The Utah Republican and 2012 G.O.P. presidential nominee, 76, said he would step aside to make way for younger leaders and strongly suggested that the president and former president should, too.
This is the problem. The moderate Republicans that didn't support Trump are looking at retirement. They are marginalized in their party. The replacements likely will be further right.
The country did far better when you have moderate and capable leadership on both sides.
What we've had for over 40 years is a moderately right wing party (the Democratic Party) and then the Republican Party, which even under the guise of "moderates" like Romney want some pretty extreme things.
It's also not about unfit. Being old means you don't have to care what happens to future generations- you'll be dead by then and you can leave a wealthy inheritance for your brats to squander after you're gone. Making decisions that you'll never have to face the consequences of.
This is the Republican game for the last 3 decades. Field shitter and shitter candidates so people can reminisce how inclusive W was... How upstanding Romney was... Meanwhile if you actually lived through these people's tenure you'd know how vile and disgusting all of them are/were.
I'm waiting for people to reminisce about how smart Trump was compared to insert next nutjob Republican
I mean, except for the grey hair, Romney looks similar enough to Biden. I don't know if Mormons forbid hair dye in the same way they forbid hot drinks, but the hair color is the only difference I see.
In any case, I'm not yet 40 and my cohort are dealing with grey hair. Romney's would be unusual but not impossible. I also have very few greys, but it gets comments since I'm not the type of person who would dye his hair.
It’s not opening anything up to the dems. As a Utahn myself, I’m 99% certain Romney is retiring because he can’t win reelection here, as the majority of the state thinks he’s a RINO. I mean, he replaced Orrin Hatch, who could have won another term if he wanted, despite being in the senate since before microwave popcorn was a thing.
Utah had 1 dem representative and he only won because people came out to vote for medical marijuana. The state house then butchered that law until it was almost unrecognizable disenfranchising everyone who was finally getting involved. The state is run by car dealerships and residential developers. The money won’t let a non-republican take that seat.
Although it's becoming close I register for Democrats cause of how bad things have gotten with Republicans.
They only got culture wars and conspiracy theories and downright malice now.
Helps me? NO. Tax cuts for the rich, taxes for me, and forcing their religion down my throat.
Helps others? NO. Targeting social security, restricted voting, and a whole lot of pulling up bootstraps
Helps kids? NO. Child labor laws weakened, free school lunched targeted, and don't say gay.
Helps nature? NO. Climate change "isn't real!!!", drill baby drill no matter what, and hostility to any "alternative/clean" solutions.
What future is there in that? Just a regressive and bastardization of the past. For what?!?! Just to try to bring back the "Good old days?"
With Dems there is at least a future, as troubled and imperfect as it might be. With Reps there isn't
Romney's almost worse. At least with the current crop of republicans there's no doubting they're batshit and evil because they don't even bother hiding it.
Mittens gives a veneer of civility to a party that has lost its way and isn't fit for purpose.
That is democracy. You vote them in. Of course leadership positions will always be above the mean age. Same as senior positions in companies will also be older than the new hires. It takes years to become proficient in your trade and new people to politics usually start at the local level first before entering upper offices.
To be fair, infants aren't allowed to (and probably shouldn't be allowed to) run for senate, even if they don't cry about things as much as some of the representatives do. The number probably shouldn't be perfectly 1-to-1. It's still way too high though.
Right, and there should be an upper age limit too for the same reasons. For example, I don't see much difference between a toddler and where Feinstein is at now. I don't mean to be callus, but we competency in government.
He strongly suggested that Mr. Trump, 77, and President Biden, 80, should follow his lead and bow out to pave the way for younger candidates
Hey, what do you know, I agree with Mitt Romney on something. Maybe people who would be roundly considered unemployable in any other profession shouldn’t be leading the country. This goes for Fenstien and McConnell too. Let’s just make sure the “younger people” aren’t all Boeberts.
