The “Elixir of Freedom”: Mitt Romney Weighs In on Trump’s Second Term
Graphic by Kerrie Zhu
On April 13, the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School hosted a conversation between Mitt Romney—former U.S. Senator from Utah, governor of Massachusetts, and presidential candidate—and Jill Lepore, the David Woods Kemper Professor of American History at Harvard College. The event marked the second installment in “America at 250 and Beyond,” a series of conversations hosted at the IOP celebrating America’s semiquincentennial by discussing the nation’s history and its path forward. One of Trump’s most prominent Republican critics, Romney commented on the direction of both the party and the country.
Starting his career as a consultant, Romney became the co-founder and chief executive officer of Bain Capital, before leaving to run the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Before his involvement, the Olympics had been plagued by scandals over rights to the games and were facing losses of hundreds of millions of dollars. Romney cut the budget by $200 million, leading to a $50 million surplus. He would go on to become Governor of Massachusetts as well as the Republican nominee in the 2012 presidential election.
Lepore began the conversation by asking Romney whether President Donald Trump’s election in 2016 marked a departure from traditional Republican ideals or whether it was comparable to Barry Goldwater’s rise in the mid-century, which American political historian Richard Hofstadter argued was reliant on “exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.”
“I think the departure has happened in the last several years,” Romney replied. “President Trump represents a more dramatic departure from, if you will, the Reagan Republican Party, and the party my dad would have recognized.”
He cited Democratic policies like President Joe Biden’s border policy, cultural issues like sex changes for prisoners, and support for the “defund the police” movement as having fueled the demographic shift underlying this change.
Romney acknowledged that both parties have moved to the fringe, citing the nomination process, campaign finance regulations, and social media as reasons for the increased polarization. “We have fewer and fewer people willing to participate in primaries,” Romney said. “The people who tend to go to a caucus … the people who are going to go to a convention … are the people who are rabidly interested in some issue or the other.” He also criticized social media for only offering users news that fits their ideology, straining the nation of what he called “common facts.” Finally, he mentioned the disproportionate influence of megadonors.
In terms of partisanship within the government, Romney warned the audience about a growing lack of separation between the three branches of government. With the Republican Congress generally following the Trump administration’s lead and both parties recently having deployed the “nuclear option” to require only a simple majority for judicial appointments, Romney said that the legislative and judicial branches are more partisan and less independent. This dynamic, he warned, rewards politicians for party loyalty rather than sound legislation.
“The reason we’re not able to address the challenges we have is that many people have gone to Washington looking to keep their job, not get something good done,” Romney said. He named artificial intelligence, climate change, energy policy, and the national debt as key challenges going unaddressed.
Romney also sharply criticized President Trump’s foreign policy, especially the administration’s posture toward European allies. Trump has attempted to acquire Greenland and threatened to leave the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). While Romney said he agrees that European partners should contribute more to NATO, he emphasized the importance of strong alliances in confronting China’s economic and geopolitical rise. “In that battle, we want as many friends as we can possibly have,” he said. “I want to link arms with our allies. I want to be able to say to China, ‘as long as you play by these economic rules, none of us are going to allow your goods to come into our country.’”
Romney’s criticisms of contemporary American politics painted the audience a pessimistic picture, so Lepore asked him to consider Gerald Ford’s inaugural address—when Ford famously told the nation, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”
“Who will make that speech one day about this moment?” Lepore asked. Without naming a specific figure, Romney replied that the great civilizations of history have reversed decline in three ways: an exceptional leader, a crisis, or a rising generation.
He placed President Abraham Lincoln and—to a lesser degree—Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan within the first camp. He described the unity that can be derived from a crisis. Finally, he mentioned Jon Grispan’s “An Age of Acrimony,” which examines American democracy during Reconstruction.
“I met with the author, and he said [the Civil War enmity] dissipated in the beginning of the 1900s, from 1865 to about 1910. The young generation said enough. The rising generation wouldn’t buy into it,” Romney said.
With those three options on the table, Romney left his audience with a cautiously optimistic prediction for America’s future. “We’re still the greatest nation, in my view, on earth. There is an extraordinary elixir that America enjoys: the elixir of freedom,” he said. “I’m convinced that our best days are ahead, but we’re gonna face some challenges to get there.”
Morgan Jay ’29 (mjay@college.harvard.edu)writes News for the “Harvard Independent.”