And yet Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, a French fascist from a party founded by some of Hitler’s last bodyguards, was welcomed with thunderous applause. https://t.co/4Cvc7fWspn
— zeddy (@Zeddary) February 9, 2020
And CPAC was never exactly Mitt’s kinda people anyways. Remember when we could make fun of the grifters, resume-padders and grievance voters who hung around that event like flies circling carrion?
But he’ll go to a place he knows would result in violence against Romney
Of all the supposed “true conservatives” who’s become Trump bootlickers, Schlapp is one of the dumbest and one of the worst https://t.co/NIEFaiJac2
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) February 9, 2020
I wish I could remember which twitter wit referred to Matt Schlapp as ‘the sound made by two porkchops falling onto a wet kitchen floor.’
These Trump remoras can’t make me like Mitt Romney, but they’re making me more sympathetic to the general, near-extinct class of Honorable Republicans.
Worth the two minutes.
Colbert is a gem. pic.twitter.com/To69UTmYxU
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) February 6, 2020
Mitt’s an upper-class Mormon. He grew up in a wealthy suburb in Michigan, moved to Massachusetts for college and to New York to make his fortune, moved back to Massachusetts to jump-start his political career because ‘nobody elects a president from Utah‘. He still has multi-million-dollar ‘family vacation homes’ in California and New Hampshire. But his primary loyalty has always been to his class and his faith, not necessarily in that order, and there’s no better place on earth for a well-to-do Mormon of impeccable LDS lineage than the state of Utah. They don’t care what that vulgar gentile in the White House thinks, although they’ll dutifully pull the (R) lever during the general election.
If you don’t trust my insight, McKay Coppins is also a Mormon:
Unsurprisingly, Romney’s vote to convict is not being met with the same apocalyptic rage in Utah as it is in much of MAGA country. https://t.co/hxhcAYJiFf
— McKay Coppins (@mckaycoppins) February 10, 2020
… Utah Republicans never quite fell for Mr. Trump as hard as the rest of their party did. The state’s political sensibilities, heavily influenced by its Mormon culture, are more agree-to-disagree than salt-the-earth. The president’s coarse language, belittling nicknames and aversion to humility help explain why his approval ratings over all in Utah have been below 50 percent for most of the last three years.
And while they support Mr. Trump as their president — very few Republicans here say they would have voted to convict him as Mr. Romney did — they have refused to join the pile-on they see happening back east on Fox News sets and in social media feeds of the president’s followers, where their junior senator is being vilified as a “coward” and “Judas” who should be expelled from the Republican Party.
Not only does Mr. Lyman’s censure resolution appear to be dead on arrival, but the leader of the State Senate, Mr. Adams, also said last week that he would rather not vote on or debate any action related to Mr. Romney at all. He stressed that anything his chamber took up should be “positive” — a word he used repeatedly as he spoke to reporters at the State Capitol on Friday. He said he preferred something like a unanimously agreed-to statement that affirmed Mr. Trump’s strengths as president…
Utah is one of the rare places where the few Romney-style Republicans who remain are relatively safe from a challenge from their right, where speaking out against the president can be an act to admire, not an apostasy.
With the most vitriolic condemnation of Mr. Romney coming from outside Utah, there has been something of a rallying effect around the senator.
“Not everyone hates Romney,” read the headline on an opinion article in The Tribune this weekend. “In spite of the loud voices who are busy calling him names, there are many of us out here who are cheering for him,” wrote the author, Holly Richardson, a former Republican legislator.
Salt Lake City’s other major paper, The Deseret News, which is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, published an editorial arguing against a censure of the senator and has run numerous other supportive pieces, including one declaring that his vote was “what a Christian conscience demands.”…
The only thing that gives the GOP any kind of permission structure to disobey Trump is support when they do the right thing. If you attack them even when they do the right thing, you’re just helping McConnell’s vote whipping team.
— Neera Tanden (@neeratanden) February 5, 2020
Trump and his media team at Fox News are doing exactly what Romney said they would do to him, but GOP Senators were very upset that the authoritarian treatment was presented in metaphor by Adam Schiff.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) February 6, 2020
Holy shit. I have never seen anything like this in the Soviet Union. Nothing even remotely approaching this. This is far too much even for Stalin. https://t.co/FJ8T1BLKly
— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) February 10, 2020
anarchoRex
Never thought I’d see the day when Utah Republicans were the good ones.
Kent
Romney doesn’t come up for re-election until 2024, at which point this will be really old history and we will be in the middle of the 2024 presidential election. He is as safe as any Republican in the entire Senate, no matter what Trump’s out of state MAGA trolls might think.
zhena gogolia
That Colbert segment was great.
mrmoshpotato
Would anyone care to share with the class what “Judge” Speedy Boxedwine is ranting about?
