In The Very Long Run

Interviewed early Wednesday by Fox News' Chris Wallace, Utah senator Mitt Romney stated "There's a hymn that is sung in my church. It's an old Protestant hymn, which is "Do What is Right, Let the Consequence Follow."


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He did, and it will. The consequences will be swift and severe from the Trumps and probably, ironically, from President Trump's white evangelical base. They will be no less so- and probably more so because Romney's speech on the Senate floor yesterday afternoon included

The allegations made in the articles of impeachment are very serious. As a senator-juror, I swore an oath before God to exercise impartial justice. I am profoundly religious. My faith is at the heart of who I am. I take an oath before God as enormously consequential. I knew from the outset that being tasked with judging the president, the leader of my own party, would be the most difficult decision I have ever faced. I was not wrong....

But my promise before God to apply impartial justice required that I put my personal feelings and political biases aside. Were I to ignore the evidence that has been presented and disregard what I believe my oath and the Constitution demands of me for the sake of a partisan end, it would, I fear, expose my character to history’s rebuke and the censure of my own conscience.

"My faith is at the heart of who I am," Romney stated, and it would have even been more eloquent had he specified "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," "Mormon," or "as a Latter-Day Saint."

That would have been especially cutting. Wikipedia describes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as "a non-trinitarian,  Christian restorationist church," though some theologians believe "Christian" and "non-trinitarian" is a contradiction in terms. While there are three (Romney and two other) Republican Mormons in the US Senate, every other GOP senator, aside from the three as non-denominational Protestant, identifies with a Christian denomination of some sort.

Fifty (or fifty-three) Christian Republicans in the Senate, and there was one Republican senator who found a conscience Wednesday.

There was only one out of 53 Republicans who did the right thing; only one out of 53 whose legacy will not include giving a profane and bigoted, non-believing egomaniacal abuser of the presidency license to continue demeaning and degrading America and his fellow Americans.

Among Republicans, there was only one member  (except for Independent Justin Amash) of the entire Congress of 250 Republicans who decided that the consequences in this life of betraying his party are secondary to the consequences of betraying his God.

This impulse on the part of Willard "Mitt" Romney may not last; he is still a dyed in the wool conservative Republican and compromises with his conscience may be inevitable.  Still, for one day at least he had the courage- and foresight- to do as no other Republican would, to value his relationship with the divine over his own political fortunes. And in eternity, those are the true consequences.

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