Mitt Romney: A Profile in Courage as the American Republic Dies

On 16 January 27 BC the Roman Senate gave Gaius Octavius (a/k/a Octavian) the titles of Augustus and Princeps and effectively gave him dictatorial power despite the fact that the Roman Senate continued to have a facade of authority.  With that grant of powers, the Roman Republic died.  Today, Senate Republicans with one exception took a similar action and gave Donald Trump a clear signal that (i) their oaths sworn on a bible to defend and protect the U.S. Constitution meant absolutely nothing to them, (ii) how history will view them similarly means nothing, and (iii) Trump is free to whatever he wants and is above the law except to the extent the House of Representatives continues - for now - to have the power over initiating spending bills to finance the federal government.  The lone Republican was Mitt Romney, a man I have never particularly liked but who showed that he both took his oath of office seriously and that he cared how history would view him. A piece in The Atlantic looks at Romney's unlikely courage - I will look at some of his speech which can be found here later in this post - and where America now finds itself. Here are article highlights: 

Mitt Romney is doing something nearly unheard of these days: He’s putting his country above his party. He’s voting his conscience when doing so comes at a cost. He’s not rationalizing weakness and timidity by prettying them up as virtues. He will vote to convict President Donald Trump, in an act of extraordinary political courage.

This decision would have negative ramifications for Romney in any era, but he faces particularly harsh consequences in this one, when political tribalism has never been more acute, when hating those who see things in politics differently than you do is fashionable, and when invective against perceived enemies is more emotionally powerful (and satisfying) then is affection for those you believe to be on your side.

Mitt Romney knows this, and he therefore knows the attacks on him will be vicious. He will be accused of being a traitor not only by [Trump] the president, a cruel and unforgiving man, but also by his fellow Republican lawmakers, the right-wing media complex, and even many of his constituents.

The truth is quite the opposite, of course. Romney, on whose presidential campaign I briefly worked in 2012, is doing something he believes is morally right even while knowing he will face quite a high cost, both professionally and personally.

To see so many Republicans who know better tie themselves into ethical knots to justify their fealty to Trump—and then to watch them lash out defensively when they are called on it—is a sad and pitiable thing.

But Republicans aren’t alone in being exposed by Romney’s admirable conduct. Maybe Democrats and those in the media who delighted in vilifying Romney in 2012. . . . might, in their private moments, rethink and even feel some remorse for what they did.

There’s an old hymn with which Romney is familiar, “Do What Is Right.” The chorus includes this line: “Do what is right; let the consequence follow.” It’s one thing to sing those words. It’s an entirely different thing to live them out.

Mitt Romney has lived those words, and history will honor him for having done so.

I heard Romney's speech while driving and it was truly remarkable and suggests that he is the last honorable Republican (assuming he remains in the GOP).  Here are some excerpts:

The allegations made in the articles of impeachment are very serious. As a Senator-juror, I swore an oath, before God, to exercise “impartial justice.” I am a profoundly religious person. I take an oath before God as enormously consequential. I knew from the outset that being tasked with judging the President, the leader of my own party, would be the most difficult decision I have ever faced. I was not wrong. [T]he President’s insistence that they be investigated by the Ukrainians is hard to explain other than as a political pursuit. There is no question in my mind that were their names not Biden, the President would never have done what he did. 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.” Yes, he did.
 The President asked a foreign government to investigate his political rival.

The President withheld vital military funds from that government to press it to do so. The President delayed funds for an American ally at war with Russian invaders. The President’s purpose was personal and political. Accordingly, the President is guilty of an appalling abuse of the public trust. What he did was not “perfect”— No, it was a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security interests, and our fundamental values. Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine. [M]y promise before God to apply impartial justice required that I put my personal feelings and biases aside. Were I to ignore the evidence that has been presented, and disregard what I believe my oath and the Constitution demands of me for the sake of a partisan end, it would, I fear, expose my character to history’s rebuke and the censure of my own conscience. [W]ith my vote, I will tell my children and their children that I did my duty to the best of my ability, believing that my country expected it of me. I will only be one name among many, no more or less, to future generations of Americans who look at the record of this trial. They will note merely that I was among the senators who determined that what the President did was wrong, grievously wrong.

Wow!  If history looking back on today shows that the American republic did, in fact died today,  Romney will stand out like those who opposed Hitler and other vile dictators, putting their oaths and consciences above pandering for political advantage. 

