Tenchu's Thoughts: Episode VIII - The Last RINO
I just read an article from The Atlantic describing Mitt Romney's thought process in voting to remove Trump:
How Mitt Romney Decided Trump Is Guilty
Now I'm not going to accuse Romney of having ulterior political motives. Certainly he knows that he has no future within the GOP. Certainly he knows that his defeat by Barack Obama in 2012 helped pave the way for Trump.
Instead, I'm going to dissect the "logic" that Romney used in arriving at his decision. After that, I'm going to explain why, as a former supporter of Romney, and as a fellow skeptic of Trump, I was highly disappointed with his decision.
Abuse of Power?
Let's go over the first point made by the defense. From the article:
Still, he found the case presented by the president’s defense team unpersuasive. Romney had a hard time believing, for example, that Trump had been acting out of a desire to crack down on corruption when he tried to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The Bidens’ alleged conflicts of interest may have been “ugly,” Romney said, but it was never established that they warranted a criminal investigation. “No crime was alleged by the defense, and yet the president went to an extreme level to investigate these two people … and for what purpose?” The only motive that made sense, he determined, was a political one. First of all, I don't know what Romney was thinking, but I have an easy time believing that Trump acted out of a desire to crack down on corruption. Trump is famous (infamous?) for being volatile, a man who acts from his gut desire. What Trump isn't well-known for is political tact. Hence it's plausible to believe there are other motives besides selfish political gain.
Now I'm not going to excuse Trump for being stupid. The mere appearance of impropriety itself warranted impeachment, if not removal from office. But Romney's vote wasn't to impeach. Instead, it was to remove. And the Founding Fathers deliberately set a high bar for removal. It just seems to me that Romney is stretching a little to reach that threshold.
No Criminal Investigation for the Bidens?
Second, WTF is he thinking when he says that the Bidens don't warrant a criminal investigation? Seriously, WTF? Using the power of the office to benefit yourself and your family members goes to the very heart of corruption. This is a clear double-standard by Romney, and I don't think he will ever be able to explain how, in the case of the Bidens, this is "different."
Oh noes, that "foreign influence" thing ...
And third, I am thoroughly unimpressed by Romney's insistence that a foreign government would have "corrupted our election process." How so? More information is always a good thing when it comes to our election process. What does Romney think the alternative is? Keeping voters in the dark because we can't find out about shady underdealings without help from a foreign nation?
Besides, how many on the left excused Fusion GPS and the Steele Dossier? Steele isn't exactly American, you know. The dossier, of course, turned out to be a lie, but the corruption of the Bidens is turning out to be 100% true. Yet Romney thinks exposing that is "corrupting our election process"? Give me a fuckin' break.
The Dershowitz Doctrine
And now here's the second major point made by the defense. From the article:
Romney was similarly unmoved by the Trump attorney Alan Dershowitz’s contention that a president who believes his reelection is in the national interest can’t be impeached for pursuing a political advantage. “I had Professor Dershowitz for criminal law in law school,” Romney said, “and he was known to occasionally take his argument to its illogical conclusion.” Nor was the senator swayed by the theory that a president can be impeached only for breaking a statutory law. “To use an old Mormon hymn phrase, that makes reason stare,” he said. “The idea that Congress would have to anticipate all of the offensive things a president could possibly do, and then make them a statute?” Romney posed a hypothetical: What if the president decided to pardon every Republican in prison nationwide, while leaving every Democrat locked up? “There’s no law against that!” he said. “So it’s not a crime or misdemeanor. But it’s obviously absurd.” OK, but Romney is committing a logical fallacy here, specifically reductio ad absurdum, or an appeal to the extremes. You can click on the link to see what that means, for those of you in Rio Linda (tm. Rush Limbaugh).
Dershowitz made his argument because he recognized that the phrase "abuse of power" is arbitrary and could be redefined in ways that are politically advantageous to those in power. That's why we have statutes in the first place.
Romney, of course, uses Adam Schiff's tortured "logic" in arguing against Dershowitz. He takes his argument and shows that it will inevitably lead to a ridiculous and absurd conclusion, such as the hypothetical scenario that he presented. But I really doubt that Dershowitz wanted his standard of statutory law to be applied that way.
(If you can get past the paywall, I highly recommend Dershowitz's op-ed in the WSJ: Democrats Are Lying About My Argument. He counters the distortions of his argument in a very short and brief essay.)
This is why Trump is president, you fool!
OK Senator Romney, you voted your conscience. You are no longer encumbered by party loyalty. You have decided to be on the "right side of history," as the left loves to proclaim. You were even moved by your Mormon faith, and of course, the left will now praise you for that, even though they once thought your faith made you a religious loony.
So why am I disappointed in you? After all, you were the first one to point out the threat of Russia back in 2012, and you drew ridicule for it, especially from Obama and his famous zinger, "The 1980's called, and they want their foreign policy back." You courageously pointed out that 47% of the American public would never vote for a Republican, only to run away from that when the media called you out for it. You had a track record for success, both as a businessman and as a public administrator. You rose to the top in 2012 in a crowded field of Republican candidates.
Anyway, why my disappointment?
Because, quite frankly, you fold under pressure.
Conservatives all across America feel abandoned by their party leadership. They look at Washington and see nothing but RINOs. They see the right being vilified as racists, sexists, and homophobes, and they see politicians increasingly selling America out to statists and globalists who don't have America's heartland in their best interests.
And Hunter Biden personifies that very fear. There's a reason why Joe Biden, after leading in the polls for so long, is now in third place behind Mayor Pete and Bernie. Joe Biden, who once called Brussels the "capital of the free world," believes in a global order, as scary as that sounds to us Americans. Not only that, but he blatantly used his foreign stature to benefit himself and his own family members.
Now I get it. You don't like the brash Trump in office. I don't like the way he acts, either. But you have a duty to your constituents in Utah. You needed to represent them. You needed to give them a strong voice in a nation that is increasingly being dominated by the big blue states on the two coasts.
Instead, you decided to "vote your conscience." And it's really hard for me to think that your motives were oh-so-genuine, or that you didn't let Trump's personal attacks get inside your head.
In short, you sold yourself out ideologically. Sure, Trump isn't an ideal conservative, but neither are you. There are MANY examples of you being anything but a conservative. And for all your talk about "voting your conscience" and serving a higher power, the plain truth is that you were nothing more than a RINO.
And you will likely be the last.
This is why Trump is president. To them, he is a breath of fresh air. To them, his brashness and his utter shamelessness is a virtue. To them, he is a fighter who is willing to get dirty for them.
You only confirmed to them that Trump was the right man for the job. You only confirmed to them that 2012 was an utter mistake.
Tenchusatsu |
