Mike Pence Plants His Flag at the ‘Unbridgeable Divide’

His fight for the survival of the GOP.

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Former Vice President Mike Pence during a town hall at New England College on September 6, 2023, in Henniker, New Hampshire. (Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images for SiriusXM)

The Republican presidential nominating contest so far has been very much about Donald Trump, but not very much with him.

Part of this is because he is the frontrunner, and not just any frontrunner, but the de facto incumbent in the race. When you’re way ahead, there’s not much incentive to get out there and mix things up. As President Joe Biden shows on the Democratic side, when you’re way ahead and have the party apparatus on your side, you don’t go looking for a fight. The status quo works just fine for both frontrunners.

Another part is because Trump is busy with other things, namely trying to keep himself out of prison. His emphasis on his many legal woes is a form of campaigning itself since the fundamental question he is asking voters is: “Which side are you on?” In a world where the choice is between victory for Trump or submission to the Biden Justice Department—a world in which support for the head of the party still feels like an act of defiance—why should he campaign?

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  1. Wes.Bridges

    Pence has the same problem Haley does: He just cannot keep his dagdum hand down. It would be easier to support candidates who are not now, and never were, Trump toadies. Guess we just have to get over that particular hurdle.

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  2. AJLiberty

    Pence could have written history if he had come out strongly and unabashedly January 7th against what Trump was trying to do and how he allowed the mob to seize the Capitol. Alas, he was MIA and helped fuel the notion that the J6 committee was just politics and thus Trump's involvement was just politics too. Pence likes to trumpet his faith, but where was his commitment to truth, to being honorable, and to demonstrating Christian charity on the days leading up to and then after J6? His J6 resolve does not absolve Pence's enabling and silent approval of all of the other awfulness. I just can't trust Pence...

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    Michelle O

    "But what he did succeed in doing was raising a banner to let the disaffected third of Republicans know that he was volunteering for the fight, and that the fight is worth having even if it hurts the short-term prospects for the party."

    Not to me he didn't. Fine, small kudos to the guy for just now discovering the populism he embraced between the time he became Trump's running mate right up to January 6th is bad. But he completely disqualified himself for a leadership role in this fight by the actions you mentioned the paragraph before, namely indicating he would still support Trump in the general election if he were the nominee.

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    1. Neelthakrebew

      I've used this before, but Pence is like the last kid in the class who learns how to tie his shoes and now he wants to show everyone else how. The Republican Party is in danger from populism— I'm shocked, shocked!

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  4. Mary Stine

    Ha! Seems like the Brit police force have been watching toooo many of the excellent Brit murder mysteries.
    Was this yoga studio perchance in Midsommer??

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      Angie

      I love that show and am trying to find something on streaming that is like it

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      1. RaoD

        FWIW on Amazon, you may want to browse through Britbox package.

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          Angie

          Thank you, I will...

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  5. Lee Rone

    Trump opened his 2016 campaign by referring to Mexicans as rapists, attacking Chinese, Gays, and Muslims, and mocking America's defeat of Saddam Hussein.

    Trump advocated tariffs - which were largely responsible for causing the 1930s Depression - and isolationism, which effectively caused WWII.

    I was shocked at the Republican audiences cheering for Trump, but I was less shocked when I saw the polls the following day. Trump had raced to the top of the GOP primary polls, (appealing overtly to racial and religious fear and hatred), in states such as Alabama and South Carolina. It didn't take a genius to see why.

    It was clear that the politics of the Deep South circa 1962 had finally gone National, presumably as racial diversity had spread beyond the Deep South to Republican states across the country, particularly noticeable after Obama's presidency.

    The tonic to fix the GOP lies in Texas, where the Republican victory margins have been dropping by an average of one point per year. Based on these trends it seems likely that Texas will go blue either in 2024 or 2028. When this happens, Republicans will face an existential crisis since they cannot win the presidency ever again without Texas.

