While Democratic Party strategists seem stuck in a loop of chasing down the last remaining Never Trump Republicans, some of the GOP's biggest names are willing to admit that the old conservatism is a thing of the past.
Sen. Mitt Romney, a choice straight out of central casting for the sort of blue-blood establishment Republican that once defined the party, admitted that his time was done in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper.
“MAGA is the Republican Party," the staunch critic of the president-elect shared on Sunday. Donald Trump is the Republican Party today.”
Romney has maintained a public dislike of Trump throughout the MAGA figurehead's decade-plus on the political scene. He voted against the president-elect in both of his impeachments and has never cast a ballot for him in a presidential election.
"I’m, as you know, not a supporter of President Trump’s. I didn’t support him in this election. I didn’t the last time he ran either, largely for matters of character,” the one-time Republican presidential nominee shared.
Still, he recognizes that his mannered Yankee conservatism has fully given way to the conspiratorial hooting of Sun Belt extremists. Trump, himself a coastal elite, played to his base when he permanently decamped his life-long home in New York for the resort communities of Florida. And while Romney may not like the man, he told Tapper that he's willing to play along if it means advancing Republican political goals.
“I think most people disagree with me. I’m willing to live with that. I just put emphasis on different things than I think the public at large does right now,” he said of his feelings on Trump before adding that he deserves a shot to do right in his second term.
“I agree with him on a lot of policy fronts. I disagree with him on some things,” Romney said. “But it’s like, OK, give him a chance to do what he said he’s gonna do and see how it works out.”
Watch Romney's entire interview below:
