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), is one candidate for leader of the anti-Romney Republicans. Schlapp, beclowning himself on Twitter this past January, announced the following:
BREAKING: The “extreme conservative” and Junior Senator from the great state of Utah, @SenatorRomney is formally NOT invited to #CPAC2020.
The ACU claims that one of its purposes is to “define conservatism” and argues that its congressional rating system is the “gold standard” for measuring how conservative a legislator is. By the ACU’s own rankings, Mitt Romney finished in the top half of the Republican caucus in 2019, with a score of 77 out of a possible 100. And while Schlapp made a show of not inviting Romney, he gladly welcomed Missouri senator Josh Hawley — who, at 77, tied Romney’s ACU score — and Iowa senator Joni Ernst, who received a score of 73. Either Schlapp does not really believe his organization’s rating system to be the “gold standard” of measuring a politician’s commitment to conservative principles, or it’s just more important to collect retweets.
Florida congressman Matt Gaetz has made Romney the subject of several of the former’s trademark stunts. After Romney’s vote to impeach Trump, Gaetz went on Lou Dobbs’s show to call for Romney’s removal from the GOP caucus. “He has shown no interest in working with this administration or Republicans who are eager to seize the opportunity of the Trump presidency,” asserted an indignant Gaetz, content to ignore that Romney has voted with Senate Republicans 95 percent of the time, according to ProPublica.
Gaetz’s stunts have also caused others to pile on — even when Romney is not directly at issue. During a July GOP House Caucus meeting, Gaetz ripped conference chair Liz Cheney of Wyoming for daring to publicly differ with the president on some public-health and foreign-policy matters while heartily endorsing his reelection campaign. Gaetz later tweeted out a message along the same lines, which was quoted by Donald Trump Jr., who wrote that “we already have one Mitt Romney, we don’t need another. . . .”
By far the most moronic display of anti-Romney Republicanism, however, unfolded on Twitter last Thursday. It saw Republican senator Kelly Loeffler and Representative Doug Collins, her main Republican challenger in Georgia’s upcoming “jungle primary” election this November, engaged in a doltish contest to see who could be more disdainful of Romney.
The Collins campaign started by linking to an article from Gateway Pundit — a site famous for publishing falsehoods and run by conspiracy theorist Jim Hoft — claiming that Romney was preventing Senate Republicans from subpoenaing Obama CIA director John Brennan to testify on surveillance of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election cycle. Collins proceeded to chide Loeffler for not condemning Romney’s supposed role in blocking Brennan’s subpoena and tying her to Romney by claiming that they both are “self-funders putting self before country.”
Loeffler, however, was not about to be outdone. Her response was to post screenshots of Collins praising Romney and announcing his intention to vote for Romney in 2012. Then, Collins pointed out that Loeffler — so purportedly outraged by Collins’s support of Romney over Barack Obama — donated $1.5 million to a pro-Romney Super PAC in 2012.
To let your politics be defined by loathing or adoration of a single political figure is to debase yourself. Look no further than the Lincoln Project on your left and Gaetz, Schlapp, Loeffler, et al. on your right for evidence. With Donald Trump, it’s at least comprehensible, if still often overblown. He is the most powerful man in the country, and another term will result in numerous political victories for his supporters and irreparable damage to the republic in the eyes of his opponents. But Romney? He’s merely one of a hundred senators with a limited ability to effect change unilaterally.
Yes, Romney is notable for vocally and meaningfully opposing his party’s incumbent president. And yes, his past as a major-party nominee renders him more influential than the typical first-term lawmaker. Still, the vitriolic, embarrassing, and performative behavior he inspires in those who have tied their careers and credibility to Donald Trump is remarkable in both its ardor and its ineffectuality.
If a man can be fairly judged by the company he keeps, I’d kindly ask to be counted as a Romney Republican. It’s a far better fate than the alternative.