I have often had a… let’s say “complicated” relationship with most of the Republican Party’s Presidential nominees and Mitt Romney was no exception to that. Looking back on it, for example, I certainly don’t regret doing this back in 2011:

A movement is bubbling in DC among conservative operatives and talking heads who don’t think Mitt Romney has what it takes to beat President Obama. Freedom Works’ Tabitha Hale, Gaypatriot.org blogger Bruce Carroll, Townhall’s John Hawkins, Tea Party activist Tiffiny Ruegner, and GOP political consultants Matt Mackowiak and Ali Akbar are launching NotMittRomney.com today as a grass-roots effort to oppose his nomination.

Today, Mitt Romney is generally looked at as a Country Club squish, just as he was when he was the Governor of Massachusetts. In between those two points, Mitt often tried to portray himself as a diehard conservative and as was the case with so many other people, it grated on my nerves. That doesn’t mean Mitt is always wrong or more of a shifty, say-whatever-it-takes to get his way politician than the average Republican in DC, it just means that in the immortal words of Judge Judy, it’s really aggravating to have a politician pee on your leg and then try to tell you it’s raining.

All that being said, despite himself, Mitt Romney managed to write a genuinely thought-provoking (albeit sometimes off-base) column for The Atlantic called, “America is in Denial.” Here’s an excerpt that will give you the flavor of the piece:

Even as we watch the reservoirs and lakes of the West go dry, we keep watering our lawns, soaking our golf courses, and growing water-thirsty crops.

As inflation mounts and the national debt balloons, progressive politicians vote for ever more spending.

As the ice caps melt and record temperatures make the evening news, we figure that buying a Prius and recycling the boxes from our daily Amazon deliveries will suffice.

When TV news outlets broadcast video after video of people illegally crossing the nation’s southern border, many of us change the channel.

And when a renowned conservative former federal appellate judge testifies that we are already in a war for our democracy and that January 6, 2021, was a genuine constitutional crisis, MAGA loyalists snicker that he speaks slowly and celebrate that most people weren’t watching.

What accounts for the blithe dismissal of potentially cataclysmic threats? The left thinks the right is at fault for ignoring climate change and the attacks on our political system. The right thinks the left is the problem for ignoring illegal immigration and the national debt. But wishful thinking happens across the political spectrum. More and more, we are a nation in denial.

… Bolstering our natural inclination toward wishful thinking are the carefully constructed, prejudice-confirming arguments from the usual gang of sophists, grifters, and truth-deniers. Watching angry commentators on cable news, I’m reminded of H. L. Mencken’s observation: “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

When entire countries fail to confront serious challenges, it doesn't end well. During the past half-century, we Americans have lived in a very forgiving time, and seeing the world through rose-colored glasses had limited consequences. The climate was stable, our economy dwarfed the competition, democracy was on the rise, and our military strength made the U.S. the sole global hyperpower. Today, every one of those things has changed. If we continue to ignore the real threats we face, America will inevitably suffer serious consequences.

As I’ve written before, I do not agree with Mitt’s take on global warming. In addition, I don’t have the same view of Jan 6. that Mitt does, although we do have to acknowledge that the run-up to it could have led to a serious constitutional crisis. It’s also worth pointing out that these aren’t “even-steven” problems between the Left and Right. Yes, the Right has its issues, but the Left is essentially to the point where they believe they can deconstruct reality and put it back together any way that they choose because some Marxist professors, college students, and mentally ill people think the world should work that way. When you’re putting this guy in charge of things in the government, you’re far gone to the point of needing more competent people around to save you from yourself.

It was tempting to pick out a handful of topics where America has stopped paying attention to what matters and make a neat little 7 item list out of them, but once you get into it, there are really too many of them to do justice at this point.

* The American public has heard so many warnings about our debt that they’ve stopped paying attention. However, it’s now to the point where it’s impacting our economy in the real world. Interest rates today should be TRIPLE what they currently are to try to bring down inflation, but our debt is preventing the Fed from going that high. Will their efforts to fight inflation work or will we end up with stagflation instead? No one knows because we’ve never gotten into this situation before. We’ve become increasingly irresponsible financially and the consequences are likely going to be economically catastrophic.

* In twenty years, both Medicare and Social Security may exist in name, but they almost certainly won’t function the same as they do today because every dime from both programs has been spent and they’re only being paid off with borrowed and printed money. Anyone telling you that there’s nothing to worry about with these programs is lying to you because if they told the American people the truth, they’d flip out.

* We’re increasingly a decadent and immoral nation filled with an ever-growing number of people that couldn’t fairly be called good or decent human beings. You can see that in everything from drag shows for kids, to teachers trying to push transsexuality on your kids to mass shootings. Certainly, there are still good people around, but percentage-wise, there are a lot fewer of them than there used to be. We’re marching right into the sewer as a nation and very few people seem to be speaking up about it.

* Embracing an attempt to rewrite the rules of government to keep liberals in power permanently is now a mainstream idea on the Left. If it wasn’t for Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, it is very possible that Democrats would have gotten rid of the legislative filibuster, stacked the Supreme Court (which would have meant the end of the Constitution), added Puerto Rico and DC as states, and rewrote election rules to centralize elections and make it easier for the Left to cheat. If you were looking for a recipe to create coups, secession, revolutions, or civil wars, you couldn’t do much better than that.