This is one of the most surreal moments I’ve witnessed in my lifetime from a historical standpoint. It personally touched me because I was in fact a member of ‘that’ Republican Party from 1976-2000. In fairness to Donald Trump my decision to leave the party came sixteen years before Donald Trump ever came on the political scene as a candidate of either party.
I utterly disdain Trump, but to be objective there was more to my decision than just the Tea Party wingnuts or the extreme direction to the far right the party was steering towards.
Most of it was about me as I got older and began to see the world in a wider more empathetic prism where it does matter how we treat those around us. I became a husband, a father, witnessed my parents age, lost both my father and father-in-law, lost my grandparents….and came to better fully understand the journey of life from three different generational perspectives….not just mine.
I wrote in John McCain in 2000, voted for John Kerry in 2004, and would have voted for McCain in 2008 if he hadn’t selected Sarah Palin ( worse than Admiral Stockdale) as his running mate. Instead… I voted for Obama and then again voted for him in 2012 when he ran against Mitt Romney.
In 2016, completely confused as to my own ideology… I went to vote with the thought I would write in John Kasich, but while standing in line felt a pang of regret and wrote in John McCain once again as a gesture of thanks for him at least standing up to Trump during the campaign of 2016.
Yesterday was in fact the end of the GOP as we knew it. With Mitt Romney’s vote to convict Trump on Article I which outlined the abuse of power… history was clearly defined in front of our eyes.
Romney’s vote to convict was the first time in American history a senator from the same party as the president being impeached went against partisan party lines to convict a president with the intent to remove attached.
This did not happen in the Andrew Johnson or Bill Clinton impeachment trials. It would have happened though with Richard Nixon if he hadn’t resigned and cut a pardon deal.
Mitt Romney knew his vote would be the only vote from a ‘Republican’ senator. He knew it was a foregone conclusion his fellow GOP senators would wilt to constituent pressure. He also knew he would in essence be a senator without a party for his remaining four years in the Senate.
In essence, what Romney did was go one step beyond Lamar Alexander and censor Donald Trump with the hope our sitting president would somewhat grow up and become a better president these next ten months and possibly beyond.
Of course, that won’t happen.
Since I live in a state where my two senators have zero political courage whatsoever it was a historic day for those of us who were paying attention to words beyond Donald Trump’s twitter account.
Thank you, Senator Romney.
I was watching.