Mitt Romney isn't moral
Or: blowing up the conventional wisdom about how we think about politicians' character
We all “know” the following to be “true”: Mitt Romney is a kind, decent, family-values man, whereas Donald Trump is a buffoonish racist, wannabe dictator, and contemptible bully. Except, of course, when it wasn’t; remember when Romney was a misogynistic, dog-hating, Gilded Age psychopath? (OK, the last one is basically true, but, still, awkward.) I suspect it’s at most a couple dozen people in all of America who haven’t heard some version of that.
But it’s very wrong.
One of the biggest hang-ups for pre-2016 conservatives/supporters of the Republican Party—and source of attacks from those on the Left—was Trump’s (lack of) character. It was so legendarily bad that the raison d’être of Joe Biden’s entire “campaign”—if it can be called that when he only left his basement for a few debates and ice cream (two scoops, please!)—was to “restore the soul of America.”
I submit, however, that our thinking about politicians’ “character” is deeply flawed, at least in the context of contemporary American politics, and that this causes us to elect and re-elect duds and fools over and over again.
I’m on the record praising Trump’s virtue—namely, his courage—when he vigorously defended then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh from Christine Blasey Ford’s utterly scurrilous, gutter-tier, eleventh-hour rape allegations. At that time, “Trump exercised his basic, natural right of self-defense on behalf of Kavanaugh, who himself was brawling ‘in that part of the state of nature known as a confirmation hearing.’ ” I stand by that assessment fully and defy anyone to convince me that a more “polished,” say, President George W. Bush would have been similarly committed to his nominee. (It’s laughable even to contemplate that, isn’t it?)
However, it’s worth revisiting my discussion of political virtue, which I distinguished, somewhat implicitly, from merely personal virtue (which is essentially our standard view: a kind, agreeable person who doesn’t have “sharp elbows”):
Political virtue, then, is when a politician, though perhaps personally flawed, stands up for the common good of his country and resists factions and tribalization with all his might; such virtue might indeed be somewhat minimalist [from a holistic, God’s-eye perspective] and require an over-accentuation of one or multiple of the virtues (in this moment, I’d say courage is badly needed); it might even appear to be vice, especially if the broader society has for decades relentlessly mocked and undermined virtue-in-the-broadest-possible-sense—i.e., the Aristotelian-Christian vision of virtue.
Said another way, “Virtue is an excellence: compared with the average, it is an extreme.” Following precisely that logic, Barry Goldwater uttered this justly famous line in his acceptance speech of the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 1964: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”1
But my distinction between personal and public/political virtue was lacking; in fact, when virtue is properly understood, they’re one and the same—two sides of the same coin, really. What is virtue?
Virtue is acting in accord with right reason, aimed at the good—both common and individual.
Discussing a concrete example—Romney versus Trump (but really any non-Trump-y, milquetoast, establishment-creature politician could stand in for Romney in the following analysis)—will help flesh this out.
As best I can tell, to the extent, “Romney is moral” is sincere and has real communicative content—and isn’t just cynical gaslighting of conservatives and Republicans after he’s no longer in a position to thwart History (i.e., Barack Obama’s reelection)—it’s grounded in Romney’s being mild-mannered and “decent.” It also helps that he doesn’t really stand up for himself. Moreover, he’s “reasonable” and willing to “work across the aisle.” Basically, he’s someone you’d want to have over for dinner, and you’re sure if you asked him to housesit, he’d agree. For those who say, “Romney is moral,” it’s self-evident that anyone who’s like Trump—who counter-punches and is passionate about something (especially the health of his country)—is immoral.
But this view is wrong. For one thing, it wrongly conflates morality and virtue with mere pleasantness. Jesus wasn’t always nice. And nobody sane would suggest that rolling over is the moral thing to do in the face of, say, violent aggression that threatens the lives of you and your family.
This is where it becomes plain that Romney is not a moral man; he fails to comprehend the enormity of the stakes of this moment, and he doesn’t comprehend clearly the choices before us.
Let’s not forget that Romney is the man who let Obama and media tag-team curb stomp him in 2012, voted twice to convict Trump on the basis of laughably partisan and hollow articles of impeachment (especially during round two—can you even believe they were brazen enough to go for a round two?), voted for a hostile regime change in the critically important “symbolic battlefield” (e.g., Juneteenth), and constantly, nauseatingly, and dutifully plays the part of the Left’s useful idiot, supporting whatever its weekly cause célèbre is, whether it be racism or electoral chicanery.
With some of these background facts in mind (and we could easily multiply them), it becomes obvious that Romney is, at bottom, one of four things (or some vicious combination thereof):
He is stupid because he fails to see that the Democratic Party in particular (in its fanatical desire to abolish the Electoral College, pack the Supreme Court and the Senate, and stamp out religious liberty and the right to life) and the Left in general (via, in particular, its militant Wokeism and ghoulish, white-hot hatred of the natural family) pose serious threats to the country’s very existence;
He is morally blind and therefore doesn’t see that partial list of wicked things as wicked things;
He is a coward because he does realize that those wicked things are real threats, but he is too scared and weak to resist them; or,
He is a collaborator who gives aid and comfort to his enemies (whether for head pats, financial rewards, fleeting respect, or otherwise), and stabs his friends in the back.
When you really break it down, then, it’s clear that, whatever one thinks of Romney, it’s simply ludicrous to conceive of him as some sort of paragon of virtue. Romney is either an intellectual midget, a moral illiterate, a contemptible coward, or a conniving collaborator with his known-or-should-be-known enemies.
With that typology in mind, it’s laughable (but more importantly deranged) to hear someone say Romney is moral. When’s the last time you heard someone say that their moral idiot buddy, who also runs from every important fight that comes his way when he’s not licking his opponents’ boots like a dog, is a good man?
Oh, right. You haven’t. Because that’s deranged, remember?
Romney: (possibly) a good choice for bean bag, but not for politics.
Update (July 9, 2021, 1:55 pm): Having noticed some stray or missing commas and words, for the sake of readability, I’ve updated the post to that effect. I will get better at this, I promise! Thanks for reading.
The legendary interpreter of Abraham Lincoln, Harry V. Jaffa, who was then a speechwriter for Goldwater, penned those words.
I tend to believe 1, 2, and 3, but not 4. Mitt seems like a decent guy, but he doesn't understand the stakes involved in our current ideological battles, and, like many RINOs, he seems to think that rolling over and/or telling the Left what it wants to hear wil earn him brownie points. It will -- for about 5 seconds. I view Mitt as more foolish than wicked. We also need to keep in mind that 90% of the time he votes the way we want him to...