Romney needs to re-stiffen his spine
Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah voted to convict Donald Trump in two impeachment trials. The second time he did it, in 2021, Romney cited Trump’s incitement of “the insurrection of Congress” during the counting of the electoral votes and said that Trump’s conduct “represented an unprecedented violation of his oath of office and of the public trust.”
Yet, after the speech given by President Biden on Jan. 5 to mark the third anniversary of that insurrection, Romney quickly belittled Biden’s effort to remind voters of the danger Trump represents to the country he once again seeks to lead. “As a Biden campaign theme, I think the threat to democracy pitch is a bust,” Romney wrote in a text message to a reporter at The New York Times. “Jan. 6 will be four years old by the election. People have processed it, one way or another. Biden needs fresh material, a new attack, rather than kicking a dead political horse.”
Poor Mitt. At 76, he continues to wrestle with himself over the benefits of political bravery versus political expedience, even when he’s permanently dead to Trump’s MAGA world, thanks to those brave impeachment trial votes. In this case, all that wrestling has caused him to miscalculate. In case Romney hasn’t noticed, Trump isn’t treating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol as a dead political horse. In the run-up to the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, he’s saddling up and riding that horse his way.
Trump observed the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack by referring to people who have been charged in connection with it as “hostages” and calling for Biden to release them. He’s falsely blaming the FBI and antifa for instigating the attack, deriding the US House committee that investigated it is as “fake,” and shamelessly attacking the committee’s two Republican members, former representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Romney also remains a Trump target, The Washington Post reported.
It’s a classic Trump counterattack, propelled by his evil zeal for lying and revenge. But it also shows that far from seeing Jan. 6 as old, irrelevant news, Trump understands the importance of laying claim to the narrative of what happened that day and in the days leading up to it. To do that, he must rewrite history. It’s Biden’s job to stop him, but witnesses to the insurrection, like Romney, could and should help.
On paper, Biden’s speech last week did a good job of remaking the case against Trump. “Today, we’re here to answer the most important of questions: Is democracy still America’s sacred cause? I mean it,” Biden said. “This is not rhetorical, academic, or hypothetical. Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time, and it’s what the 2024 election is all about.”
He’s right. Those are the stakes in the next election. But how many people paid attention to Biden’s words? He’s having trouble breaking through “the MAGA wall,” as Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina told CNN’s Jake Tapper. Clyburn was talking generally about Biden’s inability to convey the successes of his own administration. But concern about the limits of Biden’s campaign messaging should also extend to the narrative about the attack on Jan. 6, which Trump is trying to co-opt, with help from backers like Representative Elise Stefanik of New York. During a weekend appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Stefanik echoed Trump by referring to people charged in connection with the US Capitol assault as “hostages.”
That’s ridiculous and insulting. It should anger anyone who knows the truth because they lived through it. Which brings us back to Romney. If his political spine needs re-stiffening, he should reread the statement he entered into the Congressional Record regarding the second impeachment trial. It included these words about Trump:
“His attempt to pressure Georgia’s Secretary of State to falsify the electoral results was itself a heinous act that merited impeachment. President Trump summoned his supporters to Washington on the very day of the electoral vote count, knowing that among the people he gathered were many who had committed violence in the past and who had violent intent. Despite the obvious and well-known threat of violence, he incited and directed thousands to descend upon the seat of Congress as it was undertaking the constitutionally prescribed process to certify his successor. And then he not only failed to defend the Vice President and the others at the Capitol who he saw were in mortal danger, he also incited further violence against the Vice President. The President’s conduct represented an unprecedented violation of his oath of office and the public trust.”
That’s no dead political horse. If voters are forced to pay attention, if they are reminded by people like Romney to care — that’s a horse that should be able to gallop right over Trump.
In case Romney hasn’t noticed, Trump isn’t treating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol as a dead political horse.