The Senate voted to acquit President Trump on Wednesday in the least-surprising conclusion possible to the impeachment affair. The vote fell basically along party lines with a notable exception: Former 2012 GOP presidential nominee and Utah Sen. Mitt Romney voted “guilty” on the article of impeachment alleging Trump abused his power.

The vote itself isn’t absurd. Trump’s impeachment is a complicated enough issue that conservatives can disagree in good faith on whether or not the president’s conduct is worthy of removal, but, as far the post-vote liberal media fanfare and Never Trump applause lauding Romney as some sort of brave, principled hero is concerned? Give me a break. You might like or hate the senator’s impeachment vote, but, either way, he’s still an unprincipled hack.

Romney’s years of flip-flopping on gun rights, abortion, and even tax policy should be enough to prove that, but let's also take a quick trip down memory lane to his 2012 presidential campaign.

Not only did Romney blow with the wind when it came to gay rights — he supported gay rights until he didn’t — he threw a loyal gay Republican aide on his presidential campaign under the bus just because he faced backlash from some ignorant social conservatives who somehow thought a gay adviser would make Romney's foreign policy too gay, or something.

That aide, Richard Grenell, is now the highest-ranking gay official in the Trump administration. Trump has shown much more guts and principle than Romney ever did when it comes to standing by gay supporters.

Back in 2012, Grenell joined the Romney campaign after having served in the Bush administration. He had impeccable credentials, and he even came at the recommendation of GOP stalwarts such as John Bolton. Yet, after the criticisms started rolling in from anti-gay conservatives, the Romney campaign muzzled Grenell, even forbidding him to speak on an important foreign policy call he was expected to lead on. According to the New York Times, “Those close to Mr. Grenell ... insist that, when he had sought forceful support from those who had entrusted him with a major role, the campaign seemed to be focused, instead, on quieting a political storm that could detract from Mr. Romney’s message and his appeal to a crucial constituency.”

Romney officials claim that they tried to keep Grenell from resigning, but no one really believes that. It's pretty simple: Grenell had to resign because Romney didn’t have his back. Romney wasn’t “brave” or “principled” enough to tell anti-gay critics to pound sand when he thought it could cost him even slightly in the polls.

The liberal media might be willing to overlook Romney’s long history of spinelessness just because he’s now a rare Republican willing to say, “Orange man bad.” Just look at how they’ve glowingly received former "birther"-turned-Trump challenger Joe Walsh. I, for one, am not.