July 21, 2024 - 3:20pm
Playwright and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has today encouraged the Democratic Party to nominate Republican senator Mitt Romney as its presidential candidate.
In a guest essay for the New York Times Sorkin, who created political drama series The West Wing and won an Academy Award for writing the screenplay of The Social Network, argues that former GOP presidential candidate Romney âwould peel off enough Republican votes to win, probably by a lotâ against Donald Trump. Sorkin adds that nominating the Utah senator would be âa clear and powerful demonstration that this election isnât about what our elections are usually about, but about stopping a deranged man from taking powerâ.
Sorkin has been a steadfast supporter of the Democratic Party for several decades. Between 1999 and 2013, he is on record as having donated $289,400 to party campaigns, while he wrote campaign ads for the Democrats during the 2004 presidential election.
When Trump beat Hillary Clinton to the presidency in 2016 Sorkin published an open letter to his wife and teenage daughter, calling the result âtruly horribleâ and Trump âa thoroughly incompetent pig with dangerous ideas, a serious psychiatric disorder, no knowledge of the world and no curiosity to learnâ. He added of the Republicanâs supporters that âthe Klan won last night. White nationalists. Sexists, racists and buffoons,â and suggested that âthere is a party going on at ISIS headquarters.â
In todayâs NYT article, Sorkin similarly labels Trump âa dangerous imbecile with an observable psychiatric disorderâ and âa dump truck of ignorance and bad intentionsâ. He also accuses the GOP nominee of âtreat[ing] the law as something for suckers and poor peopleâ and of being âa hero for white supremacistsâ. Arguing that âthere isnât a Democrat who is polling significantly better than Mr. Bidenâ, Sorkin claims that nominating Romney to take on Trump âwould not just put a lump in peopleâs throats with its appeal to stop-Donald-Trump-at-all-costs unity, but with its originality and sense of sacrificeâ.
Romney has served as a senator in Utah since 2019, having previously been governor of Massachusetts. He was the Republican candidate for president in 2012, but lost to incumbent Barack Obama, and Sorkin suggests in his piece today that one of Romneyâs strengths is that he âdoesnât have to be introduced to votersâ. During Trumpâs first impeachment trial in 2020, Romney was the only Republican senator to vote to convict the then-President, and has since established himself as the partyâs leading critic of this yearâs nominee. He announced last year that he would not seek re-election to the Senate in 2024.
Sorkinâs NYT op-ed addresses the objections Democratic voters might have to Romneyâs conservative politics, conceding that the Utah senator does not support abortion rights and is unlikely to âaggressively raise the minimum wage, bolster public education, strengthen unions, expand transgender rights and enact progressive tax reformâ. Nonetheless, the writer claims, Romney is not âa cartoon thug who did nothing but watch TV while the mob he assembled beat and used Tasers on police officersâ.
Joe Biden has come under increasing pressure from senior Democrats to step down, with 37 Democratic and Independent lawmakers encouraging him to quit the White House race. Obama has reportedly expressed concerns about Bidenâs fitness to run, and Sorkinâs article encourages the former president to âremind us, once again, that weâre not red states and blue states but the United States by full-throatedly endorsing his old rival [Romney]â. Nominating a Republican to beat Trump, according to Sorkin, is âa grand gesture. A sacrifice. It would put a lump in our throats.â Whatâs more, he adds, âit would be the end of Donald Trump in presidential politics.â
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SubscribeFor anyone who needed proof Sorkin was never even close to as smart as he pretended to be.
About a dumb an idea as I have ever heard.
Wonder if he will move to Canada in November.
They keep promising us they will but never seem to follow through. Kinda like democratic politicians.
Please, no. Send your deranged TDS sufferers someplace else. Got our hands full here with Trudeau, Thanks.
What if they seek asylum?
Hopefully they try to walk across the Great Lakes.
That would require them going to âflyover countryâ and would never happen.
The Dems badly screwed up by nixing a meaningful primary process that would have given legitimate contenders like RFK, Jr. exposure to voters open to a Biden alternative. They are reaping what they’ve sown, as Kennedy now has little chance without major party backing.
Given that, I like the idea of Romney or Liz Cheney, both people of principle, and think each worthy of bipartisan support based on those principles. (I, for one, would be relieved to have a president who does not champion the nonexistent “right” of a male to be recognized as female.) Neither, though, would accept the nomination without a substantial revision of the Democratic platform. That may well be in order, but seems considerably less likely than Biden stepping aside.
Sorkin’s motivation in suggesting Romney is obstructionist — how do we block the other side, keep Trump out of the White House? — which despite his claim, is simply a continuation rather than a departure from what American politics today are usually about. I hope I live to see the day when voters are again most motivated to vote for candidates they admire, not against those they loathe.
