In order to appreciate Mitt Romney’s courage in voting for his own party chief’s removal, consider the opposite case, where the charges recently made against Donald Trump would instead be made against a Democrat.
There would be howls of dismay from Senate Republicans, of course, and these would embody cherished principles of the GOP going all the way back to Lincoln. National honor! Rule of Law! Standing by friends! Opposing enemies! The list would go on and on. No one would say it was “just politics.”
That very outrage was what the Senate Republicans had to choke back. And choking it back was the price every one of them had to pay for their blindness, their cowardice and, above all, their craven choice of party over patriotism. No wonder they didn’t want to hear from Romney. His was the voice of their own anguished consciences.
History will not be kind to the Senate Republicans. They will find themselves keeping company in the textbooks with some pretty sketchy characters.
And how will Mitt look when the looking back begins? I think he will look a lot like Marshal Will Kane in that famous movie about American heroism, “High Noon.” He will remind us of that one single person in a town full of hypocrites and cowards who actually stands by his honor, holds fast to his word, takes his oath seriously — and shows up in the crunch to face down evil.
Most people know the “High Noon” story. The Miller Gang is heading for Hadleyville on the high noon train, after Frank Miller buys his way out of prison. They aim to settle up with Marshal Kane, the man who put Miller behind bars, and then proceed to run the town the way they used to. If the townspeople strap on their six-guns and stick together, they can beat the Miller Gang like they did before. If they don’t, they will see their lives go down the toilet.
If you happen to like classic movies, dial up “High Noon” and track through it again. Each time one of the townspeople comes up with his or her own reason for not joining Marshal Kane at the train station, see how many of their excuses you can equate with those we have heard coming out of the Senate Republican Caucus. Which of the folks in the movie reminds you of Mitch McConnell? Of Lindsey Graham? Of Susan Collins? The parallels are downright chilling.
Are they all just good old Republicans doing what they must to defend the conservative agenda? Hardly. What is there in the Trump record that suggests conservatism? Systematic lying to the American people? Alienating allies while sucking up to dictators? Locking up children on the border? Sandbagging the intelligence community? Siding with Nazis? Tariffs, trade wars, trillion-dollar deficits? This isn’t “conservatism” in any way, shape or form.
I am myself a Republican and a conservative, one who, until recently, truly believed what the Republicans said they stood for. I studied the Constitution, wrote books about it, taught a course on it at Brigham Young University. My kind of conservatism was inspired by the American Founding and its magnificent promise of human fulfillment. What the Founders talked about — and was truly worth conserving — were things like the rule of law, the need for wise leadership, and, more than anything else, the importance of “public virtue” in political life. (If you want to know what they meant by “public virtue,” watch the movie.)
How many of those crucial core values were trashed last year when Trump undertook to shake down an American ally for crass political advantage? To me, as well as to many other Americans, this was nothing better than the mayhem of the of the Miller Gang.
Which brings me to the single bright spot in this whole dismal picture. It turns out that there was one authentic hero left in our own sad Hadleyville after all. One of our townsfolk did not run away, did not concoct excuses, did not whine or stare down at his shoes—like his colleagues in the Senate. So, I tip my hat to you, Senator Romney. You alone showed up at the train station when the Miller Gang pulled in.
By the way, if movie parallels don’t persuade, I can provide any number of historical instances pretty much like “High Noon,” involving George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln and thousands of other no-nonsense American patriots. Mitt Romney is in mighty good company.
Frank Fox
Frank W. Fox, Provo, is a professor emeritus of American history at Brigham Young University, founder of BYU’s American Heritage Program and author of a score of textbooks on constitutional history and its application to daily life.