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l33tminion) wrote2024-05-04 05:24 pm
l33tminion) wrote2024-05-04 05:24 pm
A Reckoning of Sorts
Recently, I read McKay Coppins's biography, Romney: A Reckoning, which was pretty interesting.
Has any other US politician ever won high-profile sate-wide elections in states with electorates as different as Massachusetts and Utah? You might say Massachusetts (at least the Governorship) is a special case. And possibly say the same for Utah. But still.
I'm reminded of political compass grid memes that put Romney in all four quadrants. And of some Twitter wag (I think, I couldn't find the exact reference for credit and quote) saying (re Romney's guilt-stricken reaction to the reaction to his 47% gaffe as described in this book) that it was funny that god had cursed a single solitary Republican with some amount of self-awareness and that it was, in particular, Mitt Romney. Of gaffes that amounted to "saying his administration would put effort into DEI" and "having a sense of geopolitics that was in fact totally right".
When the topic of this year's primary odds have come up, I've like to make (perhaps exaggeratedly) the point that the odds seem to be underestimating Mitt Romney. Not that Romney would be the nominee (he won't) even if Trump is not (he will be). Just that things would have to be so crazy if the Party of Trump doesn't nominate the guy himself that ending up with some also-ran would just seem to normal, and they'd have to do something outlandish like nominate... the immediately previous nominee from their party.
When I went to visit Fort Warren a while back, a historical reenactor led a tour portraying the former Confederate prisoner Charles McGill, based on the letters he wrote from the prison. Towards the end, he had a line about his fervent wish "to see the destruction of the Republican Party". Which of course got a laugh. I'm sure if you were to go back in time and tell him how the Confederates ultimately got their revenge on the Republican party, well, he might be a little surprised about some of the details but if you told him it was a matter of weird coalition politics, I'm sure that bit would be predictably similar.
Reading Coppins's book did make me wonder what the nation's politics would be like if the Confederates never got their revenge. If the Republican party didn't stop being a place for the sort of Republicans like George Romney and his son.
The "reckoning" in the book refers to Romney's personal reckoning with his own role in facilitating / failing to thwart the rise of the Party of Trump. The transition that brought him in pretty short order from being the Presidential nominee to (pretty much entirely to his own political detriment) voting (twice!) that a President of his own party should be convicted and barred from office for their malfeasance. And yet, as Romney announced his impending retirement, he still couldn't resist the call of at least clinging to the false equivalencies of against-both-sides contrarianism.
One way or another, it's the end of an era. As Romney points out, his generation will not live forever. At some point, the reckoning will have to be done by someone else.
Has any other US politician ever won high-profile sate-wide elections in states with electorates as different as Massachusetts and Utah? You might say Massachusetts (at least the Governorship) is a special case. And possibly say the same for Utah. But still.
I'm reminded of political compass grid memes that put Romney in all four quadrants. And of some Twitter wag (I think, I couldn't find the exact reference for credit and quote) saying (re Romney's guilt-stricken reaction to the reaction to his 47% gaffe as described in this book) that it was funny that god had cursed a single solitary Republican with some amount of self-awareness and that it was, in particular, Mitt Romney. Of gaffes that amounted to "saying his administration would put effort into DEI" and "having a sense of geopolitics that was in fact totally right".
When the topic of this year's primary odds have come up, I've like to make (perhaps exaggeratedly) the point that the odds seem to be underestimating Mitt Romney. Not that Romney would be the nominee (he won't) even if Trump is not (he will be). Just that things would have to be so crazy if the Party of Trump doesn't nominate the guy himself that ending up with some also-ran would just seem to normal, and they'd have to do something outlandish like nominate... the immediately previous nominee from their party.
When I went to visit Fort Warren a while back, a historical reenactor led a tour portraying the former Confederate prisoner Charles McGill, based on the letters he wrote from the prison. Towards the end, he had a line about his fervent wish "to see the destruction of the Republican Party". Which of course got a laugh. I'm sure if you were to go back in time and tell him how the Confederates ultimately got their revenge on the Republican party, well, he might be a little surprised about some of the details but if you told him it was a matter of weird coalition politics, I'm sure that bit would be predictably similar.
Reading Coppins's book did make me wonder what the nation's politics would be like if the Confederates never got their revenge. If the Republican party didn't stop being a place for the sort of Republicans like George Romney and his son.
The "reckoning" in the book refers to Romney's personal reckoning with his own role in facilitating / failing to thwart the rise of the Party of Trump. The transition that brought him in pretty short order from being the Presidential nominee to (pretty much entirely to his own political detriment) voting (twice!) that a President of his own party should be convicted and barred from office for their malfeasance. And yet, as Romney announced his impending retirement, he still couldn't resist the call of at least clinging to the false equivalencies of against-both-sides contrarianism.
One way or another, it's the end of an era. As Romney points out, his generation will not live forever. At some point, the reckoning will have to be done by someone else.