“Penumbras?” “Priapism?” Ross, who the heck are you talking to? Certainly not the average Trump supporter.
You do understand, I hope, that a lot of the resentment felt towards the “liberal media” is reaction to the “elitist” language and condescending tone employed by papers like the Times. And you do understand, I hope, that one reason Trump appeals to some people is his limited skill with the English language. He doesn’t sound to them like an “elite.”
You made some good points towards the end of this piece, but I almost didn’t get there due to the tone of your writing. I bet most of those I would like to hear your points gave up long before the last paragraph.
6
Pence is perhaps more of a nutcase than Trump, in that he actually believes at least some of the swill that he spouts.
26
God is actually biding time until Chelsea Manning is of legal age to be President.
9
The problem with your hypothesis is that Pence is as up to his neck in the Russia thing and other dirty political shenanigans being uncovered as Trump is. He was right there through the campaign and led the transition. That is why Democrats aren't talking impeachment now. The Speaker of the House is third in line to to the presidency. If the Democrats retake Congress and Trump and Pence are both indicted and/or impeached, Nancy Pelosi will be president. Can you imagine how Republican heads will spin off their necks if that happens!! MAGA!!
11
A man who believes you can pray the gay away, and who can’t be in the same room with another woman if he isn’t married to that woman, is better suited to life in an 18th century monastary. He has no business at all leading anything in this century.
37
Douthat write, "our first openly Hefnerian president. . . . " I think Bill Clinton already claimed that title. Now get on with serious matters.
2
So either way you get a bigot in the White House is the point here? Using terms like "Christian" and "family man" don't change what Pence is, which isn't all that far from Trump.
20
Something to consider. The line of succession is filled with potholes, lunatics, and empty places.
Vice President Mike Pence- Nope Complicit
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan- Retiring
Senate President Pro Tempore Orrin Hatch- Senile and retiring
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson- Gone, empty seat
Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin - Scandal of his own
Secretary of Defense James Mattis - Poor guy- He is the most sane near the top.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions- Complicit
Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke - LOL
Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue - Another President from Georgia? Not likely
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross - Falls asleep in meetings...another Reagan era?
Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta - Posibility
Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price - Gone and good ridence.
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson - We can't afford the redecorating costs at the White House his wife would do
Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao - The turtles wife, lol
Secretary of Energy Rick Perry - OOPs heard round the world
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos - LoL
Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin - Just ran him off open seat.
Secretary of Homeland Security -Kirstjen Nielsen - First female president and this is what we get?
People we have a mess and there isn't a qualified person in the whole line of succession.
18
Those dead soulless eyes, and that empty heart. Pence looks like he should be playing Cotton Mather in some dinner theatre rival of The Crucible.
20
Are you kidding me? He thinks he has a direct line to God....crazy talk.
14
Pence is a dunce and a rightwing religous zealot who is as suspicious of women as anyone at the Salem Witch Trials. He's as freakish as Trump in a completely different way. Not to mention, what did Pence know about Russian collusion?
Mike Pence: no way in hella.
14
Why not Pence? I disagree that he is really what evangelicals want. They want Trump — the profane, promiscuous clown. He arouses their darker angels and they can vicariously sin through him.
12
There is no god, get over it,get on with your life and do something useful.
13
Why not Mike Pence? For starters, because Jesus talks to him.
9
Why not Mike Pence? Because... Mike Pence.
15
Why not Mike Pence simple he was told Flynn lied to the FBI and then Pence lied about that so he is neck deep in the Russia scandal
14
Mr. Douthat,
There is one difficulty for you. He is an apostate Roman Catholic. Is your religion so intertwined with your politics as to over look this elephant in the room?
7
Deep background from God on what's happening! That has to be the mother ... or Father ... of all leaks!
5
A Pence presidency; think of a Modern day Crusades with nuclear weapons.
11
I don't know how Pence can sleep at night with such filthy hands, aiding and abetting a disgusting, lying, cheating, and womanizing man. The evangelicals have already made their public statement. We are willing to prostitute ourselves for this low life crotch grabber because he says he is anti-abortion. So has Pence by accepting and keeping the roll of vice-president. "Bless me father for I have sinned by aiding and abetting Trump, and I have no plans to stop."
14
Ross totally misses why evangelicals love Trump. It is because they are racist.
It is why they want their own schools, so they won’t mix with brown people. It is why they left the Democratic Party for Nixon’s southern strategy, they hated the civil rights movement. It is why they embraced Reagan over Carter (an actual evangelical), it is because they loved the dog whistle speech from Philadelphia, Mississippi.
They love Trump because he “tells it like it is” when he calls Mexicans rapists. They believe there were good people shouting “Jews will not replace us” because they were among the marchers carrying tiki torches. Evangelicals are happy to give the whole Christian morality thing a mulligan, as long as they get a white racist supreme leader.
20
What the heck is an evangelical other than a right wing political extremist cloaking himself in the mantel of religion?
22
Oh come-on! The great majority of white Christians routinely vote Republican like they got GOP tattooed on their bottoms at baptism.
As such their works are war, environmental destruction, jail-stuffing like no other country, gun running like no other, and tremendous inequality as they always endorse the economic philosophy that blames the poor for their poverty.
14
If any supernatural being is responsible for Trump-Pence being elected it is the red one with horns.
14
Ross, for the first time, has finally come up with an LOL line ("The sudden investigatory focus on Cohen and Daniels might turn out to be a legal tempest in a D-cup.") worthy of Gail Collins, who always has a laugh out loud idea in her columns.
