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Romney of the Uncanny Valley

You are here: Home / Archives for Romney of the Uncanny Valley

Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: Nepotism in the GOP

by Anne Laurie|  January 9, 20242:26 am| 57 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality, Romney of the Uncanny Valley

jay ashcroft the worst of all nepo babies https://t.co/lqqzrT17le

— Jean-Michel Connard (@torriangray) January 8, 2024

When its inhabitants call the state Misery… Yes, Jay is in fact the son of John Ashcroft, Dubya’s choice for U.S. Attorney General and “the only U.S. Senator defeated for re-election by a dead person”.

BORIS SANCHEZ: What would be your justification for removing Joe Biden from the ballot in Missouri?

JAY ASHCROFT: There have been allegations that he's engaged in insurrection

SANCHEZ: How so?

ASHCROFT: Um, I've seen allegations from the lieutenant governor of Texas pic.twitter.com/687uqKyCUw

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 8, 2024

But Jay will never reach the fathomless depths achieved by Willard Romney, son of that vanished species, a *decent* Republican…

Mitt Romney reminds us that the best Republican is a horrible person. https://t.co/9zfeoqW6Op

— Mark Jacob (@MarkJacob16) January 6, 2024

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Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: Nepotism in the GOPPost + Comments (57)

Cold Grey Dawn Open Thread: Mitt Romney Exits, Stage Right

by Anne Laurie|  September 22, 20233:23 am| 64 Comments

This post is in: 2024 Primaries, Excellent Links, Republican Politics, Romney of the Uncanny Valley

Cold Grey Dawn Open Thread: Mitt Romney Exits, Stage Right

(Clay Jones via GoComics.com)

 
There will not be a Republican politician like Romney again, the pundits keep saying, and as far as I’m concerned this is not much of a loss. Willard ‘Mitt’ Romney was a bog-standard GOP Business Representative born a generation too late. Apart from a few belated spasms concerning Trump’s distastefully parvenu behavior, his voting record was indistinguishable from the GOP mean (in every sense of the term). He’s certainly old enough to retire while he can enjoy bullying just his extended family, and if my closest work colleague was Mike Lee(… roy Jenkins!), I’d quit too.

I never will get past how Willard deliberately ran against his only real achievement in government.

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) September 14, 2023


But let’s hear from another and far more eloquent Masshole:

… Politics has been such a disappointment to Mitt Romney. There always are so many…people involved.

He ran against Ted Kennedy, and those…people turned him down. He became governor of Massachusetts, passed a health-care law, and then tried to muscle Republicans into the state legislature only to have…people return more Democrats than were in there before. So, having lost interest in his day job, he ran for president in 2008, only to incur the profound dislike of his fellow candidates and the resounding loathing of the…people in general. In 2012, he thought he had it won only to have those…people deny him his rightful place at the pinnacle of power. Then came Trump, and Mitt Romney lost all hope in common humanity and got elected to the Senate from Utah, where he at least voted for both impeachments of the former president*. Now, he leaves the scene secure in the wisdom that has guided his entire public career — that there are two kinds of Americans: Him, and Everybody Else.

He was as maladroit a public politician as I’ve ever seen. And it took me while to realize that it wasn’t a lack of natural skills that accounted for that, it was the fact that Romney decided never to learn them. He was rich and he was handsome and he was the son of a beloved liberal Republican, and that was always enough to insulate him from the grubbier aspects of his chosen hobby. And he could always walk away.

This time, of course, he has legitimate reasons for walking away. He’d be over 80 by the time his next term was over, and his re-election campaign was going to be tougher due to his public opposition to the former president*. It was going to require some serious retail politics, and the Romneys haven’t paid retail for generations. But he will stand in history as a great missed opportunity. He had a lot of the wherewithal needed to keep the Republican Party from itself, if he only cared enough to do it.

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Cold Grey Dawn Open Thread: Mitt Romney Exits, Stage RightPost + Comments (64)

Friday Night Open Thread: Mitt Romney Considers Himself A Man of Destiny

by Anne Laurie|  September 15, 20238:01 pm| 133 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, Jan 6: Insurrection, Open Threads, Republican Politics, Romney of the Uncanny Valley

Are people mentioning that Romney may not have survived the nominating convention/primary? Maybe he just wanted to retire—perfectly reasonable for a 76 year old—but maybe he also didn’t want to run & lose against a Republican.

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) September 13, 2023

“A very large portion of my party,” he told me one day, “really doesn’t believe in the Constitution.” https://t.co/7ypi74XnWn

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) September 13, 2023

Romney is a sociopath, IMO, but he’s not stupid. He considered another six years spent surrounded by the mouthbreathers, internet gremlins, and conspiracy fanatics of the modern GOP death cult — people like his fellow Utan Senator Mike Lee (… roy Jenkins!), even assuming he wasn’t successfully primaried by another of that ilk. And he decided, sensibly enough, to instead announce his retirement and a (so far quite successful) “Nothing Became Him So Much As His Manner of Departure” farewell tour.

