Yesterday I wrote about President Trump’s big win over bogus impeachment charges. At last, some three years into his term, the president is not under the cloud of some cooked-up conspiracy theory. How providential. Just in time for the Iowa Caucuses. The Democrats finally must accept the results of the 2016 election. Grudgingly. With teeth clenched, torn-up speeches, and ongoing public hissy fits from the “Resistance.”

And we saw how Mitt Romney reacted. When it was obvious that every other Republican senator, facing the same evidence, judged the president innocent of the latest concocted charges. His head full of promises from deep-pocketed legacy GOP donors, he took his stand. He voted for one of the impeachment charges. To approve the removal of a sitting president of his own party from office, over a squalid policy squabble. As Romney’s 2012 press secretary said, the whole thing reeks of ambition frustrated. Petty resentment’s in the saddle.

To Beg I Am Too Proud

Of course, I’m thrilled that Romney burned his ships on the beach, like Hernan Cortes. Instead of nodding at Trump and smiling, and worming his way into the president’s confidence. That’s what so many of Trump’s inveterate enemies did. That won many of them high appointments in his administration. Trump picked hundreds of his opponents, longtime hacks from the GOP swamp, instead of supporters. That turned out to be his worst mistake in office. It launched a thousand leaks, an attempted coup, and John Bolton’s career as an author. Thankfully, it didn’t manage to land us in any stupid wars.

Former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts speaking at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland.

Just so, Ronald Reagan undermined himself in office. He let the Bush faction that despised him honeycomb the White House with its flunkies. And freeze out Reagan’s real supporters. That’s how we got Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. And 30 more years of Roe v. Wade. It gave the neocons’ dominance over the GOP. That culminated in the reign of George W. Bush. His bumbling yielded eight years of Obama. And with that, the Supreme Court that stuffed gay marriage down America’s throat. Ask the Christian florists and wedding photographers how they’re benefiting from “compassionate conservatism.”

A Cat Without Its Claws

Maybe Romney was too proud to play the infiltrator. He has been the golden boy all his life. He will not play second fiddle in the orchestra that is the Senate. Ben Domenech at The Federalist points out that Romney is ill-suited to the compromise, trade-offs, and deal-making of the Senate. He never entered it as anything more than a president-in-waiting.

Now he squats there like The Joker glaring at Batman. Romney’s still hated by the left for his partisan past. Loathed by real conservatives. And (here’s the kicker) Romney’s feared by no one at all. As I documented yesterday, fear and intimidation proved favored tactics of Romney’s team when dealing with fellow Republicans. He doesn’t know what to do if he can’t wield it. Like a cat without its claws.

Begging for Scraps at the GOP’s Table

How close we came to a Republican party dominated entirely by its squishy, center-left Establishment. Remember how since 1996, the Christian Right begged for scraps at the GOP’s table? Somehow the neocons got all the wars they wanted. Big business got all the cheap labor immigrants it could wave across the border. But pro-lifers? We got a phone call. GOP presidents literally phoned it in when it came to the March for Life. That gesture said it all, and was echoed by the low, low, low priority that social conservatives’ concerns got in the party.

We were the red-headed stepchild, who when the big dogs had eaten was allowed to scarf down their scraps. And that’s how things were meant to stay, how they would have stayed, if Donald Trump hadn’t run for president. Our beliefs, scorned by big media, academia, and even Wall Street, were meant to become politically marginal and meaningless. The people who’d accomplish that weren’t Democrats like Bernie Sanders, but Republicans like John McCain and Mitt Romney. They were our designated pall-bearers.

Until Trump came along.

Trump Needs Us, So He Listens to Us

No, Trump wasn’t our favorite candidate at first. But the Establishment hated him fanatically, tried every backroom trick to take him down. So Trump needed us. Like him, we were locked out by the establishment. It took us for granted, sold us out at the first low bid, and sneered at us. Just as it did at Trump. So we made common cause with him. We backed him, and he came around to supporting us on crucial issues. Unlike almost every Republican since Reagan, he kept his promises.

