Mitt Romney, Republican sphinx

Yet something else has changed, something that's led many conservatives to take a fresh look at Romney. Republican politics has once again been scrambled. Trump's Twitter account has been silenced. The world has moved on. The Trump loyalty test still matters but less than it used to. The main question that now confronts the right is how to best preserve conservative values under a hostile administration. The nature of those values has also shifted, courtesy of those heady years under Trump. Before 2016, conservatism had usually meant the Reagan-era three-legged stool: traditional values, small government, and national security. Today, at least among some right-of-center intellectuals, it's focused not so much on ideology as constituency. It cares less about shrinking the federal state per se than about wielding it to avail the working class, which it credits with swinging the balance to Trump four years ago and views as a countervailing force against decadent liberal elites. And here, Romney has suddenly emerged as a one-man think tank. He's working on a plan to raise the minimum wage. He released a bill to reduce student loan debt and make college more affordable. He's echoed Trump by saying Washington needs to pass a major infrastructure package. He's proposed a monthly child allowance to help families. These used to be liberal priorities, but today they're winning Romney plaudits from some of the pro-Trump intellectuals who once dismissed him as yesterday's man.
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