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Don’t Be a Flake, Mitt
Mitt Romney burst into his role as the junior senator from Utah with an op-ed criticizing Donald Trump’s character, or lack thereof. Though the piece was treated as a bombshell, it was the usual mild-mannered, more-in-sadness-than-in-anger critique that Romney specializes in.
Taking on the president of his own party as his first act drew strong reactions from most elected Republicans and every conservative pundit. I suppose I should throw in my two cents. Although I agree with Romney’s criticism, the op-ed was the kind of unforced error that ended my former senator’s political career.
Like Romney, Jeff Flake is an eminently decent man more concerned with policy minutiae than party loyalty. But the only times he was roused to comment on the rough-and-tumble of partisan politics, his targets were on the right.
Every good politician should ding his own party when they mess up, but they need to accept that the other party is much, much worse. Flake never unleashed on Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi; he saved his ineffectual wrath for members of his own party.
Perhaps Mitt is setting himself up as the anti-Trump, opening a lane to the GOP nomination in 2020 if Trump goes south. But if he wants Republican voters to support him, he better spend a lot more time focusing on the real target.
Romney should keep a tally in his day planner: Every criticism of Trump merits at least 25 criticisms of the braying donkeys trying to push socialism on America. If he’s unwilling to take the fight to the left, there’s no reason for anyone on the right to support him.
Published in General
Hayward is not entirely correct about the Bushes. I generally agree with him about Romney being a rather centrist Republican.
Bush ’43 signed two significant tax reform bills.
Reagan appointed O’Connor, Scalia, and Kennedy. That’s batting .333, essentially. I know that O’Connor and Kennedy were generally conservative on most issues, but two more Scalias would probably have resulted in overturning Roe, no SSM (or other pro-homosexuality cases, starting with Romer), and an end to reverse racism in college admissions and elsewhere.
Bush ’41 appointed Souter and Thomas. That’s batting .500.
Bush ’43 appointed Roberts and Alito. That’s batting close to 1.000. I know, the Chief is often criticized for the Obamacare decision, but he’s almost always a solid conservative vote.
I posted the meme as a tongue in cheek response to the quote from Gary. Gary was not calling anyone a child, nor was I.
Well, I’m pleasantly surprised by the reaction of ‘Right-leaning’ media, Mitt’s shiv seems very similar to the non-stop arguments we’ve been having here and elsewhere. How is this different from what most of the ‘NT’ers’ have been going on about for the past couple years?
I’ve got my issues with the guy, think he throws wild punches too often but he’s connected with the Left more than the Mitt/McClellan-types ever have.
Thanks. No worries.
And they’ve connected on him quite a bit too. See the recent November beatdown and what awaits. But lots of GOP voters love the thrill of the despised righty engaged in battle against the hated media forces.
In 2018, we lost independents, women, college-educated, and the suburbs. We cannot win with only 38% of the vote, which is about what Barry Goldwater got in 1964.
College educated voters by….20%!!. After winning them in 2014.
Sadly, conservative media has trained our voters to believe that whoever the media hates the most, must be the best conservative. So we’re in a deathspiral with Trump so long as media despises him.
Let me remind you that you wanted Republicans to lose and advocated voting for Democrats. You got what you wanted.
If Romney couldn’t rally round Romney for President why should we?
Because it’s all just blabbery. Stop talking, and start doing, Mr. Romney.
This is a mis-diagnosis of something that’s much simpler. The media is the propaganda wing of the Democratic Party and The Dem Party is the political muscle of the corporate media. Since Democrats are fundamentally socialists and conservatism is anathema to socialism (and vice-versa), Trump being a dire threat to them (obviously) shows he is being effective, whether or not he subscribes to the National Review and reads Fredrich Heyek on the toilet. It seems to me Trump is, or has become, quite the conservative. He’s not as well-versed in ideology as Jonah Goldberg, but he’s certainly doing what conservatives have been advocating and begging their representatives to do. And if in an alternative universe Goldberg was President, I wonder if he could or would put his money where his mouth is. Other professed conservatives have come up short.
Regardless of his past or his present ideology, Trump has been more effective for conservative causes than and single Republican since Reagan.
