“May you live in interesting times.” — Old Chinese curse
The public refusal of 45 Republican senators this week to acknowledge the constitutionality of impeachment proceedings against former President Donald Trump is a bad sign of where the Republican Party is headed, at least in the immediate future.
As evidence accumulates that the outgoing president directly inspired an attack on the Capitol by an enraged mob of his supporters, and may have had contact with some of the groups present through his staffers and proxies, the party of which he was the titular head until just a few days ago seems determined to act like a herd of ostriches who desire nothing other than to bury their collective heads in the proverbial sand and pretend that the incident never happened.
This is an unwise posture to adopt, because its short-term effect is to feed more wood into the fiery furnace of instability smoldering just below the surface of America’s body politic. It’s a position that also cuts against everything Republicans claim to stand for, i.e. personal responsibility, law and order, and the need for citizens and politicians to be held accountable for their actions.
As it stands, 45 Republican senators apparently wish to lay sole blame for the Capital Riot on the rioters themselves, and not on any person – whether in public office or otherwise – who played a role in instigating the attack by spreading or reinforcing false accusations that the 2020 Presidential Election was stolen from President Trump by means of massive voter fraud in half a dozen states. There is not a shred of evidence that this actually occurred. But no shortage of rumors and slander.
The key players in this drama are not the senators themselves, however. Their radicalized constituents hold the real balance of power.
This is a conundrum that I like to refer to as “the Radicalized Base Problem”, for how can elected leaders be expected to behave in a sane and reasonable manner when the people who voted them into office have taken on the appearance of raving lunatics? Under such twisted circumstances, elected representatives will act on their deranged voters’ political preferences out of fear of being voted out of office, or throw themselves on their swords so they are replaced in the next election by actual lunatics. Some choice!
The real difficulty, then, is not the cowardice of elected leaders (however galling that may be), but the popular delusions that hold sway over a broad section of the electorate. Before we can expect politicians to show more courage, we must find a way to talk their voters “off the ledge” and back into some semblance of normalcy. Partisanship there will always be, but the mental framework through which partisans approach the opposition must undergo a major adjustment.
It’s too much to expect that the conservative media establishment, or “counter-establishment” as it likes to think of itself, will take the lead in this process. After all, what’s in it for them? Disillusioned viewers and readers who believe they’ve been taken for a ride by their favorite news outlets are less likely to renew their subscriptions. Outrage sells air time. Sustained attempts to sow calm in the place of discord do not.
For conservative news media to be willing to play a role, however small, in deflating the mammoth helium balloon of hysteria and disinformation inflated by the last president and his enablers, they have to be presented with a ‘news hook’ that is just too compelling to resist: a story too big for them to ignore that originates from a source that is trusted, highly sympathetic, and close to the center of power, if only recently.
The ideal source fitting these specification at the present time is none other than former Vice President Mike Pence.
For more than four years, Mr. Pence was embedded deep within President Trump’s inner circle and one heartbeat away, as the saying goes, from sitting behind the Resolute Desk himself. He is a prominent evangelical Roman Catholic and remains highly popular with the Republican Party’s conservative Christian supporters, as well as with voters in his home state of Indiana, for which he served as governor before being elected Vice President.
Mr. Pence’s bitter falling-out with Mr. Trump in the days leading up to the Capital Riot is a well-established fact. While that rupture has probably hurt him among some of Mr. Trump’s base, it’s unlikely that it has alienated Mr. Pence from rank-and-file Republicans or the leaders and foot soldiers of the so-called ‘religious right’. His break with Mr. Trump and the circumstances surrounding his last days in office have probably scuttled Mr. Pence’s future presidential ambitions for good, but rather than constraining Mr. Pence, these facts can serve to liberate him should choose to embrace that liberation with both hands and speak out.
And speak out Mr. Pence must.
Nearly half the nation has been left breathing a miasma of lies and rumor surrounding the last election. There will be no national healing until this foul air is dispelled and the wind starts blowing from new direction.
Mr. Pence needs to get out there and tell Republican voters who still trust him what they don’t want to hear, but need to hear all the same. Namely, that Donald Trump is a shameless liar who spent two months following the Nov. 3 election claiming that he won it, even when not a single court or state secretary of state in the nation backed him up.
Mr. Pence needs to get on television, on talk radio, on satellite radio, into print media and tell the truth: “Donald Trump lied. He is still lying. I was by his side every day for four years and was a witness to his lying on hundreds of occasions. The man’s statements are not to be trusted. He is a person without a moral core.”
“Within days of the election, I knew, based on my knowledge of the workings of our state voting systems, that the Republican ticket had lost the election. While the president and his proxies made their outrageous claims, I remained silent in order to limit the fallout and contain the damage as best I could. But all the time I knew the President was not telling the truth.”
“As a conservative Republican, I am still proud of some of what President Trump and I achieved policy-wise, such as appointing conservative judges and Supreme Court justices, rolling back regulations, and strengthening America’s military. But I have to level with your viewers/readers/listeners and let them know the truth, which is that there were not nearly enough voting irregularities last fall to swing the election to the Democrats. The Republican ticket lost, and we lost fair and square. And anything else Donald Trump may say to the contrary is a lie.”
Interviewer: “Mr. Pence, do you believe President Trump instigated the attack on the Capitol building on January 6?”
Former VP Pence: “Yes.”
What does Mr. Pence fear could be the consequences for him of making such painful admissions? That a lynch mob of President Trump’s supporters will come after him, baying for his blood? That they will erect a makeshift gallows with a noose outside his home and force their way in shouting “Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!”
Sadly, that has already occurred.
Sooner or later, Mr. Pence may not survive – physically – the consequences of his refusal to help annul the outcome of the 2020 election. But his reputation will survive and may be considerably enhanced in the eyes of future generations if he steps up and tells the truth.
Now. Not in a bestselling memoir in two years’ time.
Now – when the country needs it most.
Until next time, I remain…
IG
