Why I could never be a Trumpist - example number nine gazillion and seventeen

Look, Mitt Romney's vote was clearly, to anyone not viewing the situation through a tribe-defense lens, an act of conscience. He was not motivated by 2012 sour grapes or his personal interactions with Donald Trump through the years. He was stating a conclusion based on the evidence he'd seen. That's all. Trying to affix some underlying motive is a sleazy-ass waste of time.

But it's best not to dwell on that. There's been no shortage of vitriol hurled the Utah Senator's way as a result of his conviction vote in the impeachment trial.

But one expression of it that is worth noting and pondering is this from one of the Very Stable Genius's offspring:

Donald Trump Jr. posted a picture on Instagram calling Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) a “pussy” after the former GOP presidential candidate announced that he would be voting to convict President Trump on one of two impeachment charges. The picture featured Romney wearing high-waisted jeans, and was captioned: “Mom Jeans, Because you’re a pussy.” Trump Jr., who recently released a book titled Triggered, wrote: “Mitt Romney is forever bitter that he will never be POTUS. He was too weak to beat the Democrats then so he’s joining them now,” Trump Jr. ended his post by calling for Romney to be expelled from the GOP for being part of “the resistance.” On the Senate floor Wednesday, Romney announced that he would be the first Republican to vote to convict Trump of abuse of power. He said the president was “guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust.”

This is why you can talk all day long about the GDP and the stock market, minority unemployment numbers, and wage growth, you can talk about the momentary sum-total stability characterizing the world's hot spots, but there is quite obviously something very wrong when someone in this man's position sends this out because he knows it's going to resonate with a significant percentage of the citizenry. This is the level to which we have permitted ourselves to descend. This is Nancy-tearing-the-speech-in-half level free-falling.

There is no grace in Trumpism world. There is no room for someone to disagree on either a policy level or a level of making conclusions about Trump's character. There is no room to take the full measure of one's fellow human being, and grant him or her the space to make weighty decisions based on extremely difficult deliberation. You have to relate, if you are the Very Stable Genius, to someone like Mitt Romney like there isn't room for both of you on some imagined stage that you operate on. Consulting of one's conscience, unless it aligns with The Movement's aims, must be derided out of existence. 

I'm not saying anything here in either support for, or opposition to anyone vying for any office in our land. What I am saying is that we need to take an unflinching look at what we have made of our civilization.