Mitt Romney: And So Shines a Good Deed in a Weary World

Dear Senator Romney,

I hear that only four people watched your speech on the Senate floor. Yours was the only one I watched.

You don’t know me, but if you knew anything about me you would have found me on Twitter back 2012, laughing at you during a debate with President Obama. I wanted Obama to win because I am a Democrat. Because I am a Democrat I stand with democrats but I also loved President Obama and I did not want him to lose. So I allowed myself to think the worst of you. The internet makes that really easy. The modern era seems to sanction cruelty and dehumanization.

I am not proud to be part of a political party that is so sharply partisan we don’t really need to search for any kind of truth. We are content to be told what to think, what to feel, whom to judge. Most of us go along with it, because we’ve become tribal with the advent of social media. We are on one side. You are on the other, and never the twain shall meet.

Your speech on the Senate floor was a moment of clarity that broke the spell of partisanship and made me feel like there is still some sanity left somewhere. You did what no member of the Senate has ever done — you stepped outside of your political party at a time when it’s nearly suicidal to do so. This is true on both sides, sadly, as it has become almost criminal to talk to and sympathize with and work through problems with members of the opposition. We cannot continue this way and expect our country to progress. We have to find a way to talk to each other.

Today, you rejected that alignment of values that says you have to agree with what your party says you have to agree with. You knew it would put you on the other side of a tidal wave of fury, but you did it anyway. That takes guts, sir. I stand in awe and admiration of this. It will go down in the history books.

What I saw today is what I look for in a leader. I don’t see many of them around much. I know that there were many of your fellow Senators who felt the same way you did but did have the courage to defy party unity to do the right thing.

I wish that our government was full of more people like you, people willing to put themselves on the line for a greater truth. I don’t believe in God, I must admit, but I undersand that you do. All of those Senators, and the President, give lip service to their faith. You do not. You knew that you could not and would not lie before God.

You gave me hope today, something I have not felt in a long time. If you can do it, surely others can. It is horrific that the President felt it necessary to turn on you in public, and no doubt by now you are receiving death threats. You did not do it because it was easy, but because it was hard.

History will remember you well, Senator Romney. And in a few short minutes, you gave many of us our here in despair a little bit of hope.

Thank you.