Why on earth did Mitt Romney parade himself before a Utah audience to slime Trump?  Why did he do it on the day of a Republican debate?  Even if every word he spoke is true, and that is debatable, all he did was give Trump supporters more reason to dig in their heels.  Why do this?  Does he want to insert himself as a potential candidate into a brokered convention?  That would be dumb.  Voters are not going to accept a candidate who got no votes in any primaries.  Or are they?  Who knows at this point?  Trump is the ultimate fly in the ointment.  He has single-handedly torn up and rewritten the GOP script for the 2016 election. 

Trump may not actually be a jerk in his private life, but he certainly behaves like one on every level in public.  He may treat his wife and children with respect and affection, but he has nothing but contempt for anyone with an opposing opinion toward him in public.  He behaves like a playground bully who never graduated from the fourth grade.  He is so thin-skinned, he cannot let the mildest of insults go by without an disparaging retort.  Like every narcissist, he has to have the last laugh.  But what he really has done is take the campaign deeper into the gutter.  He has dragged his opponents there as well.  He is as thin-skinned as a jellyfish – lethal when it stings, but bereft of substance. 

Trump has made mincemeat of the RNC with such ease that he has proven they must deserve it.  They do.  The "establishment" Republicans, those folks elected to stop Obama from ruling like a tyrant,  by executive order, by stealth, and by deceit, have failed their constituents.  Romney just gave Trump supporters all the ammunition they need to fuel their support for Trump until November.  Who among us disheartened conservatives can find solace in Romney's rant?  Every word may be true, but the speech was delivered as a lecture to lesser beings – not the way to persuade people to one's side. 

Romney did terrible damage with his "speech" yesterday.  It most likely drove many more angry voters to Trump.  Reference to it took up the first third of the debate, stupidly.  Were I a Trump supporter, I would be ever more resolute in my support for Trump and set about recruiting everyone I know to his side.

I cannot imagine what Romney was thinking.  He is a good and decent man.  Had he been elected in 2012, the country would be in a far better place than it is today.  There is no doubt he would have been a better president.  But he failed in 2012 to go after Obama on each and every pathetic failure of the Obama administration: the Stimulus, Obamacare, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, etc.  The list is long and devastating, and Romney was too polite to mention most of it.  He lost, and the country has suffered because of his timidity.  Like Ben Carson, he was just too polite. 

What Romney did yesterday will do more harm than good.  The overused but accurate term, the" Establishment," has yet to grasp why Americans of every demographic are furiously angry.  They no longer care that Romney's words are true; they just want the oligarchy that rules the roost to be upended.