Trump, Perhaps the Worse President Ever

The narcissistic Donald Trump likes to think of himself as exceptional in ever way.  A column in the New York Times by a historian at Princeton makes the case that Trump is indeed exceptional: based on his first year in office, he is likely the worse president in American history and that the coming year holds only promise for the further debasement of the office of president and the image of America in the world.   All of this, of course could have been avoided had the Electoral College fulfilled the Founders' design and refused to certify his election given his unfitness for office.  Alas, the Electoral College electors had the spines of jelly fish and no regard for the solemn duty.  The nation has suffered ever since.  Here are highlights from the column that looks at some of the worse presidents over the course of the nation's history and the conclusion that Trump is likely the worse:

Historians have long looked to a few key criteria in evaluating the beginning of a president’s administration. First and foremost, any new president should execute public duties with a commanding civility and poise befitting the nation’s chief executive, but without appearing aloof or haughty. As George Washington observed at the outset of his presidency in 1789, the president cannot in any way “demean himself in his public character” and must act “in such a manner as to maintain the dignity of office.”

New presidents also try to avoid partisan and factional rancor, and endeavor to unite the country in a great common purpose. In line with their oath of office, they dedicate themselves to safeguarding and even advancing democratic rights and to protecting the nation against foreign enemies. They avoid even the slightest imputation of corruption, of course political but above all financial.

Donald Trump, in each area, has been a colossal failure. The truest measure of his performance comes from comparing his first year not with those of the best — Washington, Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt — but with those of the worst.

What do these bad presidents’ first years tell us about Mr. Trump? Some performed reasonably well at first, only to slide into disaster later. Might Mr. Trump grow in the job, making us forget his rookie-season bumbling? Or should we expect more of the same through 2020?

I expect the latter. Mr. Trump’s first year has been an unremitting parade of disgraces that have demeaned him as well as the dignity of his office, and he has shown that this is exactly how he believes he should govern.

Most important, he is the first president to fail to defend the nation from an attack on our democracy by a hostile foreign power — and to resist the investigation of that attack. He is the first to enrich his private interests, and those of his family, directly and openly.

He is the first president to denounce the press not simply as unfair but as “the enemy of the American people.” He is the first to threaten his defeated political opponent with imprisonment. He is the first to have denigrated friendly countries and allies as well as a whole continent with racist vulgarities.

George Washington warned that the actions of a president “may have great and durable consequences from their having been established at the commencement of a new general government.” If history is any guide — especially in light of the examples closest to his, of Buchanan and Andrew Johnson — Mr. Trump’s first year portends a very unhappy ending.

Today's Republicans: They Have No Sense of Decency

In his remarkable inaugural address yesterday Virginia Governor Ralph Northam addressed what may be one of the biggest domestic threats to America today:  the utter loss of decency and morality among the nation's politicians, particularly Republicans who continue to refuse to counter or rein in the toxicity flowing daily from the White House.  Northam said in part as follows:

My dad’s advice stayed with me when I reached the Virginia Military Institute and was given a different kind of compass, in the simple words of the VMI honor code: “A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, nor tolerate those who do.” Those words have stuck with me all these years because they’re so clear. They have become a kind of moral compass for me. They always call me back home safely.

Virginia and this country need that more than ever these days. It can be hard to find our way in a time when there’s so much shouting, when nasty, shallow tweets take the place of honest debate, and when scoring political points gets in the way of dealing with real problems.

If you’ve felt that way, I want you to listen to me right now: We are bigger than this.We all have a moral compass deep in our hearts. And it’s time to summon it again, because we have a lot of work to do.

Sadly, as noted, these concepts appear to be lost or non-existence among today's congressional Republicans who could, if they wanted to, counter Trump or even remove him from office.  Yet it seems Republicans no longer have any sense of decency.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at this threat and the question that moral people need to loudly ask Republicans.  Here are column excerpts:

“Have you no sense of decency?” It’s the question that the members of the Republican majority in the Congress—51 senators, 239 representatives—might bear in mind, in the “shithole” era.

If only two of those senators would stand up against Donald Trump, with their votes rather than just their tweets or concerned statements, they would constitute an effective majority.

With the 49 Democratic and independent senators, these two would make 51 votes, which in turn would be enough to authorize real investigations. They could pass a formal resolution of censure. They could call for tax returns and financial disclosure. They could begin hearings, on the model of the nationally televised Watergate hearings of 45 years ago.

