How we got here

The story of Mitt Romney's fall from Republican standard bearer to Republican pariah could have made for an insightful story about the GOP's transformation from the party of Lincoln into the far-right monstrosity it is today. Unfortunately, Romney: A Reckoning by McKay Coppins is less of a reckoning than a reputation laundering.

Coppins claims to have verified some of Romney's claims, made in both interviews with Coppins and in journal entries he provided. But all too often Coppins takes Romney at face value. Romney portrays himself largely as a passive observer of the GOP's descent into madness, from the end of his father's political career amidst the Barry Goldwater revolution to the rise of Newt Gingrich to the rise of figures like Sarah Palin and Rick Perry. There's no real analysis of how and why the Republican Party became what it is today. The Southern Strategy gets only a passing mention. There's no discussion of Joseph McCarthy or Strom Thurmond or Jesse Helms. No discussion of Ronald Reagan's decision to make the first speech of his general election campaign near the location where the KKK murdered three civil rights activists.

There's little about Romney's own willingness to tap into racial resentments to further his ambitions. The book portrays Romney as seeking power for purely altruistic reasons, compromising and pandering to the base and donors at times for the greater good. His acceptance of Trump's endorsement is rationalized away, but there's no mention of Romney's embrace of former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, another notorious birther and anti-immigrant extremist (and one time Romney Arizona campaign chair). Coppins lets Romney dismiss his quip about how no one had ever asked to see his birth certificate as a mere gaff. Romney whines about Harry Reid lying about his taxes, but there's little acknowledgement of Romney's history of lying and how it fits into a much longer tradition of right-wing deception.

Republican establishment types like Romney usually talk about the party's base as though it radicalized itself, or was radicalized by Trump and/or fringe elements. But as political scientist Cas Mudde has pointed out, the establishment were as complicit in this radicalization as anyone else. The GOP's leaders spent decades demonizing Democrats, liberals, immigrants, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA2S+ people in the effort to gain or maintain power. The party's standard bearers were comfortable enough telling their base that Democrats are secret communist Muslims bent on destroying America if it would help Republicans win an election or kill a bill their donors didn't like. Romney could have walked away and become an independent—or even have become a Democrat as Arlen Specter did. He chose not to. (Yes, the Democratic Party underwent its own devolution, well documented in Listen Liberal by Thomas Frank, but let's stick to the subject at hand.)

The GOP establishment doesn't just pander. Leaders set an example for their base. They legitimize ideas and spread messages. In a word, they normalize. Here's how Mother Jones's David Corn put it: "From McCarthyism to the Southern strategy to the New Right to the Tea Party—the GOP told Americans they were being victimized and that their nation was being sabotaged by their fellow citizens. The Republican Party encouraged Americans to believe the worst, and it affirmed the worst beliefs held by Americans. It operated a feedback loop that caused and reinforced animosity. It bred extremism; it cynically profited off extremism."

Now Romney and his fellow Republicans fear their base. From the book:

One Republican congressman confided to Romney that he wanted to vote for impeachment, but declined out of fear for his family’s safety. The congressman reasoned that Trump would be impeached by House Democrats with or without him—why put his wife and children at risk if it wouldn’t change the outcome? Later, during the Senate trial, Romney heard the same calculation while talking to a small group of Republican colleagues. When one senator, a member of leadership, said he was leaning toward voting to convict, the others urgently encouraged him to reconsider. You can’t do that, one said. Think of your personal safety, said another. Think of your children. The senator eventually decided they were right. There were too many Trump supporters with guns in his state, he explained to Romney. His wife wouldn’t feel safe going out in public.

As dismayed as Romney was by this line of thinking, he understood it. Senators and congressmen don’t have security details. Their addresses are publicly available online. Romney himself had been shelling out $5,000 a day since the riot to cover private security for his family—an expense he knew most of his colleagues couldn’t afford.

And:

These were Utah Republicans—they were supposed to be his people. Model citizens, well-behaved Mormons, respectable patriots and pillars of the community, with kids and church callings and responsibilities at work. Many of them had probably been among his most enthusiastic supporters in 2012. Now they were acting like wild children in public. And if he was being honest with himself, there were moments up on that stage when he was afraid of them.

“There are deranged people among us,” he told me. And in Utah, “people carry guns.”

“It only takes one really disturbed person.”

He let the words hang in the air for a moment, declining to answer the question his confession begged: How long can a democracy last when its elected leaders live in fear of physical violence from their constituents?

All their escalating rhetoric finally caught up to the GOP establishment in 2016, when the base opted for a presidential candidate who promised the sort of radical action that the establishment's rhetoric demanded. Romney clearly isn't ready to reckon with that.

This post was adapted from a January, 2024 edition of my email newsletter.