On Wednesday one of our long national nightmares ended: Willard “Mittens” Romney announced his retirement from public life.
His announcement coincided with an excerpt of a new Mittens biography being published in The Atlantic. Everyone started buzzing about how he warned Mitch McConnell about what was going to happen and once again everyone forgot what a self-centered, heartless asshole Mittens actually is.
This successful businessman made his fortune, lol, no, I’m not interested in hagiography. He was born into a well-connected, super rich family. He had a rich kid upbringing, and went to work doing the thing he loved most: getting people fire and destroying companies.
When he ran for governor of Massachusetts he conveniently became a Republican and hid his Mormon membership. Then he embarked on a plan to Bainify Massachusetts. Everyone loves to talk about Romneycare but he is such a weasel that he ran away from that accomplishment when he ran for president.
His presidential run was a lazy rich boy’s campaign, complete with the equally weasely Paul Ryan as his running mate, and it was marked by 2 things that he will never escape from: his tone deaf comment about receiving “binders full of women” to staff his gubernatorial administration (exposing his contempt for professional women) and then these comments at a private fundraiser:
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it — that that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. … These are people who pay no income tax. … [M]y job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
I quote all of it to remind all of the people tearing up over his departure that he felt pretty free to express his rich boy’s contempt for the rest of us. And I quote it to remind everyone saying that he was different from most Republicans that he was the same poor people bashing and dog whistling Republican candidate that the party has run ever since Ronald Reagan’s racist 1980 campaign.
And before you start to tell me that Mittens was different, allow me to put this into evidence:
Mitt Romney, the GOP nominee and front-runner in Utah’s U.S. Senate race, said Friday that had he been in office, he would have supported the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who appears poised to be confirmed Saturday.
“I would vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh,” Romney said, “given his decades of admirable public service and his 12-year record as an accomplished justice on the second highest court of the land.”
And he went, hat in hand, to ask TFG for a job:
And yes, he voted to impeach TFG, but do people really expect to get a medal for not pushing someone into a burning building?
Despite all the evidence that Romney is a run-of-the-mill conservative, he’s being lauded as a moderate. This is the worst take I’ve seen:
Manchin, a centrist Democrat, and the Independent Sinema are both still mulling whether to run again. Like Romney, they could be replaced by senators on either end of the ideological spectrum — almost surely a Republican in Manchin’s West Virginia.
And as maligned as Romney, Manchin and Sinema are by one party or the other’s faithful, the possible 2024 departures of two or three of them would change the Senate, which passed several notable bipartisan deals in the last Congress.
“You lose the center, you lose the moderates, you’re screwed. You really are screwed,” Manchin said in an interview. “I’m hoping the voters will wake up.”
It’s a trifecta of terrible takes.
Our Fearless Leader here at First Draft has a rule about describing Republicans: “Don’t call them conservatives”. Today I am proposing Cassandra’s Corollary: Don’t call these senators moderates.
Mittens voted with TFG 79% of the time. He’s no moderate. Sinema voted against working people at every opportunity, and even did a celebration dance when she killed raising the minimum wage to $15/hr. She’s no moderate. Manchin caters to rich people like himself with a zeal as hot as a coal-fueled fire. He’s no moderate.
These three are…conservatives. Pundits don’t recognize them as such because the GOP has transformed itself into a right wing hate group extremist party and every effort must be made to normalize that at the expense of the Democratic Party, so these 3 get lauded for moderate positions tbey don’t actually hold.
They think they are the glue that is holding our political discourse together but all they are are poison pills that kill every attempt to help working people. Their efforts to water down legislation aren’t noble attempts to create harmony and unity; they are blatant attempts to pander to the same people Mittens did at that private dinner: fellow conservatives.
It’s all about the love of money:
All true. None of these 3 are “moderate” but are rich clowns trying to get richer.
Privileged phonies
As a constituent of Joe Manchin I endorse this take 💯
he has decided to be a disappointment to the people who kept electing him. i call his office every week and tell him that not only would not win if he ran on the No Labels ticket, he wouldn’t even win WV.