Senator Mitt Romney's Voting Statement in Trump's First Impeachment Trial: The Roles of Agonistic Model/Anti-Model Hexads, Progressively Staged Genres, and Enactment in Advocating a Rhetoric of Renewal.

This article analyzes Senator Mitt Romney's February 5, 2020, impeachment voting statement as a case of rhetorics of renewal (RoR), a rhetorical pattern that seeks to motivate audiences to accept shared guilt for a community's fall from golden-age values and respond with mortification (self-purification) and hope for renewal. Romney's statement contrasts a model motivational hexad centered on national character and constitutional fidelity with an anti-model hexad exemplified by President Trump's pursuit of personal and partisan power. The analysis highlights three strategic elements in effective RoR: fully articulating model/anti-model pairs to evoke guilt and hope, rhetorically enacting the model's values to demonstrate feasible renewal, and progressively employing the three classical rhetorical genres— forensics (accusation and judgment), epideictic (praise and blame), and deliberative (future-oriented counsel)—to guide audiences from guilt to redemption. The study also introduces a methodological innovation combining Kenneth Burke's cluster-agon and hexadic criticism to deepen understanding of RoR's motivational dynamics. Romney's speech, though politically costly and unlikely to secure conviction, serves as a public exemplar of mortification and constitutional duty, offering a constitutionally grounded alternative to partisan loyalty and opening a rhetorical space for future democratic renewal.