Much like the mainstream media, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, marked the arrival of the Biden administration this week with a dramatic shift in tone.
Romney, the only Republican in either chamber of Congress to vote in favor of former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, was a constant critic of his own party’s elected leader.
But according to Salt Lake City’s ABC 4, he had fawning praise for incoming President Joe Biden’s inaugural remarks.
Biden’s call for unity has been regarded as highly disingenuous—even ironic—given his refusal to denounce House Democrats’ specious impeachment do-over of his predecessor, as well as the shocking crackdown on conservative speech and civil liberties.
The air of dystopian oppressiveness was punctuated by the militarized inauguration ceremony featuring some 25,000 National Guardsmen.
For Romney, who ceded the 2012 presidential race to the Obama–Biden ticket, Biden’s words were aspirational.
“I thought it was very strong and very much needed,” he said. “We as a nation come together if we are told the truth and if we have leaders who stand for enduring American principles.”
Romney also plans to keep a much lower profile during Biden’s reign.
“I would only ever criticize him personally if I thought he was doing something that was detrimental to the unity of our country, and the character of our country,” Romney said.
Despite an abundance of evidence that Democrats targeted several key swing states with a massive vote-fraud effort to sway the election outcome, Romney insisted only three days after the election that it was irresponsible to accuse them of it.
Trump was “wrong to say the election was rigged, corrupt and stolen,″ Romney posted to Twitter on Nov. 6.
He went on to say the allegation “damages the cause of freedom here and around the world … and recklessly inflames destructive and dangerous passions,” the Associated Press reported.
While Romney did, in October, call out the Left for lending aid and comfort to Antifa insurrections nationwide, he framed those remarks by painting a false equivalency to the QAnon conspiracy theory and other nonviolent movements.
“The President’s willingness to denounce an absurd and dangerous conspiracy theory last night continues an alarming pattern,” wrote Romney on Twitter, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
“Politicians and parties refuse to forcefully and convincingly repudiate groups like Antifa, white supremacists and conspiracy peddlers,” he continued. “Similarly troubling is their silence regarding anti-vaxxers, militias, and anarchists,” he said.
Some have linked the recent uprising to the US Capitol to QAnon adherents. However, at the time of Romney’s remarks, there was no evidence of any violence on the scale of Antifa’s months of protest and occupation of major US cities.
