As we all know, Utah senator (and 2012 Republican presidential nominee) Mitt Romney cast the only G.O.P. vote to convict Donald Trump in his impeachment trial. He's now being hailed as a man of conscience and a hero and a leader by a lot of folks who not so long ago were aghast at the notion of him becoming president. Conversely, many who supported him back then are now using descriptors like "traitor" and "disloyal." Donald Junior is insisting that Romney be kicked out of the Grand Old Party while others wonder how someone gets kicked out of a political party.
Here's my take on it. I believe that at some low level in our government — maybe some folks who sit on a city council somewhere — men and women act out of conscience and put the needs of The People ahead of their own careers and certainly their own parties. But it doesn't happen much higher than that. Probably at the state level and certainly above it, there is only one consideration: "How will this benefit me?"
They may put personal wealth ahead of personal power or vice-versa. They may care about fame more than money. They may even convince themselves that's what good for them is good for their constituents and for the nation. (That's kind of the Alan Dershowitz defense of, I suppose, all wrongdoing.) No matter why they want to serve, when it comes time to vote Yes or No, they vote based on what's better for themselves. That may or may not match up with what's better for the majority.
I do not mean almost everyone thinks like that. I do not mean everyone except the candidate I support. I mean absolutely everyone and I don't think I'm being overly cynical to say that. It includes Trump, Obama, Biden, either Clinton, Sanders, anyone named Kennedy or Bush…and of course, Mitt Romney.
Look: There's no place for this guy in a Republican party that asks "How high?" when Donald tells them to jump. We just saw his control of it. Men and women who thought he was guilty voted to acquit and they're now lambasting Mitt because he only voted that way once instead of both times. He wrapped his decision in Faith and Sacred Oaths Before God and following one's conscience and made it sound almost like a voice from the Heavens told him to vote as he did…and even folks who identity as Evangelicals are calling him a Judas.
Which I'll bet is fine because he's positioning himself as the candidate of Republicans who think Trump is destroying their party and might take the world along for the cataclysm. I dunno how many there are right now but it does not seem unlikely that their number could grow. If Trump really does shoot someone on Fifth Avenue or just babbles on at an increasingly incoherent rate, there could be a lot more Republicans who want an alternative to D.J.T. Romney hasn't yet said that's where he's setting up shop because people are mad enough at him for just the one vote.
But I think it's a nice trial balloon to see if there's a movement out there he can lead. And in the meantime, it's exposing all the marionettes in the G.O.P. who do not have it in them to say, "I disagree with my colleague over what the evidence shows but I respect him for putting conscience over party." What they're all saying is that if he does that, he has his priorities backwards. Me, I think his priority is another run at the White House.