Utah Republican Mitt Romney celebrated Independence Day in the July 4 Atlantic with “America Is in Denial,” an essay charging that “too many Americans are blithely dismissing threats that could prove cataclysmic.”

For example, “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 so on, but the author quickly tips his hand.

“A classic example of denial comes from Donald Trump,” who claims he won the 2020 election. As Romney wonders, “Perhaps this is a branch of the same delusion that leads people to feed money into slot machines: Because I really want to win, I believe that I will win.” If Romney conducted any audits of the 2020 vote, compared overall voter fraud to past elections, or had taken a peek at Dinesh D’Souza’s 2000 Mules, nothing emerges here.

“President Joe Biden is a genuinely good man,” Romney wrote, “but he has yet been unable to break through our national malady of denial, deceit, and distrust. A return of Donald Trump would feed the sickness, probably rendering it incurable.”

Romney fails to mention anything President Trump accomplished, such as a strong economy, secure borders, low inflation, high rates of employment, energy independence, and the Abraham Accords. Trump achieved all this while facing hoaxes supported by Mitt Romney.

“I believe that the act he [Trump] took, an effort to corrupt an election, is as destructive an attack on the oath of office and our Constitution as I can imagine,” Romney said. “It is a high crime and misdemeanor within the meaning of the Constitution, and that is not a decision I take lightly. It is the last decision I want to take.” That is hard to top but Mitt wasn’t done. “Yeah, again, I can’t let personal considerations, if you will, overwhelm my conscience and overwhelm my oath to God.”

In his statement on the events of January 6, 2021, Romney said “What happened here today was an insurrection, incited by the President of the United States. Those who choose to continue to support his dangerous gambit by objecting to the results of a legitimate, democratic election will forever be seen as being complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy.” And so forth, italics original.

“Today, we call to mind the memory of those who were tragically lost on the 6th and in the following days,” wrote Romney in his Jan. 6  anniversary statement, which failed to name Trump supporter and U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, the only person “lost” to gunfire that day. “We reflect with gratitude on the heroic efforts of those who protected the U.S. Capitol and all of us inside the building,” perhaps a veiled reference to Capitol Police officer Michael Byrd, who gunned down the unarmed Babbitt and faced no charges.

For Sen. Romney, “the best way we can show respect for voters who are upset is by telling them the truth,” and it was all about “ensuring that our democracy endures.” On July 4, Romney picked up the theme. The return of Trump would be the worst thing in the world, but the pious Utah Republican fails to detail “genuinely good man” Joe Biden.

Biden bragged about the Ukrainian “son of a bitch” who got fired, and called a reporter a “stupid son of bitch” over a question about inflation. In a discussion of the Second Amendment, Biden told an autoworker “you’re full of shit” and African Americans who fail to support Biden “ain’t black.”

For Biden, the Chinese  Communists are “not bad folks” and Biden has financial entanglements with the regime through son Hunter. The Delaware Democrat is a genuine serial plagiarist, and there’s policy to consider.

Romney took a pass on Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. The genuinely good man has essentially eliminated the southern border and ships illegals around the country in secret flights. On this issue, Romney seems to have forgotten his own record.

In a January 2012 Republican debate, Tampa Bay Times political editor Adam Smith, asked, “Governor Romney, there is one thing I’m confused about. You say you don’t want to go and round up people and deport them, but you also say that they would have to go back to their home countries and then apply for citizenship. So, if you don’t deport them, how do you send them home?”

“The answer is self-deportation,” Romney responded, “which is people decide they can do better by going home because they can’t find work here because they don’t have legal documentation to allow them to work here. And so we’re not going to round people up.”

That nonsense doubtless played a role in Romney’s loss, along with the proclamation that nearly half the population was not going to vote for him. He also failed to deploy the best research on his opponent, Paul Kengor’s The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor.

If anybody thought Romney threw the 2012 election it would be hard to blame them. In 2022, the Utah Republican isn’t saying how many illegals have “self-deported.” For Romney, the addled Joe Biden is a “genuinely good man” and the worst thing in the world would be the return of Donald Trump.

Embattled Americans might recall that Mitt is the son of former American Motors boss and Michigan governor George Romney. His 1968 bid for the presidency went nowhere.

As Edward Gibbon noted, of all the ruling arrangements, a heredity monarchy is the most risible. As Mitt Romney confirms, a heredity presidential loser is even more so.