Indeed, the long primary will mean that the newly invigorated far right has ensured that the so-called traditional conservatives — like my dad’s generation, the save-your-money, make-prudent-but-conservative-investments kind of conservatives, the pragmatists who are uneasy with the cultural battles — well, they’re obviously disposable.
Dad couldn’t care less about legislating access to women’s contraception or ordering vaginal ultrasound probes — the very subjects make him uncomfortable. He cares about rational economic policy. But his party has left him, gone to tea.
It’s a trend that would have caused former Michigan Gov. George Romney to grimace. Mitt Romney’s Detroit bashing stands in painful contrast to his father’s compassionate, moderate legacy. Where did the pragmatic Mitt Romney of Massachusetts go? The one who thought it was important to offer access to health care to all his citizens? He, too, has gone to tea.
We’ve all watched Romney straining against his genes and his history, contorting himself into a human pretzel, twisting into an anti-immigrant frenzy, an unlikely chameleon of the severe far right.
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