What it really comes down to is whether you want to be re-elected. Or should I say, whether you care if you aren’t re-elected. Whatever Trump says or thinks about his chances of being elected, I don’t think he gives much of a rip about not getting re-elected because of the things he is doing.
I think our politicians get held hostage by their own desire for popularity and relevance. This is their career path and if they do something risky and get tossed out, then what? Trump just doesn’t seem to care about that.
Could we be seeing the results of Trump’s New Year’s Resolution? To keep calm and enjoy the ride? Or does Trump get any points for not reacting? Bueller? Bueller?
Maybe it’s Mulvaney’s influence (who I adore).
Romney doesn’t deserve Trump’s ire. He’s a loser. He’s a junior Senator from a low-population desert state full of Mormons who wants to promote his strongest asset: decency. On that scoring system, he wins! But Romney isn’t our President, is he? Therefore it doesn’t matter that he’s a nice guy lecturing us about how we need someone like him as POTUS. And I, for one, welcome Mitt Romney as a serial guest on CNN (where they made great sport of him in 2012) trashing Trump. It will further expose this pathetic wing of the GOP and do absolutely zero damage.
This is another, ahem, character trait, I admire about Trump. The power of absolutely ignoring the bleating pundits and moving ahead is beautiful to see. Reagan also did this. He was comfortable and secure in himself, and didn’t really care what they said. Won re-election in a landslide!
Trump is just about the opposite of Romney, and I bet they both would take that as a compliment.
Oh, good. Lindsey’s speaking up now. That should fix everything.
Imagine, if a Republican is “poisoning” his relationship with Trump, what a Democrat would do, in Mitt’s place. Why, it would almost be like double-poisoning.
Gasp.
Wow, great sarcasm. Unfortunately we are a two party system. So you are either in the President’s party or in the opposing party. It is expected that people in opposing parties might not get along. People in the same party are generally supposed to try to forge a good relationship with each other.
The people of Utah voted for both Trump and Romney. If they wanted someone to stick it to Trump they could have elected a Democrat.
In other words, more than either Bush. Okay, fair enough. But it is worth remembering that much of what Trump has done has simply been to undo what Obama did. And that Obama did most of it with his phone and his pen, which has enabled Trump to undo it with his phone and his pen. Trump also got a hefty assist from Harry Reid – because Reid exercised the nuclear option on judicial appointments, Trump has been able to push through an unprecedented number of judges. Without that assist from Reid the number of Trump judicial appointments approved by the Senate would be precisely zero. And we should not forget that Trump abandoned a lot of conservative causes before the train even left the station, including fiscal responsibility, entitlement reform, and repealing (as opposed to repealing and “replacing”) Obamacare.
I appreciate Trump’s accomplishments, and God knows he has been a quantum leap better than Hillary would have been, but let’s view those accomplishments through the prism of reality rather than hero worship.
Well, Jon, I agree entirely. But by the same logic every criticism of Romney merits at least 25 criticisms of the socialists and every criticism of Jonah merits the same. And yet the two most vigorous threads on Ricochet in the past week have been criticisms of Romney and Jonah. You have to appreciate the irony.
OK, I can snuff out the candles, but how am I supposed to stop the incense from burning?
I guess you just have to hold your nose. Which, frankly, is a pretty good description of what a lot of folks who support Trump’s accomplishments do when they read his tweets.
Vigorous because disagreement. The threads that involve criticism of socialists suffer from ditto-syndrome.
I’m going to refrain from pointing out that the situations of Mitt and Jonah are not analogous to Trump’s — again. ;-)
It’s not hero worship – maybe it should be because the reality is much more damning to Republicans and the Bushes. Let’s put it this way: How come this bozo Trump can cut taxes, defy Democrats and the media move the Embassy (they promised) and more?
The GOP has been exposed as a lazy, self-involved, entitled party that doesn’t even try to win or accomplish things once elected. Or maybe they just like foreign adventures….
Back to Mitt. First you have to win to be able to undo Obama’s orders.
It doesnt help when the consensus was Mitt was too nice to Obama and especially the media in 2012 and then Trump wins by going right at his opponent ( which I’m SURE the Romney’s of the world would never dare do – a woman – untouchable!) and goes after the fake media and wins. Now Mitt runs to the Wapo and CNN – people who hate everything he supposedly wants to accomplish to show his disloyalty.
