Senator Kelly Loeffler, Republican of Georgia, returns to the Senate chamber after a break in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, January 23, 2020. (Joshua Roberts / Reuters)

My Impromptus today is mainly about the Republican party, with some Democrats thrown in. I lead with Kelly Loeffler — about whom Trump forces had great concern. She is the new senator from Georgia, appointed by Governor Brian Kemp.

President Trump and his people wanted another Georgian, House member Doug Collins. For one thing, Loeffler had donated to Mitt Romney, which is highly suspect. But Kemp went with Loeffler, in almost an act of defiance.


It has turned out great, though. Not long after she was sworn in, Loeffler tweeted, “After 2 weeks, it’s clear that Democrats have no case for impeachment. Sadly, my colleague @SenatorRomney wants to appease the left by calling witnesses who will slander the @realDonaldTrump during their 15 minutes of fame.”

See? She’s perfect.

In fact, Trump singled her out for praise in his post-acquittal celebration. He said she was “downright nasty and mean” — pretty much the highest accolade.


Another recent senatorial appointee — senator appointed by a governor — is Martha McSally, the Republican from Arizona. A fundraising letter is being sent around in her behalf. Its heading begins, “She stood up to Mitt Romney.”

Did she ever. So did the 51 other Republicans who voted to acquit Trump. Romney was the only dissenter. In my column today, I say that “I would like to congratulate the 52 united Republicans on their bravery in standing up to the lone dissenter. Profiles in courage, all of them.”


A veteran Republican from Georgia writes me that nine Republicans, thus far, are running for an open congressional seat in the 14th District. “Deadliest attack to date: accusing a rival of contributing to Mitt Romney in 2012.”

That’s it. As I say in Impromptus, Romney appears to be the new Emmanuel Goldstein for the GOP — meaning that Viktor Orbán has Soros all to himself.


Many have called for Romney to be expelled from the Republican party, including Donald Trump Jr. (The GOP’s next presidential nominee? Or will it be Ivanka? Don Jr. seems the more Republican, frankly.) According to Brad Parscale, Trump Sr.’s campaign manager, Romney is an “irrelevant relic,” who acts as he does in order to receive “elitist dinner invites.”

That is perfect Republican talk (although, tbh, “cocktail parties” is the phrase of choice).


In a sense, I agree with the expellers, or would-be expellers: Romney and today’s GOP don’t match. One is not like the other.

Interviewed by Greta Van Susteren over the weekend, Matt Schlapp, the head of CPAC, said, “I’d actually be afraid for his physical safety,” if Romney attended that conference (meaning, CPAC). That is a candid and bracing remark.

How about the Democrats? Their presidential debate on Friday night was revealing — redundantly so. It was like the candidates were running for the presidency of the Oberlin student council, not the presidency of the United States. The debate was a woke-off — a nutty, screwy woke-off. If the Dems offer no better alternative to Trump and Trump’s GOP, they will lose, and deserve to.

Elsewhere, one of the candidates, Bernie Sanders, said, in effect, that you can’t be pro-life and a Democrat, both. I had two questions. (1) Is Sanders himself a Democrat? (2) Could he not at least have nodded in the direction of freedom of conscience? Just paid a little lip service?

No.


For the past 35 years or so, I’ve adapted a line from Dr. Johnson: I’m sick of hearing yelps about compassion from the champions of abortion on demand.

When I talk this way these days, my Democratic critics say, “Kids in cages! Kids in cages!” I understand, trust me. But the other has to be reckoned with as well. (To “Kids in cages!,” Republicans respond, “Obama did it! Obama did it!” It’s like a game of ping-pong.)

Yesterday, when I tweeted about Bernie, the Dems, and abortion, a GOP lady replied, “You can’t be a Christian and be a Democrat.” There’s a lot of that going around, on both sides.

Let me commend Arthur Brooks’s speech at the National Prayer Breakfast: here. It’s on the country’s “crisis of contempt,” as he sees it. “I am not a priest or minister,” he said. “I am a social scientist and a university professor. But most importantly, I am a follower of Jesus, who taught each of us to love God and to love each other.”

Are you allowed to talk that way in public? Even at a prayer breakfast?


Arthur is a conservative, at least as “conservative” was widely understood in our country until recently. For ten years, he was president of the American Enterprise Institute. In the course of his talk at the prayer breakfast, he noted that he had grown up in Seattle, where his dad was a college prof and his mom an artist. What do you think his parents’ politics were? Does he have contempt for his parents? Not at all.


Obviously, Arthur’s comments were very different from President Trump’s at that same breakfast. And it is Trump who has the Right’s heart. But Brooksian ideas can never quite be killed off. They perdure, waiting to be considered, attracting hearts in every generation, whether numerous or not.

Speaking of hearts, try Arthur Brooks’s 2015 book, The Conservative Heart.

Anyway, today’s Impromptus, again, is here, and these subjects will continue ad infinitum and ad nauseam — for there is nothing new under the sun. We just play variations on themes, don’t we?