Political Poison- the Hyperbole of Hypocrisy
With the nomination process speeding towards its own eventuality, and the ides of March approaching within a fortnight, the political poison of sanctimonious soliloquy is summarily revealed. By employing the haughty hyperbole of hypocrisy that is the hallmark of partisan power structures, such is the case with regards to the Republican nominee of 2012 and former Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney.
Launching into a despicable diatribe of desperation against the leading Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, Romney showed himself to be all of the things that threaten to destroy whatever remains of the Republican Party, in this election year. Romney, who just four years ago, begged and beseeched the endorsement of Donald Trump, and praised without reservation “the Donald’s” business acumen, showed himself to be nothing more than an arrogant ass, by poisoning the well of all of those who support the front-runner, and everyone else who has worked to hold together the fractured remains of the GOP.
Had this same feckless and cowardly Mitt Romney shown half of the motivated moxie and passionate posturing shown yesterday, when he ran against President Obama four years ago, he would have been running for his own reelection this year. Yet, the message became quite clear that he is more content with aiding and abetting the election of Democrats, ranging from Obama to both of the Clintons, than he is in supporting a united Republican Party to defeat Hillary Clinton in the fall of 2016. His poisoned prescription of suggesting a brokered convention to prevent Mr. Trump from becoming the eventual nominee is nothing more than a poisonous prescription to guarantee the election of Hillary Clinton, all because Trump seems to be succeeding where Romney once failed.
The green-eyed monster of jealousy is an ugly sight to behold, indeed, but the pale and pasty hue of envy, completely devoid of rhyme or reason, is a far more sickening sight by any measure. That is what was seen yesterday, when Mitt Romney attempted to throw a wrench into his own party’s nomination process.
Sadly, Romney is not alone in this endeavor, as many others including former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu, Arizona Senator John McCain, Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, former White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and the editors of National Review all have conspired to both block Trump from getting the nomination, and block the Republican electorate from having its eventual say. In fact, they would rather see a President Hillary Clinton than even allowing the possibility of a President Trump. It is no wonder that large swaths of Republican voters, who are so angered and so entrenched with the elitist and egocentric establishment Republicans, long on promises but short on delivery, are collectively and undeniably saying, “Enough is enough.” It is this anger that has given rise to the candidacy of Donald Trump, for he is the unintended creation of a political party who has taken their constituents for granted for forty years, or more.
Julius Caesar once famously ignored the ominous warning “Beware the Ides of March,” and he did so at this own peril. Will Republican voters make this same mistake, while their Democrat counterparts are foaming at the mouth and chomping at the bit, to ride this rift of Republicans into victory? The long knives of “#NeverTrump” are sharpening to await “Caesar’s entry into the Senate,” and are all pointed at a man who has garnered millions of new Republican voters into the fold.
To all their credit in last night’s debate, each of the remaining front-runners, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, and Trump, himself, restated and re-avowed their pledge to support the eventual nominee of the Republican Party, regardless of who that might end up being. Despite their heated and palpable differences, they at least understand what Romney, Sununu, McCain, Graham, Sasse, Rove and many others will never understand- that unity is the recipe for success, that division devolves into defeat and that the will of the people is what matters most in this year of 2016.
-Drew Nickell, 4 March 2016
© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.