In 2012, Republicans decided to reject flamethrowing firebrands and the former philandering populist hero of the House in favor of a mild-mannered Mormon who cared more about reforming Social Security than any of the hot-button social issues that galvanized conservative talk radio and the right-wing base. During his presidential campaign, Mitt Romney was smeared as a virulent sexist for remarking that he had compiled “binders full of women” when he had attempted to hire a more diverse staff as governor of Massachusetts, deemed irredeemably racist by both the media and the Democratic establishment, and falsely (and intentionally) accused of being a tax cheat by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
All in all, the telegenic, wholesome, and slightly awkward grandpa who hasn’t so much as looked at a woman who’s not his wife in a half-century and who spent a lifetime using his privilege and vast earnings to give to charity was turned into a caricature, a Scrooge McDuck-style cartoon villain who loathed women, minorities, and poor people. Republicans had gambled on the most decent man in politics, and in return, Democrats destroyed him.
So in 2016, the GOP figured, screw it. Out of the most talented field of presidential hopefuls in history, Republican voters chose the thrice-married, ever-philandering, pathologically lying showman (or conman, depending on whose version of his business career you believe).
With his overt generalization of Mexicans as “rapists” and “murderers” and his emphatic loathing of the likely innocent Central Park Five, many argued that President Trump was racist. Republican voters heard Democrats and the media deem Romney, whose dad had marched with civil rights activists, the same thing four years earlier. Why would they care?
With his incessant womanizing and sexually gratuitous insults and comments about women, many in the media said that Trump was sexist. Republican voters heard Democrats and the media deem Romney, who had the crime of having a stay-at-home wife, the same thing four years earlier. Why would they care?
With his checkered history with paying taxes and telling the truth, many in the media said Trump was too dishonest to be president. Republican voters heard Democrats and media say the same thing about Romney four years earlier. Why would they care?
Of course, a lot has changed between then and now. Romney has since become the only senator to vote to remove a president of his own party from the Oval Office, and thus, the media can drop the veneer that Romney is a villain. Romney earned media adoration this weekend when he marched for the Black Lives Matter movement, putting the shifting goal post on full display.
It’s not Romney who changed. He’s always been a fundamentally decent, charitable, and moral man. It’s simply because he and the media now share a foe that the media are pretending otherwise.
