What’s in A Name?

Life in the Boomer Lane had just finished writing a post this morning, when a surprising news nugget rose up, smacked her in the face, and left her reeling. She had to immediately dump what she had intended to post and post this instead:

Mitt Romney, staunch Conservative of the esteemed state of Arizona, son of George (long political resume, here), graduate of both Harvard Law and Harvard Business Schools, former Governor of Arizona, United States Senator, GOP candidate for President in 2012, and the only Republican to vote “yes” both times at Trump’s impeachment trials, is now in the news again.

After being beaten and battered by Trump, poor George now has to contend with questions about his niece, Ronna McDaniel, Chairperson of the Republican National Committee. Ronna, following the GOP yellow brick road, has overseen the censure of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for agreeing to help the January 6 investigation. She, along with all the others, believes that the January 6 investigation is a “Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” Reporters clamored to know what Romney’s reaction was to his niece’s behavior, as well as what he said to her as a result.

Many Loyal Readers may now be about to switch from reading this post to something they believe is actually worth reading. “We know all this blah blah blah” they might say. Who cares what Romney thinks? He was a wad of bubble gum stuck to the heel of Donald Trump’s Johnston & Murphy oxfords, he has been removed. And the RNC is merely a mini-mouthpiece for the Mouthpiece-in-Charge. Stay with LBL, folks. She will now get to the heart of the matter.

Along with the usual drivel of uncle/niece text exchanges, there is more. Ronna was born a Romney, part of an oh-so-illustrious political family. After she married, and in spite of Ronna Romney sounding like the name of a B movie actress, she continued to use the name Romney. Who wouldn’t? Anyone in GOP politics would be crazy not to. But, according to the Washington Post, Trump told her to get rid of the name. She didn’t have to be asked twice. She preferred her bed to only contain humans and not horse heads. Voila. She became Ronna McDaniel.

This is where LBL’s brain was off and running. If Trump becomes President in 2024, will we all have to change our names if we vote the wrong way? Will Rubio become Marco Shorty and Pence become Mike Traitor? And those are the folks he likes. What about the folks he hates? His list of personal enemies has to be in the millions now. Will they all have to give up their names and be assigned awful ones? What will become of Hillary and Barack? Will all Dems have to be known as Poopypants?

This is a new iteration to authoritarianism. LBL has searched in vain but cannot find one instance of a dictator, no matter how cruel, how vindictive, how murderous, who forced people to give up their names. Even the worst of them allowed names to remain. Family names are important. We have reached a new low, here, for sure.