I couldn’t see RFK Jr being the Democrat nominee. What would the voiceover on the TV commercial be? “You want mad? Well our guy is madder than your guy!”
Hmm. Iâm pretty sure Romney was a racist when running in 2012 – according to people like Sorkin.
Mitt Romney – the man with binders full of women?
The man who kept money in offshore tax havens?
The man who said 47% of the electorate would not vote for him because they were on government assistance?
The man who transported his dog on the roof of his car?
The man who if he thought it was good to say the sky was green and the grass was blue to win an election, heâd say it?
There is zero chance of him being the candidate.
Here is why Mitt Romney will not be the Democrat candidate
I donât get it. Heâs Mormon. Thatâs what they look like. Whatâs your point?
People who look like that are going to be on Democrat advertising campaigns?
Just think of his carbon dioxide debt to the planet đ
Mormons do have a lot of kids, but do they have to dress them in matching shirts made from an old tablecloth?
This.
It’s a dumb idea but I’m in favour of it precisely as it would help Trump. Romney is more anti-abortion than Trump so the ‘Democrat’ ticket would lose all the feminist and woke votes to 3rd parties or abstentions. Trump might win 40+ states in such a case.
Seriously delusional
Yet more evidence that people whose livelihood is adolescent fantasy should refrain from commenting on politics.
What a thoroughly nasty piece of work. Sorkin, that is.
Yet again, we have this fallacy that a large proportion of people who vote for Trump are all bad/stupid/deplorable and that people who might be bad/stupid/deplorable only vote for Trump.
The whole point of democracy is that you get to make your own decision about what you think best and are not influenced by other people telling you that “you’re voting with the bad guys”. In pushing that view, all the self-styled “progressives” are doing is endorsing tribal voting and identity politics. For highly educated people, many of them are pretty stupid.
The problem is not that of stupid people voting for Trump but one of people voting for a stupid person like Trump.
It may be that Sorkin thinks Trump supporters are (to quote Hillary Clinton) “deplorables”, but that is _not_ what the article says.
It accuses Trump of being a Pied Piper for people who are so desperate, they’ll vote for any old deranged buffoon who tells them what they want to hear.
There seem to be quite a few Trump supporters here. Can anyone explain to this centre-right Brit why on earth you think a creature like Trump is worthy of the presidency?
My take, as a center right Brit, is they have seen the good things Trump did as President, the bad things Obama and Biden did and the choice is clear. On top of that Trump is not afraid to speak his mind (or at least not like a normal politician would) and that is refreshing.
Just like me they are sick of the Uniparty but unlike us have a leader able to smash it and offer a real, and sensible, alternative.
Perhaps, but the article does quote Sorkin as saying this:
“He added of the Republicanâs supporters that âthe Klan won last night. White nationalists. Sexists, racists and buffoons,â ”
I’m not a Trump supporter (in any case, we don’t get to vote), nor do I think he’s worthy of the presidency (I’ve got some standards !). However, he did seem to be the least worst option when the alternative was Biden.
I’ve said this before: if your team loses at football, you don’t usually blame the opposition manager. The Democrats should be mad at their own incompetent leaders rather than Trump.
Because all the alternatives that our incredibly incompetent and hate-filled establishment offers are even worse. (Writing from Chicago.)
Many/most of you Brits have been given a very distorted idea of what is going on in American politics. I had no strong opinion about Sunak vs Starmer vs Farage vs whomever for the Lib Dems because I knew what I didnât know. Yâall might ruminate on why you think what you think about things 3000 miles away.
If this was a season finale to “The West Wing”, choosing Romney would be perfect. But it’s real life, where the distinction between Republicans and Democrats is tribal and visceral. The Democrats would be best advised to pick the sanest of their high-profile senators – and preferably someone young enough to be a credible re-election candidate.
So far as the rest of the world goes, only Putin, Xi and the Iranian ayatollahs would welcome a Trump presidency.
“….calling the result âtruly horribleâ and Trump âa thoroughly incompetent pig with dangerous ideas, a serious psychiatric disorder, no knowledge of the world and no curiosity to learn”â. Sorkin is clearly a perspicacious man.
What a remarkable article with a quite refreshing take on the presidential contest.
I’m confused by his argument that Dems nominate a Republican but then suggests Mitt Romney.
What a joke.
This demonstrates that Trump Derangement Syndrome breaks peopleâs brains not merely on the subject of Trump, but across many other domains.
He might want to actually THINK about this a little more thouroughly
Along with Mike Pence, Mitt Romney was one of the few Republicans to behave with honour.