2
Ross,
I tried to read your article, but you completely lost me on "Professional Feminists"
Can the same thing be said about Masculinity?
I wonder
13
Hey Ross, why not Franklin Graham? Or Jerry Falwell Jr.? Or Joel Osteen?
5
Elizabeth Barrett Browning comes to mind: let me count the ways. Start with 1) He's a direct threat to the health of every woman in America ("legal abortion will end in our time); 2) He's a Koch puppet (see New Yorker, Jane Mayer); 3) He was in charge of the transition team and thought it was A-OK to have Flynn be the NSA, despite advance warnings from Rep. Cummings. Just getting started...
17
Religion is the opiate of the people. But hey, no need to settle for the surrogate drug! Who the heck needs religion when the hills are alive with the sound of 'conservative evangelicals' popping fists full of oxycontin in West Virginia?
And the sound of gunfire, of course, for those attending The Church of the Second Amendment.
Perhaps we'll leave this nonsense behind once and for all, hopefully before the seas have inundated the land towards the end of the 21st century.
7
The words "President Pence" sound better every day.
Pence. like all Christian conservatives who slavishly support Trump, is morally bankrupt. His version of christian sharia law judges and condemns anyone who isn't a straight white male. And if you are a straight white male, Pence and his fellow right wing Christian zealots will forgive you any action no matter how heinous. Ross, Pence's christianity is hypocritical rubbish. How can you be so blind?
13
You seem to give a strange meaning to te word “bluestocking.” For me a “bluestocking’s temperament” would be the fierce assertiveness of a defiantly feminine intellectual.
2
1. You seem to have forgotten that Pence was in charge of the Trump transition team and therefore complicit in whatever "collusion" there was with Russia (eg he clearly lied about knowing nothing about Mike Flynn) He has no moral credibility and is likely as impeachable as Trump.
2. He believes the First Amendment means Freedom to Impose (his distorted version of) Christianity on the rest of us. No way.
https://reframes.wordpress.com/2018/04/11/vote-theocrat-pence-putin
12
"Why Not Mike Pence?"
Because with Mike Pence, the Kochs will still stay in the White House. So, no way; they need to go. IMO Mike Pence is not a "Koch true believer" like Paul Ryan/Scott Walker/Kris Kobach. But like Mike Pompeo (director of the CIA, from Koch Central Kansas) the Kochs still benefit from having him in their network.
https://www.salon.com/2017/01/11/koch-allies-in-the-white-house_partner/
"David Koch gave Pence’s two gubernatorial campaigns $300,000. Americans for Prosperity ran ads supporting Pence, and the Republican Governors Association, to which Koch and Koch Industries have donated a combined $10.8 million since 2003, spent $4.2 million in 2012 and 2016 backing Pence."
In 2014, Maggie Haberman and Ken Vogel (both now at the NYT) described VP Pence in Politico:
"Mike Pence's Koch advantage":
https://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/mike-pence-koch-brothers-2016-ele...
"Pence may just be among the best — or, at least, the more electable — messengers for this new Koch brand in a field of prospective candidates who fit some portions of the brothers’ political bent but not others."
Mike Pence is basically the undercover brand of Koch, a product packaged more nicely so he can sneak in as president. Why do you think the Kochs did a turnaround on their disliked candidate Donald Trump? Because he picked their guy Pence, who they figured could slide in when Mr. Trump inevitably self-destructed.
Ryan's gone. Pence needs to wash out in this wave, too.
9
Why not Pence, Mr. Douthat? Why don't you try asking a member of the GLBT community; since I'm sure you'll claim to have "lots of gay friends."?
I, for one, don't fancy being hanged, as 45 has stated is Pence's current wish; or being locked up to have the gay tortured out of me via electric shock, the desire that Pence himself has expressed. I doubt you'll find anyone alse amongst the GLBT population for whom either option is high on their list of desired fates.
In any event, talk of impeachment is pointless fantasization. Even if the Democrats win the house this year and could file articles of impeachment; it would fail in the senate. The numbers just don't add up. Even if we take the senate, even if we take over single republican seat that's up for reelection, we still would not have the 67 votes to convict and remove 45. So fantasies about impeachment are really not worth the time or attention. The opportunity here is to take advantage of 45's inevitable four years in office, and countervail and undermine him in every matter, large and small, throughout the remaining years until 2020; and to see to it that not only does he go down, but that his dumpster-fire of an administration takes down as many republicans with him as is possible.
And then, in February of 2021 when illicit pardons are no longer a problem; let the indictment fly!
8
MIKE PENCE
Tweet a song of Mike Pence
A bushel full of "why?"
One hundred forty characters
Minced Hillary in a pie.
When the pie was opened
James Comey began to sing:
Wasn't that a dainty dish
To set before the king?
5
Those who voted for Trump because they are followers of Jesus do not understand anything about either man. Trump is the beginning of a nation based on ignorance, bigotry, weapons worship, and fake news. Pence continues the same while inserting theocracy of the minority into the mix. How is that an improvement? Is your religion that frail, Douthat, that you need the right-wing-nut ideologue Pence to shore it up?
4
Calling Trump Hefnerian is a terrible insult to Hugh Hefner.
1
Evangelical Christians are basically Pilate, Herod, and Judas Iscariot rolled into one. If Christ were here they would betray him and collect the silver. Since Christ isn’t here, Trump (Pilate), will try to wash his hands of responsibility for anything, give the country to Ryan (Herod), who will destroy it, giving the silver to the evangelicals (Iscariot).
