Mitt Romney has made no secret of his disapproval of the far-right takeover of his social gathering.

Romney, J.D./M.B.A. ’75, who simply introduced he wouldn’t search re-election to the Senate subsequent 12 months, was the one Republican to vote twice to question former President Donald Trump. He additionally denounced Trump over his push to disclaim the 2020 election outcomes and blamed him for inciting the Jan. 6 rebel.

In a revealing new guide, “Romney: A Reckoning,” McKay Coppins plumbs Romney’s soul-searching battle to come back to phrases with the far-right shift of the social gathering and the way his public rejection of Trump left the previous Republican governor of Massachusetts and presidential candidate feeling disillusioned and politically alone.

Coppins spoke with the Gazette about Romney’s sluggish recognition that he wouldn’t be capable of flip across the social gathering as he as soon as did corporations as a Bain Capital marketing consultant. The interview has been edited for readability and size.

GAZETTE:  Romney is called a really cautious, straightlaced politician. He’s not a salty, mercurial character just like the late John McCain, whom the press beloved to cowl. What sparked your curiosity in writing about him?

COPPINS: I had gotten to know him masking his presidential marketing campaign and profiling him for The Atlantic, however I might sense after Jan. 6, when he narrowly escaped the mob and noticed the leaders of his social gathering instigate what he thought of an rebel, he actually appeared like he was in a soul-searching temper. He was asking himself tough questions on what his social gathering had grow to be, what was taking place to the nation, and about his personal profession.

As a author, that’s form of the proper topic — any person who’s overtly entertaining tough questions — and so, I pitched him on doing this guide. I did inform him I solely wished to do it if he was able to be absolutely candid as a result of he has this popularity as being so cautious and so disciplined and constrained by consultants and speaking factors. And to my nice shock, he accepted my phrases and went for it.

I found fairly rapidly he does have a extra puckish facet to him. He has this irreverent humorousness; he understands how absurd political life will be; and he may even be a bit of dishy — that’s a part of why there’s a lot nice materials within the guide.

GAZETTE: Within the guide, you say his recognition and processing of what’s occurred to the Republican social gathering was “halting and messy.” Is that his reckoning?

COPPINS: I believe that this technique of coming to phrases along with his personal position within the Republican Get together, and what the social gathering now stands for, was laborious for him. There have been some conferences the place he would overtly muse about leaving the Republican Get together, after which the following assembly, he would stroll that again and say, “Nicely, I’m not a liberal,” after which, the following assembly, he would muse aloud about a few of the compromises he had made. He could be a bit of bit extra defensive. There’s one thing very human about that. There’s not a straight line towards enlightenment. That takes numerous laborious work.

I’m not a therapist, however it typically appeared virtually therapeutic, these conversations, for him. We had virtually 50 interviews over the course of two years, and I do suppose he went on form of a journey throughout that interval to the purpose the place, within the final interview we did for the guide, he was telling me that he was trying into formally leaving the Republican Get together and beginning a 3rd social gathering. I believe by the top of these two years, he had come to phrases with the truth that he doesn’t have a house within the GOP anymore.

GAZETTE: Behind the scenes, Romney was way more lively making an attempt to derail Trump than was beforehand recognized. As Trump began surging in 2016, he entertained getting within the race on the final minute. He met with Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York Metropolis mayor, to debate operating collectively as a spoiler unbiased ticket, and he lobbied different GOP main candidates, Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, to hitch forces with him to disclaim Trump delegates on the conference.

COPPINS: He did lots. I didn’t know till I acquired my arms on his emails from that interval how a lot work he was doing behind the scenes to deprive Trump of the delegates that he wanted to clinch the nomination.

The issue he saved operating into was that every one these candidates, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, had been too self-interested. They had been too consumed with short-term considering. All of them would inform him, “Donald Trump is a menace. It might be cataclysmic for the nation if he gained.” However none of them had been prepared to surrender even a modicum of short-term political benefit to cease him, and it simply drove Romney insane.

The assembly with Bloomberg was in [Jan.] 2016; he had a name from Oprah forward of 2020 about probably operating. I believe if Romney thought that operating an unbiased bid would cease Trump from changing into president, he would have executed it in a second. He didn’t suppose he might really win as an unbiased, however he wished to do it. It’s simply that the info he checked out satisfied him that he would find yourself serving to Trump and taking votes away from the Democratic candidate. And so, that’s why he stayed on the sidelines. You possibly can inform he was simply champing on the bit to get within the race.

