Much like Chris Christie, Mike Pence is trying to run for president as Donald Trump’s political foil.
As Trump adlibs and veers off-script, Pence offers the blandest of focus-group-tested, consultant-approved answers. Trump uses his teleprompter much like scribbled notes, but Pence solemnly regurgitates the words of his Beltway handlers like a preacher dutifully reciting the Gospel on Sunday morning.
Trump loudly promises to shake up the status quo. Pence promises a return to normalcy.
Pence’s don’t-rock-the-boat bromides run parallel to the DNC-flavored campaign rhetoric that earned Joe Biden the favor of the political classes last in 2020. The Deep State rewards the push for perceived normalcy. It’s a decent, don’t-rock-the-boat strategy—for normal times.
But these are not normal times.
The former VP’s campaign may seem utterly futile to most MAGA warriors, but at least a few Republicans crave a candidate that will snap back the rubber band stretched to the breaking point for eight years by Donald Trump. Pence, the unassuming and clean Indianan, is their guy.
Right now, Pence is focused on making the Fox debate stage in Milwaukee Aug. 23. A spot directly next to former NJ Gov. Chris Christie would suit both would-be Trump slayers well, considering that the former governors could play off the other’s sugar-coated rage.
Mike Pence could not fend off his involvement in this third (and most egregious) indictment of Donald J. Trump. Pence’s name appears in the complaint more than 100 times. But his choice of words in response to the political assault on the GOP frontrunner show not only his desire to distance himself from his former boss, but also how out of touch he is with the reality of modern American politics.
In case you missed his recent interview with Democrat newsreader David Muir, the former Vice President’s words should assure you that you’ve made the right decision in totally ignoring his post-Jan. 6 career.
“Our country is more important than one man,” Pence harrumphed. “Our Constitution is more important than one man’s career.”
With that, Pence plunged his flailing, cash-strapped campaign even deeper into irrelevance. This is the “decorum” that the mainstream media claims voters so desperately need?
Many of the entrenched elite have trouble comprehending the electorate’s pivot towards populism—the right’s fever for the MAGA movement and the left’s fascination for RFK Jr. Mike Pence, too, has missed the point. He presents himself as conservative while failing to understand the anti-establishment spirit embodied by our American forefathers.
Of course we are a nation of laws—not of men. But these laws—this country—was crafted of, by and for the People. Likewise, our Constitution is designed to protect the individual – all individuals – from what the Declaration of Independence termed “swarms of officers (sent) to harass our people and eat out their substance.”
Yes, Donald Trump is that “one man” to whom Pence is referring. But if the modern-day “swarms of officers” can be “sent hither” to destroy a former president, what do you think they can do to you?
There is no need to wonder. It’s already been done.
Take Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado. His peace has been erased, his substance eaten out as the Left incessantly uses flimsy lawfare to undermine his right to religious belief.
Consider country singer Carly Tefft, who, for mere physical proximity to the former president at a rally, was cancelled by longtime supporters. Where was the ACLU for Carly Tefft?
Take gun shop owner Toby Leary, in our own backyard, who fears that the most recent anti-firearm bill being advanced in the Massachusetts state legislature will force him to have to close the doors of Cape Gun Works. How is the Constitution working out for him when the Commonwealth’s most corrupt pretend to believe that they can ignore or repeal the Second Amendment with no pushback from the citizenry?
America has long stood for the merging of the “many” and the “one” – E Pluribus Unum. Mike Pence seems to believe that maybe, just this one time, we can let somebody be railroaded and it won’t affect any of the rest of us.
The current dysfunction of the American political and judicial systems is most visibly manifested today in the endless persecution of the former President. If “one man” named Donald Trump cannot be saved from lethal lawfare despite the enduring brilliance of our Constitution, neither can you.
And Mike Pence doesn’t get it.