Mitt Romney: A man of principle
Unpacking Mitt Romney’s integrity and his isolation inside the modern Republican party. The party has changed; he refuses to change with it.
By McKay Coppins
Grade: 96
If you’re only going to read one book on politics this year, Romney: A Reckoning, by writer McKay Coppins, gets my vote. The book shines a bright light on Romney’s upbringing, the importance of family to him, and makes plain how his principled nature, instilled in him by his father, made him a poor fit for today’s politics, when service means worshiping at the altar of one man, who is someone he detests.
Why I wanted to read the book
Before earlier this year, my images of Mitt Romney largely revolved around his run for the presidency in 2012 against eventual winner Pres. Barack Obama. I remember casting a vote for him and having a chuckle at his expense over his “binders full of women”quip during the second debate in 2012. But that’s about it, until I heard Coppins, a writer for The Atlantic discuss the book on a podcast earlier this year.
What hooked me was hearing how Romney, expecting to pen a profile of himself, had kept copious notes from his years in office as a one-term governor of Massachusetts and later as a Senator for Utah, beginning in 2019. Remarkably, Romney gave Coppins full access to all of his records, including the contents of a filing cabinet that had been locked for years, and agreed to relinquish full editorial control to the author, which is largely unheard of.
“When he couldn’t find the key to an old filing cabinet that contained some of his personal papers, he took a crowbar to it and deposited stacks of campaign documents and legal pads in my lap.”
What I didn’t know
Romney's father, George Romney, played a huge role in his life and career. (In fact, by the end of the book, you can see many of the decisions Mitt Romney made as having been influenced by the life his father lived and the lasting legacy he left behind.) George Romney, who is best known for having been a former Michigan governor and for his role as the chairman and president of the American Motor Corporation, also served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Richard M. Nixon.
I was surprised to learn, however, that the senior Romney was a prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement. For example, he pushed for the Michigan Fair Housing Act in 1965, which aimed to eliminate racial discrimination in housing; participated in civil rights marches, and supported various federal civil rights initiatives, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
His penchant for supporting Civil Rights legislation wasn’t a help to him in the race for the Republican nomination for president of the U.S. in 1968, as you might expect. However, it was a slip of the tongue during an interview in 1967 that ended his political future altogether: He used the term “brainwashed” to describe his earlier support for the Vietnam War. The remark was quickly seized upon by the media and his opponents. The damage was done; so was his political career
What impressed me most
Learning about Mitt Romney’s father early in the book made everything else make sense. His unwillingness to bend at the knee for the former president and his service as a U.S. Senator serving alongside a bunch of performative clowns was doomed to fail. He inherited his father’s principled, some-things-are-bigger-than-getting-elected ways; that was never going to work in a party dominated by one man and his sycophants.
So, as Coppins details, Romney is a man in isolation, effectively homeless in his party until his term ends in 2025. But he’s not been content to go quietly. For example, in addition to voting to impeach the president twice, he’s spoken openly about his contempt for the former president, describing him as being of low character and being driven by “revenge and ego.”
He’s also not been afraid to take his fellow senators to task for their cowardice in refusing to stand up to Trump.
“Perhaps Romney’s most surprising discovery upon entering the Senate was that his disgust with Trump was not unique among his Republican colleagues. ‘Almost without exception, ‘he told me, ‘they shared my view of the president.’ In public, of course, they played their parts as Trump loyalists, often contorting themselves rhetorically to defend the president’s most indefensible behavior.
“But in private, they ridiculed his ignorance, rolled their eyes at his antics, and made incisive observations about his warped, toddler-like psyche. Romney recalled one senior Republican senator frankly admitting, ‘He has none of the qualities you would want in a president, and all of the qualities you wouldn’t.’”
I felt a sense of kinship with Mitt Romney when, on several occasions, he made clear that some things— integrity, honesty, and adhering to one's convictions—are more important than getting elected. Throughout the book, in fact, it felt as though Mitt Romney was continually making the case for, at all times and in all situations, prioritizing morality and the maintenance of high ethical standards, allowing them to take precedence over the pursuit of political power.
You could clearly see this when he committed political suicide and voted twice for impeachment, even as fellow Republican begged him to stand down and take one for the team. But it was also on display as he upbraided his fellow republican senators, including Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, for refusing to certify the 2020 election results.
“‘The best way we can show respect for the voters who are upset is by telling them the truth!’ Romney said, his voice rising to a shout. Applause rose in the chamber. Before sitting down, he posed a question to his fellow senators—a question that, whether he realized it or not, he’d been wrestling with himself for nearly his entire political career.
“‘Do we weigh our own political fortunes more heavily than we weigh the strength of our Republic, the strength of our democracy, and the cause of freedom? What is the weight of personal acclaim compared to the weight of conscience?’”
One more thing
Of all the senators he mentions by name, J.D. Vance stands alone: He despises the junior senator from Ohio who was recently selected as the 2024 running mate for former Pres. Trump.
“‘I don’t know that I can disrespect someone more than J. D. Vance,’” Romney told me. They’d first met years earlier after he read Vance’s bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. Romney was so impressed with the book that he hosted the author at his annual Park City summit in 2018.
“Vance, who grew up in a poor, dysfunctional family in Appalachia and went on to graduate from Yale Law School, had seemed bright and thoughtful, with interesting ideas about how Republicans could court the white working class without indulging in toxic Trumpism.
“Then, in 2021, Vance decided he wanted to run for Senate, and reinvented his entire persona overnight. Suddenly, he was railing against the ‘childless left’ and denouncing Indigenous Peoples’ Day as ‘a fake holiday’ and accusing Biden of manufacturing the opioid crisis ‘to punish people who didn’t vote for him. The speed of the MAGA makeover was jarring.’
“‘I do wonder, how do you make that decision?’ Romney mused as he watched Vance degrade himself on the campaign trail that summer. ‘How can you go over a line so stark as that—and for what?’ Romney wished he could grab Vance by the shoulders and scream: This is not worth it! ‘It’s not like you’re going to be famous and powerful because you became a United States senator. It’s like, really? You sell yourself so cheap?’ The prospect of having Vance hang around the caucus made Romney uncomfortable. How do you sit next to him at lunch.’”
Why you should read the book
I credit Coppins with creating one of the best reads of the summer about a man we could all benefit from learning more about. The book, which reads fast, delivers a fair, detailed portrait of Romney that readers from either side of the political aisle will enjoy—particularly the parts highlighting his integrity and his conviction. I was impressed.