GAZETTE: His must run towards a disaster is known as “the Romney obligation” by the household. Did he see himself as somebody uniquely certified to swoop in and save the day? Was that what he hoped to do when he first headed to Washington as a senator?

COPPINS: He does have an infinite quantity of confidence in his personal potential to make things better. It’s a part of why he struggled as a presidential candidate — as a result of he didn’t have an overarching philosophical imaginative and prescient that he was making an attempt to promote to the nation. The imaginative and prescient that he had was simply his personal pragmatic, technocratic potential to resolve issues.

When he got here to the Senate, he thought he might repair the Republican Get together. He thought he might steer it again towards a conventional Republicanism that he recognized with. [His late father, George Romney, was a successful auto executive, former Michigan governor, Nixon Cabinet secretary, and GOP presidential candidate in 1968.] As soon as he acquired to the Senate, he realized that the establishment itself was way more dysfunctional than he realized and that his social gathering had a depth of cynicism and hypocrisy that he wasn’t ready for, and by earlier this 12 months, he had realized that sticking round for one more time period most likely wasn’t going to vary that.

I’d not be shocked to see him play a job one way or the other within the 2024 race. I believe he actively needs to do every thing he can to cease Donald Trump from returning to the White Home. I don’t know what that’ll appear to be. Some individuals marvel if he’ll endorse Joe Biden; some individuals marvel if he’ll launch some form of spoiler bid for the presidency. I believe he simply needs to see how he will be helpful in that mission.

GAZETTE: Former President George W. Bush, who was on the Enterprise Faculty when Romney was right here getting a J.D./M.B.A., says within the guide, “At Harvard, there’s lots of people who consider the phrase ‘Harvard’ entitles them to suppose they’re smarter than all people else. Mitt Romney was not that manner.” Speak about his Harvard expertise — it was totally different than most of his friends’.

COPPINS: He was in a very totally different level of life when he arrived at Harvard. He was married; he had youngsters. They lived in Belmont, the place he was residing this conventional suburban life. He actually didn’t get there considering that he was this sensible mental drive. He had been a wonderful, however not star scholar when he was in highschool. He felt like he needed to put in extraordinarily lengthy hours finding out in order that he might sustain with everybody else, and he didn’t have an enormous social life on campus as a result of he had his spouse and children.

I believe that he noticed Harvard as a platform to comprehend his newfound ambition, which actually arrived for him after his Mormon mission. He acquired house from his mission and determined he wished to guide a severe life, which had not at all times been obvious to him.

GAZETTE: One false impression that dogged Romney was that he couldn’t probably be as earnest and healthful as he, in actuality, was. “I’m the genuine one that appears inauthentic,” he stated. And that turned a political albatross for him.

COPPINS: I believe it was very irritating for him that even when he was simply being himself, exhibiting affection for his spouse or cracking foolish jokes, individuals assumed that it was a phony put-on. And it wasn’t, however he didn’t know easy methods to talk the best way he was authentically. It was one thing much more irritating for his household, who felt just like the caricature of him within the media simply didn’t match in any respect the individual that they knew.

However I will even say that this was a failure of his presidential campaigns in some methods. They saved him on a really quick leash: They didn’t really need him ever speaking about his faith, which was central to his id, and to be actually cautious about how he talked about his enterprise profession as a result of that was additionally a legal responsibility in its personal manner. So that you’re taking two of the central parts of his life off the desk and also you’re left with this shell of a presidential candidate who doesn’t look like an actual particular person and permit your opponents to outline you. And I believe that’s what occurred to him.

GAZETTE: Why is he leaving the stage in such dramatic style? Some say he’s hoping to rewrite his political legacy.

COPPINS: Sure, I believe he’s desirous about his legacy. I believe he’s desirous about what his obituary will say, what the historical past books will say about him. And I believe we’d be higher off as a rustic if extra elected leaders had been considering that manner.

I requested him early on, are there any classes that you simply’d like future political leaders to take out of your story? And he stated, “I want that extra of us, together with myself, had been ready to consider how we might be remembered after we’re gone as a substitute of simply how our selections will play within the subsequent information cycle or the following election cycle.”

And so, you may ding him for making an attempt to rewrite his legacy, but when that was the factor that prompted him to lastly prioritize doing what was proper over doing what was politically handy, I believe that it’s a superb factor, and we must always count on it from extra of our political leaders.

Coppins will converse concerning the guide on the Cambridge Public Library on Monday, Oct. 30, 6 p.m., in a free occasion sponsored by Harvard E book Retailer.