The general consensus is that Pence won the recent vice presidential debate by not defending Donald Trump. And Trump was not happy, according to several reports. Trump is notorious for surrounding himself with incompetent sycophants because he doesn't want to be outshined by people who are smarter than he is. Pence is clearly smarter than Trump, and Trump can't abide that.
Matt Yglesias at Vox baldly states that Pence threw Trump under the bus. The Daily Beast says Pence ditched Trump and the debate was the beginning of his 2020 presidential run. That's assuming that Trump loses, which seems more and more likely based on his performance in recent weeks.
But the question is, why did Pence ever agree to run with Trump in the first place? Won't his association with this immoral, unethical, incompetent, tax-dodging, misogynistic corrupt businessman, bigot and serial adulterer tar his image?
It might, if Pence got too close to Trump. And the debate showed Pence has no intention of defending Trump. Pence contradicts Trump all the time on the campaign trail. He only half-heartedly defends Trump's nonsense, or just laughs it off. He accepted the VP nomination to give rank and file Republicans a reason to vote for the Republican ticket.
When Trump loses, Pence can claim to be a hero for sticking by the party from the get-go, while guys like Ted Cruz blustered and whined with wounded pride, then hemmed and hawed before finally caving in and sucking up to Trump.
On the off chance that Trump wins, however, it still wouldn't be too bad: Pence will still only be 65 in 8 years. The problem, though, is that as VP he will run the risk of inheriting all Trump's baggage. And there would be a lot of it. After eight years Pence would be an ineffective nobody, because Trump won't trust him with anything that might upstage The Donald.
But perhaps Pence's plans are shorter term than that. It's extremely likely that some scandal from Trump's past will emerge soon after the election: it might be the Trump University lawsuit, the Trump Foundation bribery scandals, Trump's connections to the mafia, Trump's connections to Russia, some childish Trump meltdown during a public appearance, backroom deals with Deutsche Bank to settle his half-billion dollar debt, some colossal blunder in the Middle East, an affair in the Oval Office, ordering troops to commit war crimes, some crazy unconstitutional power grab, or a coverup of one embarrassing thing or another -- it's the coverup that always gets you.
Or Bluto -- uh, Trump -- could die of a heart attack, choke to death inhaling a Big Mac. Don't laugh, it can happen: W choked on a pretzel and fainted.
Because so many Republicans absolutely despise Trump, even a small scandal would rise to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors." Trump could be impeached by his own party in order to install Mike Pence, a real Republican, as president.
Trump knows that Pence and the entire Republican establishment would be standing behind him with daggers drawn. The entire congressional leadership would be love to see Trump crash and burn: they could finally get Ted Cruz to agree to something.
Trump thinks his celebrity status and Twitter followers would insulate him from Republican backstabbing: the wrath of "the people" would stop Republicans from betraying him.
He would be wrong. By the time the Republicans impeach Trump the American people would have tired of his antics: Americans have a short attention span, and Trump would no longer be novel. His constant whining and excuses will turn even his strongest supporters against him, because he'll be the establishment, and he'll have to do establishment things, and they'll be pissed that Trump broke all his promises in order to achieve whatever self-dealing scandal led to his impeachment.
In the end, Trump -- who always bills himself as the outsider -- would still be the outsider, all alone in Washington, with only his kids and his wife on his side. The "establishment" in Congress would hold his fate in their hands, and after all the abuse Trump has heaped upon them, they wouldn't be kind to him.
In the backs of their minds, many Republicans are probably thinking, "I'll vote for Trump so that Pence can become president. Because there's always the Second Amendment solution."
No comments:
Post a Comment