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Leverage: Romney offers GOP plan to stop a Trump candidacy

Leverage is a new column to highlight, in real time, opportunities to put the U.S. electoral and governance systems on a functional track.

Leverage: Romney offers GOP plan to stop a Trump candidacy
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By David L. Nevins,
David L. Nevins
David L. Nevins serves as publisher of The Fulcrum. Additionally, Nevins serves as co-founder and Board Chairman of the Bridge Alliance. Nevins brings business acumen, vision and a tireless this-must-and-can-be-done zeal to the burgeoning movement to bridge divides to transform the political process. As a business leader, Nevins excels at building bridges between people and organizations from the right, left and center for civilized conversation and then action. He co-founded the Bridge Alliance because, as he says, “No matter how well managed and how well funded anyone organization is, significant political reform will not happen without an alliance to further collaborative interactions. Together we can and will raise the collective impact of all.” He is a member of the Aspen Institute Society of Fellows, with a focus on the Aspen Rodel Fellowship in Public Leadership, he established and continues to work with The Nevins Democracy Leaders program at Penn State University. Nevins graduated with honors in economics from Penn State in 1969 and received an M.B.A. in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971.
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Debilyn Molineaux
Debilyn Molineaux

Debilyn Molineaux is the catalyst of JEDIfutures.org , a global initiative that helps people imagine and create just, equitable, dignified, and inclusive futures. She is best known for her pioneering work in civic innovation, having co-founded Bridge Alliance, Living Room Conversations, and National Week of Conversation. She formerly acted as co-publisher for The Fulcrum. Across these efforts, Debilyn has brought together unlikely allies to co-create solutions for democracy, governance, and social transformation.

Her work lives at the intersection of strategy, systems change, and spirit. A long-time practitioner of personal and collective growth, she brings a deep commitment to the inner dimensions of change that are often overlooked but essential to transformation. Debilyn speaks of the “interstitial spaces” — the connective tissue between people, institutions, and movements — where new possibilities take root.

She also hosts the podcast Terrified Nation, which helps audiences move from fear and despair into courage and action. Her voice is sought by impact investors, changemakers, and visionary leaders who want to align resources, imagination, and human growth toward a thriving future for all.

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Jul 25, 2023

Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund. Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

Recognizing that Trump is adept at sweeping a field of candidates who oppose him (example: 2016 GOP primaries), it was reported yesterday that Senator Mitt Romney has a coherent plan to stop former president Trump from getting elected in 2024.

Reported by CNN and Politico, Romney is calling for a Feb. 26, 2024 deadline for Republicans to coalesce around one alternative candidate to former President Donald Trump for the GOP presidential nomination. This plan would leverage the GOP’s ability to unite and eliminate Trump’s advantage of a dispersed field. Trump is expert at picking off weaker candidates; less so against a stronger candidate. Romney has called on donors and others with big influence to put pressure on candidates to drop out on or before that date, before the March 5th Super Tuesday primaries. After that date, it would be too late to unify the party around anyone other than Trump. Additionally, this would mitigate some of the GOP rules changes made after the 2016 primary from proportional delegate count to a winner-take-all.

"Donors who are backing someone with a slim chance of winning should seek a commitment from the candidate to drop out and endorse the person with the best chance of defeating Mr. Trump by Feb. 26," Romney wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

The contentious relationship between Romney and Trump is no secret and goes back to the election of 2022. In a speech at the University of Utah at the time Romney called Trump a “phony” and a “fraud.” Romney went on to say:

“Dishonesty is Trump’s hallmark: He claimed that he had spoken clearly and boldly against going into Iraq. Wrong, he spoke in favor of invading Iraq. He said he saw thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating 9/11. Wrong, he saw no such thing. He imagined it. His is not the temperament of a stable, thoughtful leader. His imagination must not be married to real power.”

Today’s voters must educate themselves to see through disinformation, misinformation, outright lies and deception. Only voters can determine the best leader for our collective well being. We agree with Romney that Trump is not fit to be president of the United States and believe that the election of Donald Trump would be a significant danger to the rule of law and to the defense and protection of our Constitution. One has only to look at the 2025 Project, led by Trump acolytes to see the danger of dismantling our democracy itself.

Voters can signal their power at the ballot box. We need voters to leverage themselves and demand a higher standard from our elected representatives. A new paradigm of politics is needed based on civil political discourse, critical thinking and personal accountability to be demanded by the electorate of its leadership. We believe the most effective solutions to our nation's problems are found through rigorous engagement across differences with a shared result. If you are a GOP voter, we ask you to back Romney’s plan with your support.

The United States is at a crossroads. It is time for us to overcome our complacency, apathy, contempt and disgust of the way things are, politically. We the voters must set things right. This is one opportunity, available now.


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Land of the Free, Home of the Capitalism Didn’t Fail America. America Failed to Moderate Capitalism
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Land of the Free, Home of the Capitalism Didn’t Fail America. America Failed to Moderate Capitalism

The signs are everywhere. For many Americans, buying power has improved only modestly despite decades of economic growth. Corporate profits are at an all-time high. We have reached a level of wealth inequality last seen almost a hundred years ago. By many measures, our capitalist economy seems to have failed to deliver broadly shared prosperity.

However, the failure isn’t with the free market as an economic approach. Instead, it’s our failure to regulate and moderate the free market, or more accurately, that we have spent 40 years undermining or removing the regulations of the New Deal that made our economy work for more Americans.

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America’s economy now rewards asset ownership over wages. A policy proposal: a $35,000 Birthright Account for every child, and how it could be funded.

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The American Dream Needs a New Economic Operating System

It is, by now, not an exaggeration to state that the traditional American Dream—work hard, buy a house, raise a family, and retire securely—is failing. It was built for a labor-based economy in which steadily rising wages allowed ordinary families to accumulate wealth. But America has become an asset-based economy, and ownership of those assets is extraordinarily concentrated.

Since the 1980s, the returns from capital have far outpaced the returns from labor. Inflation-adjusted wages for ordinary workers have risen only modestly, while the real value of equities has multiplied many times over. Housing, education, healthcare and childcare costs have soared, employment has become less secure, and defined-benefit pensions have largely disappeared. Even two-income households with respectable jobs often struggle to buy a home, build savings and accumulate enough for retirement.

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Trump’s 10-to-1 rule aims to cut red tape, but fewer regulations can mean weaker food safety, Head Start services, and checks on presidential power.

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Trump’s 10-to-1 Rule Gives the Presidency Too Much Power

We only think about the plumbing in our homes when something goes wrong. The same is true for government bureaucracy. Rules, procedures, and bureaucrats operate largely out of sight, making sure food is safe, Social Security checks arrive, workplaces are safe, and children with disabilities receive the services promised to them by law. Yes, there is plenty of red tape in government, just as an old house can accumulate pipes that no longer serve much purpose. But ripping out pipes simply because there are too many of them is not much of a plumbing strategy. Yet the Trump administration has made the number of federal regulations it eliminates a measure of success. That raises a more important question: When does cutting bureaucracy stop making government more efficient and start making it less capable?

1. The Case for Cutting Red Tape

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