When Mitt Romney Was a Nazi
Senator Mitt Romney wasn't awarded any "profiles in courage" when he dared to challenge Barack Obama for the presidency in 2012 "despite facing unrelenting criticism and public antagonism"

Senator Mitt Romney has won the 2021 “Profile in Courage Award” from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, “for his vote to convict President Donald J. Trump in 2020, and his consistent and courageous defense of democracy.” They continue:
As the first Senator to have ever voted to convict a President of his own party, Romney’s courageous stand was historic. He characterized his vote to convict as “the most difficult decision I have ever faced,” and acknowledged that he would suffer significant political consequences. Nevertheless, Romney said he could not “disregard what I believe my oath and the Constitution demands of me for the sake of a partisan end.”
It’s entirely possible that Romney believed that voting to convict Trump was the right thing to do, and I don’t care to litigate whether Trump’s impeachments were justified or not here, but “courageous” isn’t the word I’d use to describe his vote. What “significant political consequences” has Romney faced, or will he face, as a result of his vote to convict Trump for either impeachment?
When some members of the Utah Republican Party wanted to formally censure Romney for his votes, the GOP leadership in the state party defended his decision to vote to convict, and he won’t be up for re-election to the Senate until 2024, when these votes are unlikely to be an issue in a general election, and the Republican Party is obviously not going to support a primary challenge against him. Donald Trump may try to insert himself into the race and endorse some kind of primary challenger out of spite, but Romney will have the entire Republican establishment behind him including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (The most powerful Republican in the country at the moment) and it’s unclear how relevant Trump will be in 2024 regardless.
Contrary to the idea that he would face “significant political consequences,” Senator Romney is being hailed as a star and the definition of a statesman as this award itself indicates. He’s been widely lauded by the corporate media, the Democratic Party, and even elements within the Republican Party as well. He couldn’t have positioned himself better if he had been trying, which, I suspect, he probably was.
Mitt Romney used to be the go-to example of a politician with his finger-in-the-wind and a stack of focus group-tested talking points; he was the flip-flopper with no principles to speak of, willing to say whatever it took to get what he wanted. This was widely known in 2012 when Romney ran against Barack Obama in the presidential campaign, Obama even attacked him for it, but now we’re expected to believe that him taking an entirely symbolic stand against Trump with no political consequences that garnered nothing but praise and admiration is somehow “courageous?” It’s the opposite, and exactly the type of grandstanding nonsense that Romney has been doing for his entire political career. The only difference here is that he did it on behalf of a cause that the corporate media and the establishment support, rather than doing it in an attempt to unseat a sitting president that those groups supported.
The JFK Library continues, “Despite facing unrelenting criticism and public antagonism following this vote, along with threats to his physical safety and demands that he be censured or expelled from the Republican party, Romney has continued to courageously defend the fundamental principles of democratic governance.”
The talk of “threats to his physical safety” can be quickly dispelled; it seems to be in reference to the claim that rioters at the Capitol on January 6 wanted to harm Romney specifically, but no evidence has been put forth to suggest that this is true or that the so-called “insurrection” was anything more than a protest that got out of control and morphed into a riot.
As for “unrelenting criticism,” it seems odd that Trump supporters calling Romney a “traitor” and harassing him on an airplane is somehow deemed worse and more “unrelenting” than in 2012 when he was labeled a misogynist, an animal abuser, and a Nazi, but that’s the only conclusion that can be drawn since he was not awarded any profiles in courage when the people currently putting him on a pedestal wanted to destroy his character forever. So why might we find it difficult to take these people seriously when they want to highlight the courage of someone they previously compared to Hitler? Might it not be a cynical ploy just to push their agenda, rather than the sincere belief that Mitt Romney of all people is some kind of courageous figure willing to stand alone to defend all that is good in the world?
An even better question: Might Senator Romney’s animus toward Donald Trump not be inspired by the fact that Trump publicly embarrassed him by making him grovel for the Secretary of State position before denying him the position and calling him a loser? Given the context of every other part of his political career, it seems pretty clear that Mitt Romney’s “courage” is nothing more than a mixture of spite and political grandstanding that is being used by the establishment to further their own agenda. He’s become a witting fool for the same people who were happy to try to ruin his life when he ran for president, and there’s nothing to admire in that.