In case you missed it, the whole point of the OP was that Republicans should criticize Democrats rather than each other. That observation seems to be lost on some people, who are anxious to attack any and every Republican except Trump, but who won’t tolerate a word of criticism about Trump.
As to your question, I think I already answered it, but it is worth noting that Bush 43 also cut taxes, appointed good Supreme Court justices, and so on. And while I don’t know what it means to “defy” Democrats, the Democrats did proclaim Bush 43 to be “Hitler” so I suppose they didn’t really like him very much.
I forgot to say before: Great post title haha
Haha!
Oh, wait, you were serious. After the first 20 volumes, what’s another word or two?
I said “some people” WC. Sure, there has been a ton of criticism of Trump from all corners. And there are some people who find every single word of it to be toxic and outrageous. There are two kinds of Trump Derangement Syndrome – those who believe that Trump can do no right, and those who believe that Trump can do no wrong. And that’s all fine – they’re both entitled to their beliefs. What gets my dander up, though, is when the “Trump is perfect” folks also claim that every other Republican, ever, is and was a craven, sell-out, RINO and a puppet of the leftists. That goes beyond derangement. That is a refusal to accept reality right up there in the transgender range.
I like to imagine what the “Trump is perfect” folks would say if someone who was not named Trump had won in 2016 and done exactly the same things that Trump has done. I imagine they would be yelling that he didn’t deliver on his promises to build the wall (much less to get Mexico to pay for it), or to repeal and replace Obamacare, and that he was another RINO sell-out who made promises and didn’t follow through. But since his name is Trump, well… Umm, “he fights!”
My point here has been that we should view Trump through the prism of reality, and not hero worship. You can take exception to that if you want (as Franco did) but to answer your point: Hell yes, I’m serious.
Name three prominent pundits who hero-worship Trump. On the other end of TDS I’ve got Max Boot, Jen Rubin, Bill Kristol, for starters. And that’s just on our “side!”
I’m not happy about the lack of progress on the wall (border security). What do you think of Trump possibly declaring it a national emergency and doing an end-run around Democrat obstructionists :-) that way?
But, Obamacare repeal/replace I lay squarely on congressional Republicans’ doorstep (and John McCain’s). Donald Trump wasn’t a twinkle in government’s eye when Republicans were promising to r/r Obamacare and had the time to form their committees and write a proposal. I’m willing to take a degree off their culpability because none of us believed they’d be in a position to do something about it after 2016. But, that’s not Trump’s fault (unless you look at it a certain perverse way — it’s his fault for winning!).
You called my positive report on Trump “hero worship” ,when I then juxtaposed Trump negatively as a bozo, and wondered why the Bushes – per your citation- couldn’t do better, now I’m criticizing fellow Republicans missing the point of the OP, (and cherry-pick the one Bush who cut taxes, ignoring the one who raised them).
Amazing.
I was speaking more about ordinary folks, like us here on Ricochet, and I’m not really clear on your point here, but sure: Hannity probably has ten times more followers than the three people you name combined. If you want more names just go to American Greatness or Breitbart on any given day and you can get a couple of dozen. I have to admit, though, I am no expert because I find the extremists on either side to be kind of boring.
I think it would be great on the micro level, but I haven’t really looked at the legal basis for it. On the macro level, though, I think the Presidency has come to have way too much power and I am always a little bit queasy about each new expansion of the Imperial Presidency. In general, I think Congress should have the power to deny funding for things the President wants. I thought so about Obamacare, and I still think so. On the other hand, Congress has become so partisan and irresponsible that it may now be impossible for the “power of the purse” to work as the Founders intended.
I’m not assigning fault. On the contrary, I am disagreeing with the people who do assign fault, and who then use that blame game to bash other Republicans. It would be silly to blame Trump alone for everything that happens, but how much sillier was it for people to blame McConnell and Ryan alone for everything that happened while Obama was President? I agree with you that it would have been nice if the Republicans had a great “replacement” for Obamacare all ready to roll out after the 2016 election. The problem is, though, that there is no “replacement” for Obamacare, except more Obamacare by some other name. That battle was lost when the Republicans switched from “repeal” to “repeal and replace.” I think you can’t blame Trump, but you can’t blame Congress either.