3
An anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-black, anti-public education, anti-healthcare President Pence?
We already know what the world looks like under equally zealous religious leaders. All I can say is heaven forbid!
4
Sorry. I refuse the idea of a president who can't be alone in a room with a woman without his wife as chaperone.
3
Ross, you twice referred to Trump as "Hefnerian". As a former Chicagoan, I greatly resent your insult to Hugh Hefner. While Hugh was known to consort with Playmates, he did not consort with thugs and criminals. And had he run for President, he would never have tolerated the hypocrisy of the dimwitted pinheaded Pence as a running-mate.
4
One of the saddest things for me about Trump's reign has been that so many people who proclaim and publicly act out their faith, and who are quick to denounce those with different views on religion, betray their espoused faith in supporting Trump. Many of my friends share my sadness, as does the Pope.
They have been tempted by Trump in many ways. But
"It is written: 'One does not live by bread alone ...
You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test." and
Satan says, “All these things I will give you if you fall down and do an act of worship to me.” Jesus replied "Get away, Satan!"
Trump plays on people's faith, giving them things they want for his own devilish reasons. As it says in 'Two Corinthians', "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?"
2
I can not!
You know what's really disgusting? Your assertion that religious voters would choose the FAKE Christian Trump over the actually religious Hillary. My revulsion at the evangelicals has blossomed into a reassessment of religion and being an atheist is looking better by the day. #losingmyreligion
5
Supports the right to bear arms but tries to control right to bear children!!!
9
Congressional Republicans are not going to allow Trump's impeachment. He could invite a succession of porn stars for sleepovers in the Lincoln Bedroom -- and he still won't be impeached. How about White House fund raisers for Republican candidates hosted by porn stars? No biggie. Being named Honorary Emir of Qatar with his own harem? Unconstitutional but not punishable by Republicans. After eight years wandering in the Obama Abyss, Republicans aren't going to unseat a president who's reducing taxes and regulation on the biggest Republican funders. Period.
3
"The sudden investigatory focus on Cohen and Daniels might turn out to be a legal tempest in a D-cup." Really? Not original, not funny, not helpful. I start reading your columns with a willingness to at least consider a perspective different from my own, but I tuned right out at that bit.
3
Mike Pence would be a great choice for those that think being gay can be cured
3
You really don’t get it. Those who come to kill don’t distinguish saint from sinner.
2
Why not Mike Pence? Because he was a horrible governor and is a zealot, a theocrat and a petty, grasping, little man. He's also involved in the Russia probe.
6
Ah, it is fun to speculate. Having scoured Scripture for Bible-porn, Trump is now the reincarnation of King David. WOW! And, the invisible hand of God has reached out and plucked the most ignorant, racist, xenophobic and boorish Republican available and installed him in the White House. Also WOW! The truth is that evangelicals have readily abandoned principles for…..nothing. They might as well be worshipping Baal. They turn their backs on the poor, the sick, the immigrant and the weary of spirit to embrace a man who has championed great harm to the helpless among us. Their craven attachment to Trump was wholly predictable and is nearly complete. There is salvation for them. It is not Mike Pence, who has stood silently by and watched this abomination unfold. If they want to save the soul of their country they should find a good Democrat and doorbell like crazy.
2
Mike Pence is a bigot and fake christian. He also lied on National TV regarding Mike Flynn and other times to defend Trump. He might be on Mueller's hit list. He remains a complicit robot not a savior.
5
Ross - "priapism"? Really? That you would use that term at all, let alone in reference to religious conservatives is shocking, scandalous even... yet, one wonders if it is, in fact, appropriate after all.
It is easy to think, based on the columns from these talking heads, that this country's population is relentlessly bimodal and mutually exclusive. One can only be a conservative or a liberal, a godless heathen or an evangelical, a pious heterosexual or a decadent homo, gun worshiper or a victim wannabe etc. Most of the political commentators in the media espouse these invalid assumptions to further their agendas and line their pocket books. We follow like lambs to slaughter. Brooks, Douthat and their ilk are writ(h)ing in their columns because their beloved political philosophies are getting the treatment that Stormy gets in her movies ... not much satisfaction for the effort and emotion expended. Pence is a shill for the Kochs and the pious evangelicals. In his administration, the First Lady will become the First Mother and he will do what he knows best .... attack science, ignore emerging problems and sacrifice all advantages that this nation has on the altar of a power hungry and wealth seeking religion that is alien from the spirit of Christianity. Pence will be the first political messiah of the "prosperity gospel" that the current preachers bellow from their pulpits. NYT would serve its leaders better if they point out emerging leaders that can lead this nation out of the dangerous doldrums that we are stuck in.
2
It is not the sin. It is the hypocrisy of the Christians!
1
Brilliant. A Mike Pence campaign/election will make those hypocritical evangelicals forget their sins in sleeping with the Devil.
Why Not Mike Spence?
For the same reason we wouldn't want Ayatollah Khamenei.
2
Religious conservatives "in danger of selling their souls"?? Too late for that
3
Oh, my Lord! Ross is suggesting -- seriously, I think -- that "God" ("a beneficent deity") is behind all this madness and is using know-nothing right-wing religion to give us Mike Pence. God is at work here.
Not Putin, Guccifer, Trey Gowdy, Steve Bannon and the Mercers, self-righteous extreme leftists, male chauvinists and gun nuts, a misguided Jim Comey, perversion of an outdated Electoral College, and suckers in the media and evangelical churches who got conned big-time. No -- according to Ross, this is God's will.