You can say whatever you want about him, but one thing I'm fairly certain is that at the end of the day Mitt Romney cared about the average American. I'm not saying I agree with even half of his beliefs. But I believe his beliefs were focused on what he thought was best for the country and it's people. I'm also not saying he didn't attempt to make himself and those around him stupid rich, but that he wasn't going to do so by throwing everyone and everything out the window to obtain it. It's really a stark contrast to Trump. And you might think that's sad, but what's really sad is that it's not just Trump but nearly the entirety of that party now.
Seriosuly. Bain single handedly killed Toy R Us and 35,000 jobs. The chain was actually profitable, but then bain loaded it up with hundreds of millions of debt it used to buy it, parted the profitable bits out, then bankrupted it.
It's a pure vulture capital company, wrecking havoc and destroying lives to make Romney and men like him rich at the expense of millions.
Didn't romney champion the Citizens United bill which was basically like throwing a lit match into a pool of gasoline for enshittifying the political process
Not that the process was great before but no one who considers "corporations are people too" ever had an average american citizens best interests in heart
Corporations are people. They're groups of people working for a common goal. If those people don't have free speech, neither do other groups, like political parties for instance. You do not lose your free speech rights when you are in a group.
The real damage done by citizens united was equating money to speech.
Only reason he's leaving is he's not going to get reelected. He did shit that pissed off the trumpies and there's too many of them in his state for him to win the primary; he's probably already got a really credible (for certain definitions of credible) primary opponent who he knows he can't beat.
Also he might have something resembling principles, but those principles are themselves still monstrous and harmful.
President Biden offers feel-good solutions that will make no difference to the global climate.
A lot more could be done but the Inflation Reduction Act is a major policy that is driving a lot of renewable energy investment, and probably the best that could be done under the current political circumstances. Hardly a "feel-good" solution, and I somehow doubt Romney, the lifelong conservative, has anything more substantial on climate in his back pocket.
I never thought I would unsarcastically say “Oh no! Mitt Romney is retiring!” But here I am, saying just that. Even though he is Mormon and has some shitty politics he is one of the few remaining Republicans left that understands the importance of Bipartisan legislation and voting to help the people instead of voting against everything to “own the libs.” It probably helps that he while he is a Republican, a lot of his policies while he was governor of Ma, and even now are more Center right, and almost Center left, making it seem like he is largely GOP because he’s LDS and would really fit better as an Independent.*
No major disagreement here -- just making a factual adjustment. Romney served as a Republican governor of Massachusetts long before moving to Utah. According to Wikipedia, he was never affiliated with the Democrat party.
Wtf I’m having a Mandala effect moment because I vividly remember when he was running in 2008 and 2012 he came under fire by some conservatives because he was a Democrat when he was in Ma. Wild.
I don't like this guy, but he's right. Japan still has ex-PM Taro Aso in a ministerial position, and the guy has been a mummy for decades and can barely walk in a straight line.
The announcement was in some ways the culmination of a long divergence between Mr. Romney, a genteel and wealthy former governor and traditional conservative, and the Republican Party, which has veered sharply to the right and embraced a coarser brand of partisanship in recent years.
Mr. Romney has joined an array of bipartisan “gangs” seeking to take on major policy issues — including infrastructure, gun safety and overhauling the Electoral Count Act — but rarely sought to lead those efforts.
In the video, Mr. Romney said that neither Mr. Biden nor Mr. Trump, the current front-runner for the Republican nomination, was addressing the nation’s most critical challenges, including climate change, authoritarian threats from Russia and China and mounting debt.
The statement came amid renewed scrutiny of the age of Mr. Biden and other prominent elected officials including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, 81, the longtime Republican leader whose recent health issues have raised questions about whether he is fit to continue in his post.
Mr. Romney, who describes his career in politics as a moral mission driven by his Mormon faith, has in recent years been marginalized in a party that has shifted to the right under the sway of Mr. Trump.
The book’s impending release already has his colleagues concerned about their private thoughts and conversations regarding the party’s vengeful presidential front-runner being aired publicly.
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