No, Trump Isn’t Our Punishment For Not Loving Enough On Mitt Romney
This is all on MAGA.
Mitt Romney, who’s 76, announced last week that he won’t pull a Feinstein or McConnell and seek another term in the Senate. Since then, we’ve had folks on the Left insisting that he’s somehow no better than Donald Trump. This is absurd, considering Romney accepted his election loss in 2012, congratulated Barack Obama on his legitimate win, and told his supporters on election night, “I so wish that I had been able to fulfill your hopes to lead the country in a different direction, but the nation chose another leader, and so Ann and I join with you to earnestly pray for him and for this great nation.” That might seem like a very low bar for praise, and I’m not putting Romney up for sainthood. Still, we’ve all witnessed how very different words and sentiments can lead to rancor, violence, and death.
Conversely, pundits on the Right have used Romney’s retirement as an excuse to blame Democrats for Donald Trump because Obama was rude enough to run a tough campaign against him. This comes up periodically, and the implication is that Trump was the Republican base’s righteous vengeance for Romney’s “mistreatment.”
Podcaster Noah Blum posted on Xitter, “The way Romney was treated 100% set the stage for republicans to want someone like Trump and y’all better come to terms with it.” He added, “Spin it any way you want. The way Romney was treated made Republicans want someone ‘strong’ who ‘fought back.’ Try to wash your hands of it all you want, but that behavior is one of the mothers of Trumpism.”
Democrats have a good deal of experience losing presidential elections. Al Gore was frequently painted as a liar for saying things that were actually true, and while John Kerry’s 2004 campaign was often tedious, it was not literally punishment for what happened to Gore. The Right grossly smeared Kerry’s military service, and our “revenge” was pleasant, post-racial moderate Barack Obama. Even after Trump’s own awful presidency, Democrats nominated kindly grandpa Joe Biden.
Maybe Republicans themselves are the problem here. I don’t think it’s our fault for not just giving Romney the election in 2012.
One important fact to remember is that every line of attack against Romney first originated during the Republican primary election.
Forbes ran an article in January 2012 titled “Mitt Romney’s Vulture Capitalist Problem,” which covered how Romney’s Republican rivals were already hammering him for his predatory work with Bain Capital.
From The Washington Post:
“Governor Romney enjoys firing people; I enjoy creating jobs,” [Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman said. “It may be that he’s slightly out of touch with the economic reality playing out in America right now, and that’s a dangerous place to be.”
Gingrich went further, criticizing the type of business Romney engaged in. “Look, I’m for capitalism,” Gingrich said on NBC’s “Today” show. “But if somebody comes in, takes all the money out of your company and then leaves you bankrupt while they go off with millions, that’s not traditional capitalism.”
Then Texas Gov. Rick Perry compared Bain Capital to “vultures ... waiting for a company to get sick.”
It was his fellow Republicans who bashed Romney’s character early and often. Gingrich blasted him as a “Massachusetts moderate” who had reinvented himself as a conservative to win the primary.
“I just think he ought to be honest with the American people and try to win as the real Mitt Romney, not try to invent a poll-driven, consultant-guided version that goes around with talking points, and I think he ought to be candid,” Gingrich said. “I don't think he's being candid and that will be a major issue. From here on out from the rest of this campaign, the country has to decide: Do you really want a Massachusetts moderate who won't level with you to run against Barack Obama who, frankly, will just tear him apart? He will not survive against the Obama machine.”
Rick Santorum, who beat Romney in Iowa, also called him out for spreading “lies” on the campaign trail.
“I’m not going to judge him as a person I’m going to judge what his actions are, and his actions are not truthful,” he said.
If Trump was MAGA’s revenge, it was for the Republican establishment sticking them with Romney rather than someone like Sarah Palin. Democrats didn’t mistreat Romney or 2008 nominee John McCain. It was the Republican base who rejected them.
But this center-right myth will probably never die. It’s always so much easier to blame us liberals.
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“The way Romney was treated 100% set the stage for republicans to want someone like Trump and y’all better come to terms with it.”
'Look what you made me do' is some real abuser shit.
"Republicans wanted somebody tough..." so they picked a 5-time draft dodger who played a billionaire on a reality TV show and now cries like a baby over every slight, real and imagined.
I will never understand the "MAGA man as tough guy" thing. Never.