Kent
@anarchoRex: They have an entirely different religious and cultural history from the southern neo-confederate evangelical bunch. They are loyal to the state but in a different way. Mormons make good FBI officers, for example.
trollhattan
Pierro seems like Leona Helmsley without the money.
smintheus
@mrmoshpotato: It’s a two-minute hate. It’s about nothing, and everything.
waspuppet
Whatever you want to say about him, how exactly does Mitt Romney’s vote make him a “coward”? This is just pure temper tantrum talk.
bluehill
If they still vote for Trump in 2020, then they will be no different than the evangelicals.
Kent
Wow…yes. I went back and played it after seeing your comment. Powerful stuff.
Anya
Isn’t Romney also a gentile?
Martin
So, California is creating a new state agency: Financial Protection and Innovation. Basically the CFPB but for the state now that the CFPB is fucking busted.
Another Scott
You’ll be surprised to learn that President Lying McCrimey was lying.
BBC News:
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
I noticed quite a contrast between the cool, standoffish attitude Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr. et al had towards Romney in 2012 and the way they were all-in for Trump in 2016. I bet Mormons noticed too.
khead
@anarchoRex:
Helpful hint – they are still not your friend.
I’m still pretty sure Mitt could buy and sell Trump. Even after Trump has cashed in for 3 years. So, Mitt is gonna be ok.
zhena gogolia
@Kent:
The original is longer, with passages from Romney’s speech.
LeftCoastYankee
So the Mormons are now the “liberal” end of the Republican spectrum?
Oy.
Shalimar
If Fox allowed Pirro to give Trump a blowjob om national tv, she would definitely have him on air to do it. Whether his ego would allow him to be seen fucking a woman her age is the bigger question.
debbie
@mrmoshpotato:
“I walk into a room and houseplants die!”
Ruckus
@waspuppet:
You expect different from the vast majority of republicans? Or 5 yr old spoiled brat, which is pretty much the same thing.
Ruckus
@LeftCoastYankee:
Yes.
How’s that tighten up your exhaust outlet?
anarchoRex
@khead: Trust me, no confusion on my part in that regard.
debbie
@waspuppet:
Speaking of tantrums, he’s in Manchester, NH telling his MAGATs that “millions” of Democrats are leaving the Democrat Party and coming over to join his movement. ?
rk
And how is this impressive? It doesn’t matter if they support Trump wholeheartedly or reluctantly. The end result is the same. So they won’t censure Romney? Wow! We should pin a medal on them for not being jackasses.
chris
@Anya: To Mormons all outsiders are gentiles. (Learned on r/exmormon)
ETA: Some Mennonites use the term too.
Anne Laurie
Utah gave Evan McMullin his only electoral vote(s) in 2016. If there isn’t a similar third-party candidate by November — and Bill Kristol, goddess save us all, is encouraging Never-Trump Repubs to vote for a ‘moderate’ Democrat — I suspect Bill Weld, as the last official not-Trump (R) candidate, may actually do even better than McMullin!
Origuy
@Anya: Mormons use “gentile” to mean non-Mormons. They see themselves as spiritual or actual descendents of the tribe of Ephraim.
Thor Heyerdahl
@Shalimar: Would FOX be willing to have a four hour special just to get some turgidness in the orange mushroom? Otherwise it’s just as flaccid as a sad, deflated birthday balloon.
tokyokie
@chris:
Utah is the only place on Earth where Jews are commonly referred to as “Gentiles.” Which might help explain why so few of them live there.
Another Scott
In other news, RollCall has some analysis of the proposed Pentagon budget:
The story has an obvious slant, especially near the end, but it shows what is going on with the budget. If you want Pentagon spending to come down, or it to be spent on things like making sure that Navy ships have crews that don’t suffer severe sleep deprivation, rather than on new Buck Rogers weapons, then work like hell to elect sensible people this fall. It’s not just the White House that we need to win.
The whole team needs to win. Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
chris
@tokyokie: Huh, thanks. I didn’t think of that but of course they are.
Anya
@Origuy: oh, thanks! I did not know this
Citizen_X
@mrmoshpotato: If you watch with the sound off, it’s pretty clearly “You damn kids think you’re so smart!” glug glug glug “I know where your parents work! Hell, I can buy and sell all your whole damn families!” glug glug “Now stay the hell off my lawn!” [throws glass]
mrmoshpotato
@Citizen_X: LOL
JustRuss
I look forward to FTFNYT cletus safaris to darkest Utah to learn why the natives support Romney despite his antipathy for Trump.
artem1s
well, since Mitt doesn’t regularly go on Cletus Safaris in diners in the mid-west, I doubt he has anything to worry about.