Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) just broke with the Republican party to vote for the removal of Donald Trump from the presidency. pic.twitter.com/wF2jM1BQb2
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) February 5, 2020
Although he is just one Republican, and will, perforce, be on Trump's shit list for life, I think Senator Romney expressed his decision in the most effective of terms: it's about his own conscience, his own oath, and the judgment of history. Of course, one voice doesn't change that acquittal is still likely--but by registering his dissent from the weakest of possible positions*, he accomplished looking like a person of strong principle.
This will earn him some daggers. (But he has expressed his opinions about Trump before.) It's worth noting that some Republicans will now claim he never was a real Republican, when he was the party's 2012 presidential contender.
Of course, he isn't up for election this year, and arguably, a Democrat like Doug Jones, up for re-election in a red state, has a harder political calculus. But what is the point of holding office if you can't take a stand when it matters?
* The weakest of positions, as expressed by Alexander and Collins, to the effect that Trump will learn from all this, has to be the most foolish imaginable. How does Trump learn from anything when he doesn't even grasp that what he had done was wrong?
1 comment:
Hi Vixen. I still stop in here once in a while.
I won't be surprised if Romney killed his chances in the Republican Party so he can switch to Democrats and run for President in 2024.
I can't imagine the impeachment dynamics have come as a surprise to anyone. We knew the House would impeach and the Senate would acquit. We all knew this a long time ago. It might have gone differently if Trump had not immediately released a transcript of his call. And then it is obvious that adults in the country would never favor a purely partisan impeachment. We're not that far gone.
When a change of zeitgeist occurs you have to have more than a charismatic leader of the ascendant party with a lot of accomplishments. You also have to have a lot of mistakes and unrealistic candidates from the descendant party.
I think this is basically what we are seeing. Although it should be borne in mind that nothing is permanent and whatever party is in the ascendancy will eventually become the descendant party again, and the old rascals will get back in to replace the more recent rascals. The only question is how long the ascendant party can stay in power before their inevitable descent.
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