Mitt Romney, the self-identified “severe conservative,” has adopted the values of the liberal cultural establishment.  Following his pummeling in the 2012 election campaign as a “racist” and many other imaginary sins, he has now adopted the worldview and sympathies of his tormentors.  This psychological phenomenon has been given the name “Stockholm syndrome,” as the Medical Dictionary website explains:

… it has been used to explain the behavior of such well-known kidnapping victims as Patty Hearst (1974) and Elizabeth Smart (2002). The term takes its name from a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, in August 1973. The robber took four employees of the bank (three women and one man) into the vault with him and kept them hostage for 131 hours. After the employees were finally released, they appeared to have formed a paradoxical emotional bond with their captor; they told reporters that they saw the police as their enemy rather than the bank robber, and that they had positive feelings toward the criminal. The syndrome was first named by Nils Bejerot (1921–1988), a medical professor who specialized in addiction research and served as a psychiatric consultant to the Swedish police during the standoff at the bank. Stockholm syndrome is also known as Survival Identification Syndrome.

In his Patty Hearst Moment, yesterday, he appeared on CNN:

"I don't want to see trickle-down racism," Romney said in an interview here in a suite overlooking the Wasatch Mountains, where he is hosting his yearly ideas conference. "I don't want to see a president of the United States saying things which change the character of the generations of Americans that are following. Presidents have an impact on the nature of our nation, and trickle-down racism, trickle-down bigotry, trickle-down misogyny, all these things are extraordinarily dangerous to the heart and character of America."

It is well worth 90 seconds to watch the whole thing:

What makes this psychological conversion so compelling is that for all his inartfulness, Trump was merely stating what the left has maintained for many years: that ethnic background can have a decisive influence on fairness.  Witness Justice Sotomayor on the need for “wise Latina” judges, or the Obama administration Justice Department forcing an Iranian-American judge to recuse herself from all immigration cases involving Iranians.

Now, Mitt has fully assimilated the mindset of the neoprogs: it is unacceptable – racist! – for a Republican to say things that are applauded when heard from members of the left.  By attacking Trump and in effect helping Hillary Clinton win, Mitt has gone over to the other side.  Such is the power of his need for admiration and support on the part of the dominant forces in culture and the media, who hold so many of us hostage.