These Utah Republicans are determined to censure Romney for his impeachment vote: report

In contrast to all the Democrats who are calling for the resignation of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in response to the scandals he is facing, many Republicans are doing the exact opposite with Donald Trump and continuing to demand total loyalty to the former president. Republicans who openly criticize Trump are likely to be treated like pariahs within GOP circles, and one such Republican is Sen. Mitt Romney — who has been widely condemned as a RINO (Republican In Name Only) by Trumpistas for voting "guilty" in Trump's second impeachment trial. But reporter Brian Schott, in the Salt Lake City Tribune, reports that so far, Romney has not been officially censured in the Utah GOP.

Schott explains, "A small group of Utah Republicans is pushing for the state party to censure Sen. Mitt Romney for his vote to convict former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial, but there appears to be little appetite for it."

The group that Schott is referring to is the Platform Republicans PAC, which, the reporter notes, has "criticized Romney for being one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump for inciting the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6."

Romney has angered Trumpistas more than once. The Utah senator also voted "guilty" on one of two articles of impeachment in Trump's first impeachment trial in 2020, and after now-President Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election, Romney was quick to congratulate him. Romney repeatedly pushed back against the Trump campaign's bogus, totally debunked claims of widespread voter fraud.

"Shortly after Romney's vote on impeachment," Schott observes, "a proposed censure attacking Romney for misrepresenting himself as a Republican when ran for the Senate in 2018 and accused him of being a 'Deep State' agent circulated on social media. In reaction, the Utah GOP issued a statement supporting both Romney and Sen. Mike Lee, who voted to acquit Trump."

One of the reasons why the campaign to officially censure Romney hasn't gotten very far in Utah may have to do with the state's Mormon culture. Utah is a deep red state — much redder than Texas, in fact. But the right-wing culture in Utah is more influenced by Mormonism than the right-wing culture of Mississippi, South Carolina or Alabama, which has more of a fundamentalist Protestant evangelical bent. Trumpism has a presence in Utah, but not the type of presence it has in the Deep South. And Romney is a devout Mormon.

Nonetheless, the Platform Republicans PAC is pushing forward with its movement to censure Romney.

But while Romney has openly defied Trumpism, he is still quite conservative. The Utah senator voted for the confirmation of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett in 2020, and he recently voted against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.