Mitt Romney is running for president again.
That's my take-away from his recent Washington Post op-ed critical of the Republican president we have now. It's a cynical take-away, and I kind of despise myself for having it, but there you go. The least I owe you is acknowledgment of my particular bias. Whenever a politician voices an opinion, I can't help but wonder about the behind-the-scenes calculations that led up to the statement. I can't just accept it as an expression of the man's true opinion because I don't believe it is.
Besides, it's usually pretty stupid to say what you genuinely think.
This doesn't mean Romney is wrong when he says Donald J. Trump "has not risen to the mantle of the office." That sounds like pretty mild criticism of an amoral, corrupt and just plain ugly-hearted man who may very well have obtained high office via illegitimate means. Romney sounds careful, more interested in positioning himself as the handiest old boy around to lead the Respectable Conservative Counter-Revolution.
He figures, like a lot of people in Washington are figuring, that 2019 is going to be a rough year for the Trump White House, that the Robert Mueller stuff is about to heat up, and while the president might be immune from indictment while he's sitting in his big-boy chair, we're going to see the kith and kin of "Individual 1" making arrangements to surrender to the appropriate judicial officers.
Whatever you think of her, Nancy Pelosi is a consummate politician who will have power of the purse and a mandate for oversight. Adam Schiff and Ted Lieu have a little juice now, the Southern District of New York has basically uncovered a mob operation, and more and more of Christopher Steele's infamous dossier seems to be checking out.
And Trump has Twitter and Rudy Giuliani on his side.
Romney knows that there's probably as much chance of a Republican restoration in 2020 as there is of the Democrats pulling themselves together or of Trump hanging on to office by virtue of his enemies' failure.
Impeachment is off the table, but the self-anointed master of the deal will finally pull off a good move when he agrees to resign in exchange for a handful of get-out-of-jail free cards for himself and his children. Like Bill Clinton before him, he'll get out of his mess relatively unscathed, but not without collateral damage inflicted on those who sidled up to him.
And to the rest of us. There are reckonings to come.
But the real problem we're experiencing here doesn't proceed from Trump's lack of character, which has been baked into his brand since the '70s, but our indifference to whether the people we elect to office are good or bad. What the scolds--before they put on their red hats and started babbling about King Cyrus--used to call moral relativism.
Because most of us only say we care about whether a person is good or not. So long as they are good to us, we accept them as good enough. All of us are human, and we all have our weaknesses. We all lie, at least to ourselves. Plenty of people will argue on this one, but all of us are capable of atrocity--of any evil we can imagine.
So why shouldn't we support whichever con artist we believe will do the most for us? After all, there will always be people who can frame selfishness as service, who can mumble pretty words to justify whatever lie must be told in pursuit of might and money.
This often seems like the gist of politics: finding an acceptable pretext for one's pursuit of capital.
Mitt Romney's probably not a bad guy, but he doesn't have much in common with you or me. He can justify himself to himself, just as Trump can justify himself to himself. Most of us get really good at that, to the point that we forget there's more at stake than our self-esteem; that there are real things that matter in the world.
That's hard to keep in mind if you've been lucky enough to attain a level of comfort in America. You pull yourself up onto a certain rung and, while you're well aware there are people above you with wristwatches that cost more than your house, you feel safe enough. Secure. A little smug.
It occurs to you as part of the status quo that powerful interests are determined to maintain that it doesn't much matter who the president is, so long as you can count on certain things. That over the long run, the market will go up. That the consequences of our indulgence can be deferred to future generations. That our military remains so intimidating that even as we cede leadership, we maintain a certain leverage.
It's hard to say what the ongoing reality show in the White House has cost me. Maybe a reader or two but no real friends. Outrage and drama drive news cycles, and while I doubt the effect trickles down to Arkansas, the Trump presidency has been good for cable outfits and national newspapers like The Washington Post and The New York Times.
Yet it has cost us; some more than others. Modeling disdain and solipsism, Trump presents to too many as "authentic," somehow more honest in his transparent dishonesty, vulgarity and petulance than the focus-grouped, slick and reasonable people we're used to seeing ask for our votes. He's encouraged us to give voice to viciousness, to mock decency and decorum, to embrace lies and insults.
Romney suggests a president "should unite us and inspire us to follow 'our better angels'. A president should demonstrate the essential qualities of honesty and integrity, and elevate the national discourse with comity and mutual respect." That's hard to disagree with, even if we don't have to look hard to find counter-examples.
pmartin@arkansasonline.com
www.blooddirtangels.com
Editorial on 01/06/2019