Booing Mitt Romney is an embarrassment – By Hal Boyd (Deseret News) / May 3 2021
Republicans rightly condemn cancel culture — the modern impulse to ostracize those who express unpopular perspectives. But conservative-types, like myself, begin to lose credibility when we go and try to cancel our own.
Associated Press The family of Michigan Gov.George Romney concentrate on his words as he addresses the platform committee of the Republican National Convention in San Francisco, July 8, 1964. From left to right, Lenore Romney; Mitt Romney and Scott Romney.
This weekend the GOP’s target was Utah Sen. Mitt Romney.
Local Republican delegates began booing as Sen. Mitt Romney took the stage at the Utah state convention. “You can boo all you like, but I’ve been a Republican all my life,” the junior senator responded. “My dad was a governor of Michigan, my dad worked for Republican candidates that he believed in … and if you don’t recall, I was the Republican nominee for president in 2012.”
Don’t get me wrong, politicians should be accountable to their constituents. Elected officials should hear their concerns. But booing is not dialogue; it’s the opposite: It’s intended to drown out discussion and dissent. Without open and civil debate within a party, it will grow ossified; the GOP will miss out on the innovation that’s bred from diverse intellectual exchanges.
Lamentably for Republicans, this is not an isolated incident. We have our own sad history of canceling disagreement.
