Mitt Romney’s tirade against Donald Trump seemed more like a satire skit on Saturday Night Live than a political speech. It reflected the outright desperation of the establishment-class of the Republican Party to stop Donald Trump. Mitt Romney is smart enough to realize he wasn’t going to sway Trump supporters. He virtually said as much. His goal was to strike fear in Ted Cruz, John Kasich or Marco Rubio (and their supporters) to coalesce behind just one of them.
This is the establishment-GOP playbook. Their goal is to make Marco Rubio the nominee, John Kasich the vice president and Ted Cruz the next Supreme Court nominee. The problem? The overwhelming majority of GOP voters have a different idea. Many want Trump; many want Cruz. And, they are not willing to compromise.
Either Rubio, Cruz and Kasich will unite or there will be a brokered convention in July. Romney and his ilk are arrogantly disconnected from millions of voters who will flee the Republican Party and vote for an alternative candidate. Even worse, they would almost insure Donald Trump runs as an independent.
Romney’s attacks are as radical (if not moreso) than any position Trump has taken or comment he’s made.
It’s outlandish, almost criminal, the account of Donald Trump’s business record that was made by Romney. “His bankruptcies have crushed small businesses and the men and women who worked for them,” Romney spewed. I remind Mr. Romney that his record of failure is far worse than Mr. Trump’s. Romney’s company, Bain Capital, had more than one out of five companies (acquired during his tenure) result in closure or bankruptcy. That’s more than a 20% failure rate. By contrast, Mr. Trump’s failure rate is in the low single digits.
Now, I don’t believe that Mitt Romney is a failure in business. He certainly was as a presidential candidate. But, I never took him as a liar or disingenuous person. He clearly knows that in order to have success, you must also endure failure along the way. And, it’s from those failures you learn how to be even more successful in the future. He seemed to omit that convenient fact while manipulating you (the voters) into supporting his desperate call to destroy Trump. His speech showed a self aggrandizement and smug superiority that is unprecedented, even in politics.
Romney’s thirst for power is clearly a stronger emotion than his reverence for reality. He also charged at Trump, saying “He inherited his businesses; he didn’t create it.” This phrase was the most shocking. It was just this year, that I finally removed my “You didn’t build that, someone else did” bumper sticker (supporting Mitt Romney) off my truck. During the 2012 election, President Obama used nearly that exact same phrase to dismiss successful business owners in America. Obama was inferring that government was more responsible for people’s success than the people themselves.
So, just four years after “You didn’t build that” became a cornerstone of the opposition to Barack Obama in support of Romney, he is using the exact same argument to defeat a fellow Republican. Is it just me that sees this as spineless and blatant hypocrisy?
Romney continued, “Mr. Trump’s bombast is already alarming our allies and fueling the enmityof our enemies.” If I didn’t know better, I would have thought I was listening to President Obama. This shallow thinking is reflected in how Obama pushes back at critics on his handling of ISIS and the Middle East. This is precisely why Iraq, Ukraine, Libya, Syria and other countries are destabilized and in unfettered chaos. It’s that spineless thinking that has allowed ISIS to flourish and create a bigger threat than ever posed by Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
I admit. I voted for Romney. Regretfully, I even gave his campaign money. It was a horrible investment - another Mitt Romney bankruptcy.
We don’t need a political ‘has-been’ telling us the way forward. If Romney had used the same passion and purpose to defeat Barack Obama, at least we would have thwarted four years of destructive policy, executive action and listless leadership. Then again, given the fact that Romney is using Obama-tactics and Obama’s playbook in order to destroy Trump, maybe we’re better off with Obama.
The Republican Party needs to understand that this revolution is not specifically about Trump. It’s about rejecting the GOP-leadership who we’ve entrusted to reverse the demise of our country. This leadership, instead, has focused on lining their pockets and fulfilling their hunger for power. The voters are sending GOP Establishment leadership a pink slip. It’s time to clean out your desks or we’ll have to call security to have you removed. Please take your ‘Mitt’ with you.