Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) sounded the alarm Monday in a robust essay in The Atlantic warning that the nation is “in denial,” and we’re ignoring severe threats that might be “cataclysmic” to its very existence.
“When a renowned conservative former federal appellate judge testifies that we are already in a war for our democracy and that January 6, 2021, was a genuine constitutional crisis, MAGA loyalists snicker that he speaks slowly and celebrate that most people weren’t watching,” wrote the annoyed senator.
Romney was referring to the highly effective testimony final month earlier than the Jan. 6 House panel by retired Judge J. Michael Luttig. He known as Trump and his supporters “a clear and present danger to American democracy” for his or her makes an attempt to toss out the outcomes of a presidential election they didn’t like, including, “Our democracy today is on a knife’s edge.”
Romney additionally pointed to the hurt already wreaked by international warming in harmful droughts, the dearth of motion on mounting authorities debt and unlawful immigration.
Yet too little is being executed to deal with these severe threats, he wrote.
The “blithe dismissal of potentially cataclysmic threats” is fueled by denial and a “powerful impulse to believe what we hope to be the case” that happens “across the political spectrum.”
“More and more, we are a nation in denial,” Romney warned. “A basic instance of denial comes from Donald Trump: ‘I won in a landslide,’” he famous, quoting the previous president.
“Bolstering” that inclination are the “carefully constructed, prejudice-confirming arguments from the usual gang of sophists, grifters, and truth-deniers.”
Romney notes how Americans have lived for many years in a “very forgiving time” with a secure local weather and a typically robust financial system and democracy, however there’s no margin for main error now.
He is satisfied the reply is nice management. (He has no plans to run for the White House once more, he instructed HuffPost in April.)
He hopes for a president who can “rise above the din to unite us behind the truth.”
“President Joe Biden is a genuinely good man, but he has yet been unable to break through our national malady of denial, deceit and distrust.”
“A return of Donald Trump would feed the sickness, probably rendering it incurable,” he warned.
In the meantime, Romney stated it’s as much as “fathers and mothers, teachers and nurses, priests and rabbis, businessmen and businesswomen, journalists and pundits” to all rise above our “grievances and resentments” and “grasp the mantle of leadership our country so badly needs.”
Check out the full essay here.