They could behave as if they took seriously their duties to hold the executive branch accountable. They could make a choice they know will be to their credit when this era enters history — as did the Republicans who finally turned against their own party’s President Nixon during the Watergate drama, as did the Democrats who finally turned against their own party’s President Johnson over the Vietnam war, as did the Republicans who finally turned against their own poisonous Senator McCarthy in the episode that gave rise to “Have you no sense of decency?” more than 60 years ago. They could spare themselves the shame that history attaches to people who did the wrong thing, or nothing, or kept looking the other way during those decisive periods.

If any of these two, or some other pair from the thirty-plus remaining Republicans, decided to take a stand, they would not change everything about  this perilous moment in politics. But they would do something, about the open secret of a destructive presidency that nearly all of their colleagues are aware of and virtually none is doing anything about.

They could remind their colleagues of the Senate’s appropriate check-and-balance function.

And they could spare themselves, in history’s perspective, the question Joseph Welch so memorably asked the rampaging Senator Joe McCarthy, during the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954.

From the Senate’s own historical  site:  As an amazed television audience looked on, Welch responded with the immortal lines that ultimately ended McCarthy's career:

"Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness." When McCarthy tried to continue his attack, Welch angrily interrupted, "Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?"

Have you no sense of decency? It is a question worth pondering, in the shithole era.

The Shame of Being on the Wrong Side of History.

There are those who proudly fought desegregation in the last century but today, outside of white supremacist circles, history does not view them very highly.  And I suspect that some of their descendants find them somewhat of an embarrassment.  With the way support for gay equality and gay marriage is changing, many of today's loudest homophobes may find themselves similarly viewed by history and their descendants.   It may be nice to not be forgotten by history, but if one is remembered for hate and bigotry, then perhaps it would be better to be forgotten and fade away in the mist of time.  A piece I bookmarked some time ago in the Washington Post looks at the likely legacy of today's homophobes and hate merchants.  Here are some highlights:

In 1964 Barry Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act. He was labeled a racist and much worse for his position. Goldwater, a dedicated libertarian, voted on the constitutionality of the issue and not on the issue itself. I knew him well, and he was no racist. He had integrated the Arizona National Guard, had hired African Americans in his family company and was an early member of the NAACP.

Years later he would say publicly that he regretted his vote. As a close friend of my parents, he once told me that he ended up actually being ashamed of his vote.

Shame. That’s a strong word. But toward the end of his life (he died at 89) he had changed a lot. Goldwater was a strong pro-choice advocate — his wife was one of the original founders of Planned Parenthood in Arizona. He was also pro-gay rights long before it really became a public issue. His grandson was gay. Still, he was ashamed of that one thing in his life.

Today, there are many potential Goldwaters out there on the gay marriage issue, which has recently been argued in two cases before the Supreme Court: reviews of the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage. There are decent people with good values who are against gay marriage. One day, in the not-so-distant future, these people will be ashamed of their position. If any of the Supreme Court justices vote against it, they will eventually be ashamed as well. Not only that but their children, their grandchildren and their heirs will be ashamed of them.

To see how quickly the public has come around on this issue is to recognize how soon it will be totally accepted in our country.

However, the people who will have the toughest time with their anti-gay positions are the religious. .  .  .  .  In their hearts, they cannot square their teachings that God made man in his own image, that we are all children of God, with the fact that they discriminate against people simply because of those they love.

I have had a few religious leaders confide in me that they were not personally against gay marriage but could not take that position publicly for fear of losing their congregations. Think of the conflict and, yes, shame they must be feeling now and how it will only worsen with time. One day, they will have to come around or they really will lose their congregations.

Suddenly a majority of senators support same-sex marriage. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) stunned his colleagues when he came out in support several weeks ago, explaining that he had a son who was gay.  .   .   .   .  Of the members who are in opposition, most are facing reelection and are afraid. In fact, it is fear and religion that keep most people from “coming out” in support. What is increasing the momentum is that so many are now in favor that the scales are tipping and that those against will appear to be “left behind,” as we say in the jargon of the apocalypse.

They should turn to their Bibles, to Ephesians 5, for guidance:  “For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light — for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. 

Christ did not utter a single word against same sex love if the Gospels are to be believed.  But he did heal the Roman centurion's male lover. And he constantly condemned the hypocrisy of the Pharisees who congratulated themselves on their own piety even as the missed the message of love of one's neighbor.   The anti-gay factions are the Pharisees reincarnate and history will not view them kindly.