3
Ross - This is the kind of opinion piece you wrote in support of Trump before the 2016 election. I was hoping you'd have learned the error of your ways. Pence continues to support and lie for Trump while he lets Russia continue the most successful campaign of espionage in the history of spies and spying. He looked the other way when Trump supported the Nazi sympathizers after they killed Heather Heyer. He sits on his hands while 1 in 6 American children go the bed hungry every night. Pence does nothing while continue Americans die in Puerto Rico from neglect. Pence continues to looked the other way while Trump and his swamp buddies steal from us with both hands.
Mr. Douthat please stop supporting those who hate America and Americans.
6
I cannot think of anything more appropriate: the Narcissist-Chief followed by the Sycophant-in Chief. Astounding! This Mike Pence can look his evangelical face in the mirror is beyond belief. That he might try to parade that before the American people--after all we've been through--would be a gall befitting only...well?....precisely such an evangelical as he.
4
To avoid a theocracy
3
Christopher Hitchins was right- " Religion is the problem".
3
We tried the 'choir boy' Romney.
Dems and media ripped him to shreds.
Same would happen to Pence.
1
Had to look up "priapism."
1
I stopped reading this when I got to the “tempest in a D cup” line. Cute? , Mr. Douthat? I doubt that.
The evangelical and other churches based on authoritarian principles are in tatters. The bright light shining on their hypocrisy with disabling frequency. The coverup of predatory priests by a complicit Catholic leadership. Similar events within protestant churches in behalf of wayward youth ministers and pastors. And now, their full-throated, continued endorsement of a priapic, criminal, racist con man and his sycophants. Such is what irreparable generational divisions are made. Such is what divides men and women. Embrace of hypocrisy in the name of righteousness. Your conservative/evangelical faith is a con. It is clear as the nose on your face. Those young people will not vote GOP. And those young people hold the decision-making power when it comes time to choose your nursing home...assuming there are any left. And they are no longer afraid of your so-called Christian god.
What Ross neglects to limn is the salient fact that, unlike Pence, Trump has tinkled all the chimes that get the religious right dancing in the pews. Yes, Pence has many of the bases covered: he's anti-LGBT, anti-abortion, and he sounds the alarm to wedding cake bakers throughout the land that their religious freedom is under siege.
Trump goes all the way. Marching, gun-toting Nazis and Fascists and all manner of white supremacists are "very fine people," brown people rape and pillage and are coming for them lately in caravans, and Muslims seek sharia law as a stand in for the US Constitution...and Democrats are defending the dark forces and abandoning the forces of white.
Pence is not nearly as reliable as Trump to the religious right. Remember: Trump has never let the words of Jesus deter him from his ferocious agenda. Pence might.
1
Who is this god thing they keep talking about?
2
I recommend a few syringes of Botox to unfurl those concern trolling eyebrows, Mr. Pence. And can you shorten that thousand mile stare to a few feet in front of you. Perhaps then your vision will be clear enough to see how irrelevant you've made yourself to America and to God. I can hear the words now "You have forsaken me."
1
How about electing Pence pope since Francis isn’t holy enough for Douthat?
2
Mike Pence the lesser of two weasels.
2
"Tempest in a D-cup" is unbearably sexist.
1
"... God has a sense of dramatic irony and narrative surprise..."
Good to know.
About 4,000 children have been killed in Syria. Between 100 to 250 have suffered Assad's chemical weapons.
Doe the above constitute 'dramatic irony' or 'narrative surprise'? Or was the celestial teapot resting after a good day's work when Assad took over?
Could it be that there is no celestial teapot after all?
Gasp! I blaspheme and must run and hide. The celestial teapot will send its earthly enforcers to burn me at the stake. A move better known as Thomas Moore Protocol.
SK
1
The United States is in desperate need of a fundamental change. I suggest a parliamentary system, where more parties can address more issues, and no binary majority can dictate terms. A parliamentary system requires some version of cooperation and compromise, and might help reduce the current prostitution of elected officials to whatever special interest is paying their tab.
Pence is a lunatic, but he is preferable to either Trump or Clinton. That being said, if given a choice between Hitler and Stalin, who do you choose?
1
Amazing, isn't it, how "God" always can be made to act and reason in ways that fit the personal inclinations and prejudices of Pharisees like Douthat?
1
Mike Pence avoids entanglement in the Russia probe how? By saying that he was too stupid to notice? There's a great argument for a President. By the way, are we actually SURE he isn't Dan Quayle with bleached hair?
1
Ross --
I think Pence would make an excellent 11th Century Inquisitor-in-Chief.
Ya know, we could get back to that good ole, effective set them ablaze at the stake for their heretical transgressions.
No more impure thoughts, acts, public criticism of the powers that be.
We'll restore, order, decency.
And public dunking for those uppity women who we all know are witches possessed by the Devil - Hey, if they float, they're lying and we'll burn them; if they drown, they were telling the truth and their reward is in heaven.
Pence, yes. I'm feeling better already.
Thanks, Ross for another, stirring, soul-uplifting piece of journalism.
Where would the NYT be without you....
What if God doesn't exist?
God is man's greatest conceit.
Gee, I thought it was Satan that tempted the righteous with promises of earthly power...
4
In short, Mike Pence is a religious extremist.
2
Why not?
Because he's a glib, ultra far-right partisan who listens to silly voices. Who hates LGBT and sees women as second class. Who had to leave Indiana or get trounced in election.
If this is your tribute to intelligent politics, Ross you're a lightweight.
