One Year Later, Mike Pence Takes Brave Stand Against Trump Trying To Murder Him

If that's all right, Mr. President Trump sir.

"President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election," former Vice President Mike Pence told the Federalist Society yesterday. "The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone. And frankly, there’s no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president."

Slow fuckin' clap.

It's been more than a year since Trump summoned a mob to the nation's capital and watched with glee as they stormed the Capitol building in a violent attempt to prevent a lawful transition of power. During that time, Pence has refrained from criticizing his former boss, hoping against hope that if he could just weather the constant abuse, he'd wind up back on the ticket for 2024. With that possibility receding ever further into the distance, and with damning details of the coup plot leaking out every day, he's changed tack.

Now he's the loyal opposition, supportive of the Dear Leader in every respect except one, the one man magically untainted by the events of that singular, disastrous day in an otherwise perfect, perfect presidency.

"President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election," said a defiant @Mike_Pence.pic.twitter.com/dfTMXCNpvQ

— Mediaite (@Mediaite) 1644007563 

“President Trump and I have spoken many times since we left office, and I don’t know if we’ll ever see eye-to-eye on that day,” he admitted, before rushing to embrace Trump's legacy. “But I will always be proud of what we accomplished for the American people over the last four years. And I will not allow Democrats or their allies in the media to use one tragic day to discredit the aspirations of millions of Americans.”

And the crowd ate that shit up. Because there is no room in America more packed with people convinced that they are the good guys. Who better than the Federalist Society at casting themselves as principled intellectuals, while relying on an army of poorly educated shock troops for muscle? These are people who talk about "the lesser Ivies," while relying on Charlie Kirk to mobilize the base. Bill Clinton had to give up his blood to match the semen on Monica Lewinsky's dress, but Congress can't possibly see Trump's tax returns. Barack Obama was a tyrant for trying to ensure Americans have access to health care, but Trump was just exercising his authority as the unitary executive when he booted all transgender troops out of the military with the stroke of a pen.

They don't embrace the cognitive dissonance. They roll around on the floor with it in orgiastic ecstasy. They commit unspeakable acts of hedonistic bacchanalia with it. "Mitch McConnell didn't break the Senate," they shout at the moment of climax, "it was the Democrat party!" And Lady Liberty is left wiping their trickle down economics out of her hair as Federalist Society judges block every effort by Democratic officials to use the government to help American citizens.

There is no group on earth more receptive to the message that they are somehow separate from the filthy, corrupt president they support and his trashy, ignorant supporters. That they are magically free of moral taint, wholly separate from the red-hatted flag wavers, spouting conspiracy theories and braying to their orange deity. They can sit next to Marjorie Taylor Greene and Madison Cawthorne, without catching their cooties. It's just something you pick up as a Yale man.

“I learned a lot serving alongside President Donald Trump. Some people think we’re a little bit different,” Pence said, acknowledging his debt to the great leader before assuring the crowd that he is one of them , the true bulwarks of the republic, standing between Americans and a freedom-destroying social safety net. “But I think what President Trump showed us was what Republicans can accomplish when our leaders stand firm on conservative principles and don’t back down … It was four years of consequence, four years of results. It was four years of promises made and promises kept.”

Which is the purest distilled horseshit, of course. Under Trump the deficit ballooned, our international alliances were decimated, the trade gap soared despite those extremely un-conservative tariffs, unemployment skyrocketed, and a viral pandemic swamped the nation. There's no wall, Mexico didn't pay for it, the tax cuts added a trillion to the national debt, manufacturing didn't return, the coal mines are still closing, Kim Jong Un is still firing rockets, Iran is still building nukes and launching proxy attacks, and Russia is still menacing its neighbors.

America isn't "great again," whatever that means, and by most objective measures it's less great than it was five years ago. The social fabric is rent, perhaps irretrievably, with members of Congress openly advocating for civil war. And, not for nothing, but the seat of government was actually attacked by a violent mob dispatched by the sitting president.

But they got their judges, so they're counting it as a win. And here comes Mike Pence, the perfect man to assure them that they are the elite, distinct from the masses who give them power, uncontaminated by the dirty means they deploy to achieve their undemocratic ends. Of course they applauded like trained seals.

But if Trump gets the nomination in 2024, you can be damned sure they'll pull the lever for him again. Not because they like a boor like him, heavens no! But the ends justify the means, you see, always and forever, amen.

[ WaPo / Politico ]

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