    The GOP will be forced to start over as a party. My hope is that they will return to Reagan/Thatcher principles, while abandoning racial and religious tribalism and running a highly diverse slate of state and local candidates to compete across the nation in the spirit of Reagan, Thatcher, and for me, "George and Barbara", from my favorite era of all.

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    1. Neelthakrebew

      I've lived in Texas now for 23 years. I am a moderate, and none of the parties has my trust or enthusiasm.
      You have no idea the level of pure hostility Texas Republicans have for Democrats in Texas, or how lame Democrats with statewide aspirations are (Beto).
      It is so easy to get elected statewide as a Republican that candidates barely go through the motions. If the state became close to competitive, you'd see a gigantic amount of energy come out of the Republican Party that just isn't there right now. Now, a large percentage of Republican money goes out of state to help other races. If it stayed here at home things might be different. I think the level of dirty tricksterism would be absolutely unprecedented if Republicans felt their grasp on statewide power was in danger.
      So, I believe the forecast of a slow, steady march toward blue or even purple TX is just not in the cards.

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      1. Lee Rone

        In looking at the election results in Texas in the last six elections, the Republicans have gone from winning about 60% of the votes in the first two, to 56%, and then down to about 52% in the two most recent elections. The pattern is there, a big change from when George W Bush used to win his races by well over 20 points.

        In Beto's contest against Cruz, Cruz won by just two points.

        In next year's senate race, the Democrats are running a non-white candidate, which should benefit them in turning out non-white voters if the candidate turns out to be a strong candidate (apparently he's a well respected Congressman and was in the NFL).

        I'm guessing that the trend towards the Democrats is because the children of immigrants are turning 18 and as citizens can vote, plus people from California in other states are moving in, plus elderly rural voters are dying off and being replaced by young people in the cities.

        Based on the trend I had assumed that the Republicans would fall under 50% by 2028, but the Senate race is causing me to wonder about 2024 including for the presidency., given that the Dems seem to be running a better candidate this time than Beto.

        I saw a graph that shows wage gains began exceeding inflation rates about three months ago, so if that trend continues through the election then obviously that will probably determine the outcome one way or another.

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    2. Mary Stine

      Praying hard that you are right!

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    Joseph.A.Timmer

    After watching Mike Rogers' introduction interview on Fox News, Peter Meijer might as well enter the race. Rogers seems to be running mainly because he's bored and there are way too many United States Senators with that description already.

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    Citizen60

    Geriatric medicine has the age 75 at where there is a clinical divide between “young old age” and “old old age.” The probabilities of medical events related to aging increase substantially at that age.

    That is idiosyncratic, of course—every body and individual are unique. But there is sufficient data to form these 2 clusters in the geriatric medical specialty.

    I’d like to see a Constitutional Amendment that has 70 as the maximum age for all 3 branches of government. Those who turn 70 in office finish their terms, and may not run for a federal office again. SCOTUS Justices must resign at the end of that judicial year (June) after turning 70.

    Ageist? Absolutely, as are the minimum ages in the Constitution.

    But such a “hard stop” by age versus term limits allows all ages to plan ahead for their political careers. Age vs term limits allows the politicians to mentor and pass on institutional knowledge, instead of vesting it in Capitol Hill staffers (as Pelosi is doing). And the Amendment prevents the Strom Thurmond-Dianne Feinstein scenarios, where the ravages of “old old age” are all too apparent.

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  8. Heather

    Thanks for including Sergei Markov's "discovery" about Ukranian soldiers. I can't stop laughing.

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    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    By any chance was the Yoga gathering playing 𝑯𝒆𝒍𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑺𝒌𝒆𝒍𝒕𝒆𝒓 by the Beatles? It would explain the confusion.

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      Citizen60

      Good one

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  10. P Satter

    Clicking on the BBC story, apparently the UK dogwalkers who raised the alarm thought the yoga teacher was wearing a ceremonial robe. For a moment I was confused by the inclusion of the last sentence, as if it were somehow common knowledge that mass murderers frequently did--or did not--wear "nice floaty tops with large bell sleeves."

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