Mitt Romney – Political Courage Built on Faith
On February 5, 2020, Mitt Romney made history as the first and only senator ever to vote to convict a president of his own party in an impeachment proceeding. Citing his Mormon faith as one of the reasons for his position, Romney said that he had taken an “oath before God” to render impartial justice and could not ignore the meaning of that oath.Romney noted President Trump’s flagrant and corrupt self-dealing in working to obtain unfavorable information on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son from the Ukrainian government, the subject of the impeachment proceedings. "The grave question the Constitution tasks senators to answer is whether the president committed an act so extreme and egregious that it rises to the level of a 'high crime and misdemeanor,” Romney said in a speech. “Yes, he did."
Unvarnished Eloquence Speaking Truth to Power
Writing in The Atlantic, Eliot A. Cohen said that Romney’s speech to the Senate would be one of the central things remembered about President Trump’s impeachment 50 years hence. Romney’s eloquent statement of his reasons for voting to convict for abuse of power was a ringing denunciation of corrupt behavior, a guide for patriotic dissent, and a strong assertion of the co-equal status of the three branches of government. Cohen’s article also praised Romney’s language, indicating that it was solid, steady, unadorned, and filled with deep, plain meaning in the tradition of the best speeches of the country’s moral leaders.
Backlash
The short-term effects of the speech weren’t favorable to Romney or the position of moderation he represents within the Republican Party. Before long, Romney came under attack from “trolls” and less principled politicians who put party over morality. The chairman of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) publicly issued an ominous-sounding warning that Romney would have good reason to be concerned about his “physical safety” if he were to show up at the group’s 2020 annual conference. Over the years, Romney had previously made multiple well-received appearances at CPAC. In addition to the snub from CPAC, one of the country’s leading Republican forums whose audiences form an essential part of his party’s voting bloc, Romney received vociferous and sometimes vicious abuse online from social media accounts self-identifying as Republican and conservative. Multiple right-wing stalwarts decried Romney’s actions as mere personal hatred of the president, rather than moral courage or an unbiased commitment to justice. On February 5, President Trump’s eldest son tweeted that Romney should be “expelled” from the Republican Party.
A Life in Business and Politics
Born in 1947 in Detroit, Mitt Romney is the son of Michigan Governor George Romney, who was also a successful businessman and the head of American Motors. Mitt Romney himself was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2002. He ran unsuccessfully as the Republican Party’s candidate for president in 2012 and was elected as a senator representing Utah in 2018. Before entering politics, he had earned a reputation as a business leader, working first with Bain & Company in Boston, then at Bain Capital, a firm he co-founded in the mid-1980s. His two decades with Bain made Romney independently wealthy, and he achieved worldwide recognition after he turned around the scandal-ridden Winter Olympic Games in 2002. It was this success that catapulted him into the front ranks of candidates for the Massachusetts governorship.
Straddling the Center-Right Position
During his 2003-07 term in office in Massachusetts, Romney provided a universal health care plan to cover previously uninsured citizens. Additionally, he advanced a scholarship program to assist students from lower- and moderate-income households who wanted to attend state universities.Despite several of these more centrist positions early in his political career, Romney later turned toward more fiscally and socially conservative policies. For example, in his unsuccessful 1994 Senate run against popular Democratic incumbent Ted Kennedy, he urged the Republican Party to become more accepting of members of the gay community. Yet, by 2003, he was opposed to the Massachusetts Supreme Court’s ruling that the refusal to issue marriage licenses to gay couples was unconstitutional.
Earning Bipartisan Respect
Romney has been relatively consistent in his traditionally right-of-center positions in recent years. Yet, in the matter of the Trump impeachment trial, he earned deserved praise for following the dictates of his conscience. Regardless of one’s political beliefs, Romney’s willingness to cast a morally centered vote and courage in standing up to bullies distinguish him as an exemplary American. Despite their effects on his political future within his party, he was willing to accept the consequences of standing up for what he believed was right. In contrast to those who doled out verbal abuse to Romney after the impeachment vote, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) spoke for the many Americans who were deeply moved by Romney’s courage and patriotism. Murphy tweeted his opinion that, in opposition to much of today’s political climate, when the concept of honor seems foreign to many less-courageous people, “there stands Mitt Romney.”