(McKay Coppins, if you don’t recognize the name, is a nice Mormon journalist with a talent for getting right-wingers to say unguarded things. I won’t buy his Romney bio, but I’ll read the inevitable media extracts with great interest.)

This is the nut graf that’s been exciting so many people:

… It begins with a text message from Angus King, the junior senator from Maine: “Could you give me a call when you get a chance? Important.”

Romney calls, and King informs him of a conversation he’s just had with a high-ranking Pentagon official. Law enforcement has been tracking online chatter among right-wing extremists who appear to be planning something bad on the day of Donald Trump’s upcoming rally in Washington, D.C. The president has been telling them the election was stolen; now they’re coming to steal it back. There’s talk of gun smuggling, of bombs and arson, of targeting the traitors in Congress who are responsible for this travesty. Romney’s name has been popping up in some frightening corners of the internet, which is why King needed to talk to him. He isn’t sure Romney will be safe.

Romney hangs up and immediately begins typing a text to Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader. McConnell has been indulgent of Trump’s deranged behavior over the past four years, but he’s not crazy. He knows that the election wasn’t stolen, that his guy lost fair and square. He sees the posturing by Republican politicians for what it is. He’ll want to know about this, Romney thinks. He’ll want to protect his colleagues, and himself.

Romney sends his text: “In case you have not heard this, I just got a call from Angus King, who said that he had spoken with a senior official at the Pentagon who reports that they are seeing very disturbing social media traffic regarding the protests planned on the 6th. There are calls to burn down your home, Mitch; to smuggle guns into DC, and to storm the Capitol. I hope that sufficient security plans are in place, but I am concerned that the instigator—the President—is the one who commands the reinforcements the DC and Capitol police might require.”

McConnell never responds.…

And Romney… shrugged and kept his mouth shut. Like a good GOP soldier.

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Friday Night Open Thread: Mitt Romney Considers Himself A Man of DestinyPost + Comments (133)

Late Night Open Thread: Retvrn to the Uncanny Valley

by Anne Laurie|  July 30, 202212:40 am| 61 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality, Romney of the Uncanny Valley

This is such weird fan fiction.

Romney got mocked for dumb things he actually said and did.

John Kerry had his war record smeared, and a multi-year racist campaign was run to argue Obama was a secret immigrant. https://t.co/uuwFsHtIt7

— DrunkOnMystery (@DrunkOnMystery) July 27, 2022

Now that the Jan6 Committee has exposed so many Republican ‘stars’ as criminals, enablers, and/or idiots, the GOP is desperate for a figurehead that ‘swing voters’ won’t immediately assume would try to rape their kids, beat up their mixed-race family members, or steal their wallets.

Since Willard Romney could only be suspected of that last crime (and of course he’d do it in the most business-friendly MBA-speak terms!), ever-hopeful Repub mouthpieces are trying to start a cult of St. Mitt, Beloved Centrist Moderate. Even for such experienced liars, that’s quite a lift!

Republican cranks feel that they were treated unfairly in 2012 for the simple fact that they nominated a bizarre plutocrat and then Obama ran on class war against plutocrats against him, which they feel shouldn't be allowed

— your himbo boyfriend (@swolecialism) July 28, 2022

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Late Night Open Thread: Retvrn to the Uncanny ValleyPost + Comments (61)

GOP Stupidity Open Thread: Mitt Romney Has Nothing to Worry About

by Anne Laurie|  February 10, 20209:57 pm| 36 Comments

This post is in: Impeachment Inquiry, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality, Trumpery, Assholes, Decline and Fall, Romney of the Uncanny Valley

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

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GOP Stupidity Open Thread: Mitt Romney Has Nothing to Worry AboutPost + Comments (36)

Open Thread: Mitt Romney, (Would Be) Man on A White Horse

by Anne Laurie|  October 9, 20194:42 pm| 73 Comments

This post is in: Impeachment Inquiry, Open Threads, Republicans in Disarray!, Romney of the Uncanny Valley

Romney rejecting donors’ calls for him to primary Trump, but he’s planning to rally Senate Republicans to vote against Trump in impeachment trial. My latest:https://t.co/ps0SCpY8CC

— Gabriel Sherman (@gabrielsherman) October 8, 2019

This is physically painful for me — I’m grinding my teeth right now — but if he can actually bring himself to step up and lead a GOP challenge against the Oval Office Occupant, then props to Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor & current Utah Senator:

… According to sources, donors have in recent days called the Utah senator and encouraged him to run against Trump in the primary. “There is a half-billion dollars on the sidelines from guys who are fed up with Trump,” a GOP donor told me. Their hopes were raised when Romney attacked Trump on Friday, tweeting: “By all appearances, the President’s brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling.” Former White House communications director turned Trump antagonist Anthony Scaramucci tweeted a poll showing Romney beating Trump 55% to 37% in a hypothetical primary. Trump fired back on Saturday. “Mitt Romney never knew how to win,” Trump tweeted. “He is a pompous ‘ass’ who has been fighting me from the beginning, except when he begged me for my endorsement for his Senate run (I gave it to him), and when he begged me to be Secretary of State (I didn’t give it to him). He is so bad for R’s!”

According to people close to Romney, he’s firmly decided against primarying Trump, an enterprise he believes to be a sure loser given Trump’s enduring GOP support. Romney has also told people that, as an unsuccessful two-time presidential candidate, he’s the wrong person to take on Trump. Instead, a Romney adviser told me, Romney believes he has more potential power as a senator who will decide Trump’s fate in an impeachment trial. “He could have tremendous influence in the impeachment process as the lone voice of conscience in the Republican caucus,” the adviser said. In recent days, Romney has been reaching out privately to key players in the Republican resistance, according to a person briefed on the conversations. “Romney is the one guy who could bring along Susan Collins, Cory Gardner, Ben Sasse. Romney is the pressure point in the impeachment process. That’s why the things he’s saying are freaking Republicans out.” (Romney, through a spokesperson, declined to comment.)

GOP elected officials and donors are privately war-gaming what an endgame for Trump would look like. “It’s clear the House is going to impeach,” the prominent Republican told me. Making matters worse for Trump, a policy wedge has opened up between Trump and the Republican Senate at a moment when he needs its support most. Trump’s surprise decision to pull back American troops in Syria and allow Turkey to take on our Kurdish allies has enraged Trump’s closest GOP allies, including Lindsey Graham. “The Syria decision is a much bigger deal,” another former West Wing official said. “No one on the inside can hold Trump accountable. The Senate Republicans are the only check on power right now.”

Mitt Romney did not ask Trump for an endorsement in his Senate run, per two people with knowledge of the situation. https://t.co/7XPvbXFE6z

— McKay Coppins (@mckaycoppins) October 5, 2019

What say the political touts? Well, Chris ‘Mad Bitcher’ Cillizza is visibly excited by the possibilities for media-worthy strife (as of course he would be). And the Boston Globe reports that some name-brand Never-Trumpers are clapping for Romney already. Then there’s the Never-Trumpist house organ, The Bulwark:

… [W]hat if—hear me out—Mitt Romney is the only person in America who is capable of saving the Republican party from itself, and in the process, saving the world from the current occupant of the Oval Office?

Lest we forget, Romney is a former Bain Capital man, and if there is one thing private equity knows, it’s how to read the numbers—and the writing on the wall…

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Open Thread: Mitt Romney, (Would Be) Man on A White HorsePost + Comments (73)

Open Thread: An Interlude with Willard “Mitt” Romney

by Anne Laurie|  May 5, 20184:34 pm| 155 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Clown Shoes, Romney of the Uncanny Valley

Mitt Romney is running for the Senate again, this time from his spiritual home in Utah. (Extra points to Murphy the Trickster God’s lack of discrimination for arranging that his GOP primary opponent will be named Kennedy — no relation to the Masshole clan.) People who know these things agree that Mitt will walk away with the nomination, and therefore in Repub-friendly Utah the election. After which, Mitt says, he will be A Strong Voice against that terrible, lawless RINO now occupying the Oval Office… please do not bring up the unfortunate frog-legs dinner.

So Romney is once again doing interviews, which continue to be… well…

“My favorite meat is hot dog, by the way. That is my favorite meat” Romney said. “My second favorite meat is hamburger. And everyone says, oh don’t you prefer steak? It’s like, I know steaks are great but I like hot dog best and I like hamburger next best” https://t.co/DbYn951L9k

— Matt Viser (@mviser) May 4, 2018

My immediate thought was ‘I prefer things that seem to have been factory-produced, like me’.

Mr. Charles P. Pierce believes this is pandering, done badly. (“Have some respect for the craft, Willard.”)

Me, I believe it is a glimpse at the sad soul of our former Governor, a high-end formed-meat product in a world increasingly divided between those who won’t touch the nasty things, and those who prefer their meat products as cheaply and obviously mass-produced as possible.

Open Thread: An Interlude with Willard “Mitt” RomneyPost + Comments (155)

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