[noobermin]

On one hand, where I want to give Mitt Romney some benefit of the doubt for being sincere (and he probably is somewhat) in his conviction where he eventually stood against the leader of his own political party, he did, in the beginning, try to rosy up to Trump in the early months, producing a now infamous photo of him looking rather submissive, smiling with Trump at a dinner table after opposing him during the 2016 primaries. It's telling that only after failing to actually be chosen for a position in the administration did he begin his brand of pitching to the "centrist" crowd as a voice against Trump while voting with him a good fraction of the time in the senate.

One of the under appreciated outgrowths of the Trump years is the rise of a crop of "centrist"-leaning conservatives who really agreed with Trump on almost all of his actually achieved policy goals but really just disagreed with his supposed incompetence or brashness or with the attempted insurrection, but had Trump had a different demeanor, they'd be along for the ride.

[hotpotamus]

There's a reason Mitt Romney and Donald Trump are members of the same party (and Mitt Romney considered Trump's endorsement key in 2012). There's also a reason that Vladimir Putin considered it relevant to his interests to tip the scales to their party in 2016.