2
Its GOP dishonest wimp of a congressman and senator-dilated time. And you of all people know that.
Why not Mike Pence?
Because he is the avatar of Savonarola, or Torquemada (who supposedly said: "I rejoice at the malevolence of the deviant . . . for it shows I have followed the path of righteousness!").
Because this is 2018 and no one with a brain cell thinks of women as less worthy, or gays as deviant, or gay marriage as anything other than an inalienable right. And he does.
And because I do not want to live in a medieval theocracy with a local busy body who wants to place a camera in every place to monitor me, and scare people. I like a raucous, noisy democracy with equal rights for everyone, and protection of freedom for everyone.
Because I do not want to live in Soweto.
That is why not.
Kalidan
2
The whole logic displayed here is repellent. Why not Pence? Because may of his ideas are so atavistic, so self consciously retrograde that, presented honestly, he would not have a prayer(!?) of winning a majority in a Presidential election, not even with Electoral College providing an edge to Republicans. But democracy does not matter to people like Douthat; all that matters is winning the next election and defeating the "pigs of liberalism." [Dear NYT editors: Seriously?]
These are the people who believe they are the only true Americans, to only real patriots, the only people with values, the only people God Himself wants to lead our beautiful country. They are none of those things. What they are is hostile to democracy, morally debased and spiritually bankrupt. They are the worst Americans, not the best.
2
I think the philandering president has more in common with the Patriarchs than the mealy mouthed pence. Abraham had Hagar (true at Sara's bidding) and begat Ishmael. remember he pimped her out to save his hide,too. David had his Bathsheba, but Solomon had thousands of wives and concubines. And don't even mention Noah and his sons.
I am afraid that Pence has a lot of catching up to do to live up to the biblical examples.
But polygamy,
Reagan was a bigot and a racist. Bush was that plus a war monger. Romney was a misogynist. Trump is a racist, bigot, misogynist, islamophope and homophobe. Pence will certainly be labeled anti secular, a bigot and anti minority after Trump is removed from office. Why can't the Republicans get anyone pure of heart? YAWWWWN...get some new material liberals....labeling every Republican as a racist is growing a bit tired.
Trump is a clueless jerk with enough money and high powered "friends" to know how to survive in the business world (including all the bankruptcies.
Pence is evil. Except for his supposed fidelity to his wife, he's a creep around women who has not learned how to control his supposed urges and someone who appears to have no heart.
Beware him--he is more dangerous than Trump because Mike the Knife knows how to act in public while he wields his stiletto...
2
Why not? If I wanted to live under the Taliban, I'd move to Afghanistan.
2
"Mike Pence in the Oval Office: an evangelical Christian family man with a bluenose’s temperament and a boring Reaganite checklist of beliefs."
Wake up, Mr. Douthat.
You're giving us all a head-splitting nightmare.
1
Why not Mike Pence? Because he is a religious fanatic.
2
" . . . preferring a scorched-earth battle in defense of priapism . . . ?" Really, Ross? There isn't enough Viagra on the planet to maintain that or Pence's viability as President.
God save us from religious voters.
5
>>>>"...because his removal would be a victory for the hated establishment and the even more hated media and the many-tentacled Deep State..."<<<
Writing in this manner, casually linking the so-called Deep State to MSM and the liberal establishment, is journalistically irresponsible and just repeats and refuels the myth that conservatives are both believing and promulgating.
The true deep state, in function if not name, is the corporatocracy behind our government; the uber wealthy, for example pro-business conservatives like the Kochs and the members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) who manipulate politicians, and who take part in bankrolling and fanning the flames of nationalism and fascism, in order to move the country to a more reliable place of citizen control and extreme wealth accretion.
3
Why Not? Ask Hoosiers what they think of him.
SSG
3
I think Ross must have watched the Fox video clip yesterday morning I saw about 78% of Evangelicals supporting Trump. There was Trump, eyes closed trying to look so pious with his hands folded in prayer. And the Evangelical apologist stated "What sad journalists in the mainstream media don't understand, is that for many of us Donald Trump is God's chosen candidate."
Ross' arguments make so much sense, but why would these Evangelicals care about that? I don't like being judgmental about them, but as a group they seem to be falling into the category of Rex's words about Trump's leadership abilities, they're simply morons.
3
Mr. Pence offers the advantage of probably representing less of an existential threat to the world than the Child in Chief. However, any claims he may previously have made to high moral character have been thoroughly discredited by his full throated support of said Child.
3
Religious conservatives embraced Trump with self-righteous delight in his punitive rhetoric, xenophobia, islamophobia and racism, and agressive denunciation of all he deems "other". To claim that they were "forced" into his arms is either willfully ignorant or disingenous in the extreme.
3
As much as I detest religious extremists, especially politicians, I would take Pence over Trump in a heartbeat.
What the Trump experience has shown us is who the Evangelicals really are, a one trick pony. They are pro-womb, not pro-life and elect folks that like to cut any and all social programs that support women and children.
If God had anything to do with this is granting not what we want or need but granting us what we deserve.
3
There's an easy answer to "Why Not Mike Pence?" As Governor of Indiana he revealed himself as an immoral bigot. Parading as a devoted churchman, he ignored even the church's pleas to accept a refugee family in dire need, a refusal that reflected his misguiding principles on immigration and "others," i.e. anyone unlike himself.
He has tried repeatedly to decimate legal abortion and sees virtually no circumstance when one is merited. In the name of his vicious brand of Christianity, he shows no sign of human decency. Even hard-right conservatives in his state recognized that Pence was a rogue who threatened to blacken their segment of the Republican Party.
He hasn't just dirtied himself by avidly boosting Donald Trump but even lies like the man, easily and oily.
Rather than a "boring midwesterner", Pence is scarier in important ways than his boss because he is far more disciplined in the pursuit of his ideologies. He marches his way and if you don't follow, he'll stomp over you. The president may stray from marital vows, demand irrational fealty, jettison anyone whom he thinks crosses him and reigns with chaos. That also means he's distracted from some of his own worst ideas by constantly feeding his ego and plotting revenges.
But Pence has the single-mindedness of the wrongly self-righteous and will hold his perverted ideals as close to him as an outlaw does his pistols in body-strapped holsters.
4
Why not Pence? Ask Indiana.
4
Why not? Because he's a Republican.
1
Ayatollah Pence is as bad as Trump. He lied for him. He supported him. He would be a really good inquisitor. Worse than Trump. Somewhere I read Manafort selected him. If this is true he can't be trusted,.
3
God has nothing to do with this. Pence is a dispicable little man who espouses hatred clothed in a pious cover. The voters of his very conservative state realized this. He would be out of politics now except for the fact that he was the only one willing to run with Trum (beside Sarah Palin). He should be impeached as well, for lying to the FBI. You want a Republican president. How about Robert Mueller.
3
"Hefnerian president"
Hugh Hefner was an imperfect human being, but he was nothing like the president.
1
Do you not think that God loves liberals too. Why does the right always imply that democrats are not religious. Maybe democrats want god to stay out of politics and in their hearts where God belongs.
2
Good one, Ross.
This particularly, "...a legal tempest in a D-cup."
But the comment about evangelicals choosing trumpenstein over HRC, the lesser of two evils...? Really? HRC, gosh the one still married; the one who stood by her (badly flawed) hubby in his time of need; the one who actually goes to church; the one who actually pays her taxes ... ya mean that one?
The evangelicals and their entire platform is a fraud. Their beliefs relics from a dusty past. Their principles for sale. Their flocks, shrinking. Maybe you are right. HRC was evangelicals' worst nightmare: an educated, independent woman.
Well, they and the GOP will never ever live down their support of this moronic, morally bankrupt, incompetent liar. The end of the GOP is nigh.
Oh, and good riddens to the biggest fraud ever to soil the USA's political stage, Paul Lyin' Ryan.
1
Why not? Because he might be more effective. Because he would not bring down the whole hypocritical GOP edifice that ignores immorality and valorizes treason.
1
You ask “why not” and the answer is ‘he listens to God in his head’. KEEP RELIGION OUT OF GOVERNMENT !
2
I figure the internal contradictions will overcome a lot of the evangelical Trump supporters and they will be unable to take prudent collective action. If they weren't so big on being followers, they probably wouldn't be evangelicals to begin with. Many of them are likely to stick with justifying their support for Trump. Personally I don't care for Mr. Pence in office--our values are roughly orthogonal, and as a female-form-factor-individual I find his attitudes on gender to be antediluvian. But as governor of Indiana he impressed me by standing up for feeding its kids when the Legislature appeared ready to cut food benefits. I believe he would be far more stable and probably more humane. I don't think he'd want to answer to his Maker for pushing the nuclear button. To evangelicals, I'd suggest growing up. And if they can't bring themselves to do that, how about good old-fashioned repentance and reconciliation to the professed values.
As disgusting and revolting our rolling dumpster fire of a President is, Pence is worse he actually has an evil plan, he is not just winging it.
4
So, you're suggesting that evangelicals regain their virginity?
1
Never Pence.
He is part of the American movement to turn Christianity into a perverse autocratic greedy ideology. No up standing Christian should be in the back pocket of the Kochs which he is.
The creed of the right is greed.
5
Antidisestablishmentarianism:
Opposition to a state Church......
The separation thereof ..............
There is good reason to keep religion as a personal
life belief separate from government of a nation.
2
This President admitted ON TAPE of sexually assaulting multiple women multiple times. That's it. Game over. You cannot call yourself a ''religious conservative'', or ''evangelical'' and have supported the man or his election in the first place. ( let alone now ) Hypocritical.
7
That’s a great idea. Let’s trade a kleptocracy for a theocracy. Frankly, I’d prefer to stick with Trump. The last thing we need to be told by a president is “God told me to do it” or how about “God told me that gays and lesbians are sinners”. There are enough places where policy is dictated by the Almighty (see East, Middle).
5
“Tempest in a D-cup.”
The choice of this phrase says a lot: it’s juvenile, unimaginative, and disrespectful and objectifying of women.
2
"Why not Mike Pence?"
Because he believes The Flintstones was a documentary.
6
Pence is a religious ideologue who is under the control of his mentors- the Koch brothers. He was a horrible uninspiring and unpopular and incompetent Governor of Indiana. He would be a horrible President, a rigid reactionary and a self righteous religious fanatic.
5
It looks like many "Christians" no longer believe in driving the Pharisees from the Temple, but embracing them.
4
I.e., now that the rats have their mess of pottage, they should think about deserting a sinking ship.
1
Are you seriously using the term "tempest in a D-cup" to describe the goings-on in the Cohen/Clifford/Trump situation? Have you not been paying attention to your own paper's coverage of the #metoo movement? Can you find any other way to reference Ms. Clifford than by your appraisal of her body? Wake up Douthat.
1
Pence may not be a DT clone, but he's equally dangerous. Imagine Pence in the Oval Office: a dangerous and hypocritical demagogue guided by the twisted vision of religious fanaticism.
Pence is a divider, proud to exclaim to the same DT base, that he's "a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order." To which I reply: NO, Mr. Pence you have it all wrong. Unlike yourself, a great President needs to be an American first, an American second, and an American third - in THAT order.
For references, Mr. Pence, please look up: Barack Obama.
1
It is ironic that the evangelical Christian Right sees the "hand of God" in Trump's election when based upon everything we know about Trump it was much more likely the hand of Satan.
2
And so, we have come to the place where a conservative christian and political pundit encourages us to conceptualize the Trump era as a modern affirmation of the Talmudic wisdom that man plans and God laughs. Mr Trump is just a cosmic joke designed by the crafty Deity to give fallen evangelical christians one last chance to save their souls by abandoning Trump, supporting impeachment, and elevating a true believer into the oval office. If this fable of magical thinking convinces “ blue stocking” Christian fundementalists to abandon Trump, then I say, “brothers and sisters come let us pray”.
1
Who do you think is running the place with the anti-LGBT, anti environment, pro Christian judges, etc?
1
Trump’s behavior with women is so immoral and dishonest that at this point the only people who will stand by him are evangelical Christians.
2
From reading several columns by Mr. Douthat and the NYT review on its book, it appears that he would grant entrance to heaven to whomever did whatever under the Sun so far as they are straight, irrevocably opposed to homosexuality and its rights and adamant about the evilness of birth control and sexuality without shame.
4
get what you can, keep your mouth shut and wait for Trump to hang himself. I thought this was the plan of the GOP.
1
Ask yourself: could Pence be in the same room with Angela Merkel or Theresa May?
3
A little too much flirting with fake news here in that too much is left out.
First is that Mueller's penumbras and emanations are somehow, by implication, a fishing expedition when, in fact, he may investigate or refer ADDITIONAL crimes he uncovers in pursuit of Russian conspiracies.
And, second, the false implication that the Stormy issue Mueller is investigating is the salacious one and not the following of the money. The focus is not on Daniels; it is on payoffs to Daniels.
I'll reserve comment in this esteemed venue as to cup size, but Douthat, since HE mentioned it, is wrong there also.
Third is the fake news that if Pence were in, then evangelicals could return
"...to their Bill Clinton-era position that character counts in presidents and using illegal means to conceal gross infidelities are impeachable offenses..."
Douthat says this would be "...the consistent thing..."
Uh, but the evangelicals have been selling their souls to Republicans across many of the Seven Deadly Sins for decades. They cannot unring the bell any longer.
Besides, how would Douthat explain evangelical support for, say, Roy Moore?
Trump won because he sucked the air out of the room. Even today the media can't quit him. Pence would excite no one EXCEPT the evangelicals.
Besides, government business would grind to a halt because we would always have to wait for a second person to be in the room if the only person with Pence were a woman.
1
I don't know how many Times readers will pick up on this, but the final sentence of this column is an atomic mic-drop.
Trump has shown that America would be America again without the dictator wannabe. America does not need the likes of Mike "Onward Christian Soldiers" Pence shoving his extremist Christian views down the throats of the majority of Americans that do not subscribe to his theocracy wanna be views.
1
This President admitted ON TAPE of sexually assaulting multiple women multiple times. That's it. Game over.
You cannot call yourself a ''religious conservative'', or ''evangelical'' and have supported the man or his election in the first place. ( let alone now )
Hypocritical.
1
Why not Mike Pence? Because religion is for intellectual weaklings, and the problems we face in this world are far too complicated for someone who believes in fairy tales to solve.
1
Why not Paul Ryan?
Christian fundamentalists helped Trump win the election and found themselves with a mess of pottage, not with King David. They look like a bunch of conned hypocrites right about now, people who sold their much vaunted Godliness for thirty pieces of silver while trying to force theocracy on the rest of us.
Meanwhile, you clearly have no idea how the women of America might react to President Pence. The feminists of Indiana may be outnumbered, but that's not true in many of the rest of the states. The states with the largest numbers of electoral votes also have large numbers of feminists of all genders.
Women dressed as Handmaids are only the beginning of our response to Potential President Pence.
We're about seven months out from election day, and the Blue Wave is coming. Some citizens of this fair land still have a enough civic duty to keep this country from flying off the rails, but most of those are Democratic voters.
The idea that Yahweh is conspiring with the GOP literally makes me want to vomit.
2
because President Trump will pardon himself.
Pence would going from very bad to almost as bad.
I grew up in Indiana, and one look at the damage socially, educationally, and financially that Pence and his shameless group of state Republicans have done to the state, shows you what a Pence presidency would look like.
Why would evangelicals support a "religious hypocrite" like Pence, oh wait they seem to support the lying, womanizing, godless Trump, so why not!
"...God has a sense of dramatic irony and narrative surprise..."
This from an "intellectual." Tell me, does he stroke his beard and chuckle as he watches his tale unfold?
2
Why not Mike Pence? First, because he was not elected president and would not have been elected president in a lustrum of blue moons; and, second, because America is not ready for imposition of a Christian sharia. Hopefully, it never will be.
But mostly because I’m convinced that Pence accepted the vice-presidential nomination confident that Trump would be hounded from office or impeached, and that such an outcome would position him for an office he could never achieve himself; and I insist on denying him that.
5
Why not Pence? I'll tell you why. Watch how he eyes Trump so adoringly, as if he is standing in the glow of such magnificence when near his "Dear Leader" . All his piety is left at the feet of his Real "savior" DT. He is complicit in all that DT has done. Besides, I am sure the Mueller net cast over the swamp will eventually catch Pence too.
