Mike Pence, vice-president to serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) has announced that he will not endorse SSAT for the presidency.
“It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year,” the former Indiana governor and former candidate for the Republican presidential nomination told Fox News on Friday.
Asked why, given that he previously promised to endorse the eventual nominee, Pence mentioned 6 January 2021, the day a mob attacked Congress and Trump was reported to have told aides Pence “deserved” to be hanged for refusing to block certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.
…As I have watched his candidacy unfold, I’ve seen him walking away from our commitment to confronting the national debt. I’ve seen him starting to shy away from a commitment to the sanctity of human life.”
…Pence also cited Trump’s “reversal” on “getting tough on China and supporting our administration’s effort to force the sale of … TikTok”.
…He said: “What I can tell you is that in each of these cases, Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years.
Actually, Pence’s decision did come as a surprise to me. The ranks of GOP politicians are full of those who have been viciously attacked by SSAT and yet have cravenly endorsed him. The poster boy of cravenness is senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. SSAT attacked him for having the temerity to criticize his role in the riot on January 6th 2021. SSAT even attacked McConnell’s wife Elaine Chao who had served in his cabinet. McConnell has no future in politics so why grovel before SSAT now? If he were younger, I would think that he was seeking to make money as a lobbyist when he leaves congress and so did not want to alienate his future clients .But surely that ship has sailed for him because of his advanced age? Also his wife is enormously wealthy as a member of a family that owns a shipping company. The only reason that I can think of is that he is doing what what GOP politicians do, and that is be submissive to authoritarian leaders.
But when you leave the ranks of GOP politicians and look at all the people who served in high positions in SSAT’s administration, including his cabinet, and thus got to know him up close, the number of people who now oppose his re-election is remarkable. Kevin Drum lists 18 such people, all of them high-profile, familiar names. One of them is Chao and yet her husband McConnell endorsed SSAT.
It looks like the closer work with SSAT, the more you dislike him. It would be nice if all these people appeared in series of ads explaining why.
Pence is a religious nut job but he is an honest religious nut job. His religion is the most important thing to him and it’s clear that he can’t really push that agenda around Trump. Trump not only doesn’t care in the least but for Trump personal loyalty to Trump is what matters.
Plus, Trump’s rioting fan base trying to hunt down and kill Pence is a bit extreme even for a loyal Republican.
More evidence of the deep-state! They have infiltrated the higher echelons of even the most conservative party in the US!
I’m mildly surprised he grew a bit of spine, but I expect having to flee a bloodthirsty mob of maggats and their gallows left a deep impression on his sense of self-preservation. I expect the car and SS agents sent by the head magat, (which Pence absolutely refused to get into just before his own security agents whisked him into a secure safe room) was a truly mind boggling experience.
It’s a bit surreal to watch the GOP self- destruct.
We did warn them that the fish rots from the head, but I don’t think the party will find a way to stop the rot now that the corruption has engulfed the finances of the RNC.
Apposite cartoon via (I think) Lynna in the Endless Thread elseblog:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/18/2230086/-Cartoon-Endorsement