Ethical Uncanny Valley
I have never been a fan of Mitt Romney. If you’re looking for a reason, you’re spoiled for choice: beyond his odious-but-generic center-right politics, you have his fortune made by gutting other people’s work, the “binders full of women”, the dog carrier on top of his car, the fact that he was so gutless that his campaign against Obama centered around opposing his own healthcare plan. An empty suit, devoid of an actual point-of-view, whose sales pitch to be president boiled down to “okay America, wouldn’t you rather have a rich white guy again?”
But mostly he seemed to exist in a kind of ethical uncanny valley—too principled to actually go corrupt and join the grift, but not principaled enough to actually work to make things better. Instead, he settled into the role of an ineffectual centrist scold. Not cowardly, exactly, but possessing the demeanor of the kid in elementary school who always reminded the teacher they forgot to assign homework, attempting to score points with a higher authority, without seeming to realize that there isn’t one. Just, jeeze dude, pick a side and get to work.
That said, I absolutely devoured the Atlantic’s except from McKay Coppins’ new book: What Mitt Romney Saw In The Senate.
Sure, It’s clearly trying for reputation laundering, mixed with a final attempt to get some points with whomever he thinks is keeping score, but what struck me the most—if you’ll forgive the technical term—what a giant fucking loser he is.
A man with that much money, who got that close to being president, sitting alone in a apartment he didn’t want, surrounded by art he didn’t chose, eating salmon he doesn’t like slathered in ketchup.
The most revelatory moment for me was a beat where Mitt is struggling over how to vote on the Impeachment, and after expressing this to McConnell, the Senate leader basically says, paraphrasing, “what are you talking about, nerd? He’s obviously guilty, and we’re gonna let him off because we have elections to run.”
A portrait of a suit even emptier than we thought, fundamentally unable to get off the stands and get into the game, so convinced of his superiority that he doesn’t believe in anything at all.
Actually, I take back what I said earlier—he is a coward. He wants points for standing up against Trump and the rest of the party but still won’t, you know, endorse the other guy, or campaign, or take action of any kind besides bitching to the guy writing the book he couldn’t even be bothered to write himself.
What a wasted life. All those people lost their jobs, all those women-in-binders went unhired, all that needless churn, all so one rich, empty white guy could sit alone and watch Ted Lasso, having accomplished nothing. He doesn’t even have the courtesy to want power or influence for its own sake, or to be reaching for self-enrichment—to say nothing of not wanting to make things better—all that sound and fury so he could fill the long, empty, lonely hours feeling smug. All that wealth at the command of a man with no character, no blood, no animus, no soul.
I’d curse his name, but I can’t imagine a worse fate than having to wake up and remember I was Mitt Romney.