Every Snake Leaves a Trail

What can we say of Romney? I’m not an expert. I’ve frankly found him too dull to make of him a study. I’d rather just read Iago’s soliloquies in Othello. But some hard-working conservatives have tracked Romney’s serpentine undulations from right to left and back again. See Tricia Erickson. A political consultant, she published Can Mitt Romney Serve Two Masters? Much of that book questions tenets of Romney’s Mormon faith. But Erickson also exhaustively chronicles Romney’s ideological shape-shifting. Here are a few choice snippets.

On Protecting Unborn Children

• On his 1994 campaign flyer, Romney lists “Retain a woman’s right to choose” as one of his foremost matters.
• In 1994 the Boston Globe also reported Romney’s stance on the RU-486 abortion pill, quoting Romney as saying “I would favor having it available.”
• During a debate in 1994, Romney stated “I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country.” He further stated “I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years we should sustain and support it.” Romney claimed in 2005 that while he was running for governor in 2002, was “personally pro-life” yet still had a pro-life “conversion” in 2004.
• After his phony pro-life conversion based on embryonic stem cell research, Mitt stated that such research does not destroy human life, even though he believes life begins at conception and continued to support such research.
• Mitt signed into law $50 tax funded co-pay abortions as a “healthcare benefit” under his RomneyCare.
• Gave Planned Parenthood an instrumental role on the policy board in his Massachusetts healthcare plan, after his “pro-life conversion.”
• Appointed a pro-choice judge, Matthew Nestor, to a lifetime appointment on a Massachusetts court, after his “pro-life conversion.”

On Appointing Constitutionalist Judges

• Romney gave Planned Parenthood a instrumental role on the policy board in his Massachusetts healthcare plan after his “pro-life conversion.”
• Mitt awarded a MA district court judgeship to Stephen Albany, part of the MA Lesbian & Gay Bar Association & activist to repeal sodomy laws.
• According to the Boston Globe: Romney passed over GOP lawyers for three quarters of the 36 judicial vacancies he faced as governor, instead, tapping registered Democrats or independents, including two gay lawyers who supported gay rights.

On Same Sex Marriage and LGBT Activism

• Romney in 1994: Romney’s letter to Log Cabin Republicans: “As we seek to establish full equality for America’s gay and lesbian citizens, I will provide more effective leadership than my opponent.”
• 1994: Romney informed the Log Cabin Club … “Do you support the Protection of Marriage Amendment?” Romney: “No, because it would outlaw domestic partner benefits for gay couples.” Mitt simply “paid back” the Log Cabin Republicans for their instrumental role in getting him elected to the governorship, by purposely looking the other way so that gay marriage could be forced on to Massachusetts, and ultimately the United States of America.
• There is no law on the books in MA to this day that legalizes gay marriage.
• Romney increased funding for the homosexual indoctrination of children in Massachusetts schools. Romney’s policies caused Catholic adoption centers to close down, rather than to turn innocent children over to gay couples.

Trump Brought Us in from the Cold

There’s more, but you get the idea. This is the agenda that Romney, and most of the Republican Establishment, wanted to impose on the GOP. Had they fully succeeded, we and our views would be locked forever out of the “mainstream.” Biblical Christianity would be shunned and stigmatized as white racism rightly is. Churches eventually stripped of tax exemptions. Believers prosecuted for “discrimination.”

That’s the fate which the rise of Donald Trump has for the moment helped us avert. It’s the go-to agenda that most NeverTrumpers still have in their back pocket, ready to use the moment he falls.

We must see that he doesn’t, and think ahead about who can carry on his legacy. It can’t be one of his enemies who flattered their way into his good graces because they weren’t as proud as Romney. So maybe rule out most of Trump’s appointees in 2017.

John Zmirak is a Senior Editor at The Stream, and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration.