Mitt Romney and America’s descent to family politics

Mitt Romney appeared recently in Iowa to egg on the inspired and interesting State Sen. Joni Ernst (R) to her primary victory. It was characteristic of the Mind of Mitt. He knew she would win; it was a slam dunk. And she would vie then with South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) for his vice presidential slot in 2016. His support of her would help define him as well. And it gave him a presence in Iowa without the definite observation that he was there because he was thinking of running for president in 2016 like the others. But he is, and he was there in iowa for that as well.

{mosads}Romney understands things. He understands that when young teenagers today begin giving a three-fingered salute at high school graduations as they began doing in 2008, it means something generationally; something potentially revolutionary for an entire generation. Today, Thailand’s coup protesters use the same three-fingered salute and the junta has banned the book, The Hunger Games. Romney got it right away. He went to see the movie on the weekend it opened with his grandchildren. He also read all three books in the series. He reads while the others watch daytime TV and do yoga exercises. Probably he recognized the ending closely suggested that of the classic revolutionary text of 1933, Man’s Fate (La condition humaine) by Andre Malraux when all the others didn’t.

Romney will likewise recognize that the call for more Bushes, more Kennedys, more Cuomos and more Clintons brings a dangerous descent to monarchy in America. It is the eternal problem of a vast government without fences and the last fences in America were removed in 1913 by the 17th Amendment. We were no longer thereafter a government of states, but a government of tribes. Possibly it cannot be stopped.

Watching Romney with fascination here in New Hampshire, I’d suggest that he might be considering his moral responsibility to America if we are heading inexorably to government by families. Possibly we will collapse and fall into warring regions within 20 years, as the TV show “Revolution” predicts.  Or a “glorious revolution” will occur. The healthy and wealthy middle states — about 30 of them — will formulate together in opposition to the edges. And that has already begun.

Family government would be a full denial of constitutional principles. Default to democratic monarchy would mean in short time accepting dominance by a specific family and that family’s specific values. Possibly we have already passed to it with the two Roosevelts.

But if America is to be run by a family, Romney has a family too. In Queen Victoria’s day, her royal family made every British family at home or abroad a Victorian, it is said — including my Irish aunties. Likewise, a Romney family might instill Romney family values in every family in America and in the Anglosphere as well.

Now there is a thought.

It would not be unfair for Romney to be thinking to himself today that America, swayed as Aldous Huxley said it would be, by sense and feeling formed by TV, movies and the slurry of constant music from hell forever in the grocery stores, is reaching final descent. It would not be unfair for him to be asking himself what would be the best family for America to be going forward with if America insists in going with a family: Roosevelt, Kennedy, Bush, Clinton, Cuomo, House of Windsor, the Addams Family, the Phil Robertson family or the Manson family?

Or the Mitt Romney family?

Quigley is a prize-winning writer who has worked more than 35 years as a book and magazine editor, political commentator and reviewer. For 20 years he has been an amateur farmer, raising Tunis sheep and organic vegetables. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and four children. Contact him at quigley1985@gmail.com.