Former vice president and current GOP presidential candidate Mike Pence is back in The Wall Street Journal making the case that Republicans need to reject populism, and get behind a conservative if they want to win in 2024.
It's a point Pence has made repeatedly in the current campaign, but as yet, there seem to be no buyers among Republican primary voters.
What aren't they buying, exactly? The things that made the party a success – supporting limited government, fiscal probity and a strong national defense. These days, such niceties are memory holed in favor of something sinister:
…a populist movement is now rising in the Republican Party. This growing faction would substitute our faith in limited government and traditional values for an agenda stitched together by personal grievances and performative outrage.
Republican populists would abandon American leadership on the world stage, embracing a posture of appeasement in the face of rising threats to freedom.
Republican populists would erode our constitutional norms. A leading candidate last year called for the “termination” of “all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” while his imitators have demonstrated willingness to brandish government power to silence critics.
For those playing the game at home, that last paragraph is a reference to Pence's old boss, and the current GOP front-runner, Donald Trump.
Pence is right, of course. Any candidate of either major party who sought to bend the institutions and practices of government to his personal ends is a threat to the country – and manifestly unfit for office.
Pence is also right about the Trump wannabes on the campaign trail. The shocking eagerness to embrace authoritarian methods used to get conservatives up in arms. Those conservatives are long gone today. Which helps explain why Pence is mired in single digits in recent polling. The audience he's pitching to, urging to action, just isn't there.
But let's also make no mistake about Pence: until the last possible moment – that being the counting if the electoral votes on Jan. 6., 2021 – Pence was at Trump's side, in his corner, advancing his agenda…grievances, populism and all the rest.
Yes, it's a good thing Pence did the right, honorable and entirely expected thing when he refused to bow to Trump's riotous mob and halt the counting. But he was there for everything else. For four years. Mr. Pence's accounting for that time will make for interesting reading.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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He had the right and the power to stop the vote but didn’t
Mike Pence could have legally halted the voting until voting illregularities were investigated.
And if he had been man enough to do his job that’s exactly what would have happened. IMO he should change his name to Judas Iscariot Pence and disappear forever. Or maybe Benedict Arnold Pence would fit him better.
“The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.”
Yeah, but they’re starting to have a detrimental affect on the credibility of American Liberty News.
clear-headed, informed republican voters might remind pence that the whole reason populism took root in the party is the reticence of swamp rats such as himself to uphold and advance those conservative values he’s using as a campaign gimmick.
actions speak louder than words. that’s where trump wins hands down.
Makes me want to throw up – the hypocracy of the self righteous individual who would actually accuse Trump of inciting a riot – NO RIOT took place ! A few individual went inside peaceably – a few entered where they should not have but they hurt no one nor did they enter into Congress. The only ones hurt were the unarmed lady who was shot by a Democrat point blank and who never called for aid and a lady that sat on the floor to stay out of the way and the cops beat her up ! Sorry, but Pence is too full of his “Christian” self and needs to go study what the word Christian means.
Never forget -Pence is JAR (Just Another RINO).
Well said !
Vice president Pence hid what he really was when working with President Trump. States started to voice their objections, Pennsylvania was the first with Senator Cruz as they lawfully could as in 1960 by Hawaii and in 2000. This was before the turmoil when everyone left the floor.
When they returned, the hearing of objections did not continue. Pence did not mention it.
Pence is a phony who needs to be taught a very big lesson of what’s really American…..he’s also known as a traitor.
Dont trust RNC DC Estd types