1
As if things aren’t zany enough, a supposedly sentient columnist gets into second-guessing God. This stuff belongs in a Sunday morning sermon under a tent: The one I’m driving past.
This column might get you a spot on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert!
this is a horrible piece. It belongs in some deep country TN Jesus school. It has no place in modern society. We have ways to learn about the world and must never resort to religious nonsense. Nothing can be learned by assuming that god pulls the strings.
4
Simple. They are grifters just like Trump.
I can see why Ross' constructed version of Mike Pence would appeal to him. By God, he's the perfect political vehicle for the gone-whacko political right. Uses "God" in every sentence. Except that this convenient Pence construction quietly ignores the real Mike Pence that the rest of the world can see all too well. The inconvenient Mike Pence. The thoroughly complicit Mike Pence, who has collaborated with Trump 100% from the get-go. The Mike Pence who tried to encode discrimination into Indiana state law. Is this really who your hero is, Ross? Some miracle. Good grief.
2
I’ll bet Pence is pinching himself and saying
“I’m so smart, I’m so smart, I’m so smart”.
Is this really Douthat’s conception of god - a conniving, ironic, backstabbing Republican? Or is this all tongue in cheek with fingers and toes crossed, like evangelicals blessing Trump?
Leave god out of government, Ross. I suspect he is fake news.
Mike Pence will not have the chance to clean up this disordered cemetery that Trump leaves behind
He will be buried in it with all of the other complicit republicans who stood by and did - nothing.
2
Why not Agnew?
1
Watch it happen, Ross. Your Christian voters will complete the transaction and their souls will belong, lock, stock, and barrel (like the gun pun there?) to Trump. Their hypocrisy and lack of shame are matched only by their stupidity and intransigence.
1
Pence is just as involved as trump in the Russia business and is a liar. He’ll be exposed along with his boss. Maybe Nancy Pelosi will be the next president. We could do MUCH worse.
As a deist like most of our founding fathers were and also Lincoln who said and I am paraphrasing don't do what God wants you to do, do what God has given you the ability to see what is right.
Its the lesser of the two evils as to who I would want as president if these two are the only choices.
I disagree with Pence on most things but he is technically qualified, and will obey the constitution on most things.
Trump is a bigot, rabble rouser, pathological liar, admitted sexually predator, philanderer, border line Russian spy, ego maniac demagogue who has little regard for our Constitution.
2
"That God is using Trump not as an agent of his good work but as a kind of ongoing test of everyone else’s moral character seems like a not-unreasonable inference to draw."
Okay. Trump or Hillary? Evangelicals believe Hillary is evil, Satan herself. She runs pizza shops with toppings that include child prostitutes - soon to be franchised across America. So they chose Trump and continue to choose Trump who speaks like it is while Hillary is a pimp.
Where do Evangelicals get the belief that Hillary is evil incarnate? Where do they get the belief that a proud, boastful, sinful child-man is God's answer to Liberals? Oh, it comes from Evangelical leaders who speak (meet?) with God.
What Evangelical leaders say must be obeyed. They speak for God. This is what faith is all about. Believe in the absurd. Even when your own non-religious humanity screams that it is immoral. Hey, but who are you going to believe? Your conscience or your Evangelical leader who claims to have God over for dinner and evening chats?
So, Trump is the handiwork of God testing America's morality. If so, then Evangelicals failed the test. They chose and continue to choose evil.
Personally I believe Trump is the handiwork of Greed. The choice America made in 2016 was the failure of education, civics, clear-eyed critical-thinking, love of man and earth, belief in treating others as you would like to be treated. The failure was epic.
As to Pence...two wrongs won't make a right. Unless you are an Evangelical.
4
Pence is a smug phony who thinks he's better - and purer - than everyone else. In his own Church Lady fashion, he's as much a self-centered egomaniac as Trump. No doubt he rationalizes his support for a demented heathen as part of god's plan to make him the most powerful man on earth, assuming his master doesn't drive the USA down a few notches in the meantime, but his passion is suitable for an isolated cult in a different century.
And that's only the tip of the iceberg on "why not Mike Pence."
2
He's a dominionist like Ted Cruz, Mike Pompeo, et al on the Trump team. You'll want to look that up if you're not familiar with it.
2
Yes, please. Anybody else. I don't agree with Pence on anything, except perhaps that he appears somewhat normal in comparison to Trump. Amendment 25, where are you?
It's true. We're begging for Trump's removal but Pence would be worse. Trump's incompetence prevents the GOP from getting more done.
Omarosa said it herself, Pence is evil!
1
I’ve never picked up RD’s comic touch! Very funny. Don’t like Trump- how about Pence. Toooo funny. Great column Ross.
Cute religious construct: Trump is the test, Pence is the answer. But evangelical love of Trump has never been about religion - it's simple racist tribalism that justifies the means and his racist message in every way possible.
1
For those of us inclined to see divine providence in electoral politics, I would think the Trump/Pence reign of error and misrule represents evidence that G-d has forsaken this land, once so favored by his grace, from sea to shining sea.
Mike Pence is the poster boy for the Christian evangelical cafeteria approach to morality. Having this self righteous hypocrite as president would be quite different but equally distasteful.
2
Donald, help America become great again. RESIGN!
Wow! Douthat, never one to dwell in reality for long, quickly pivoted off Trump and his immoral life to the old standbys of the Republican party. Clinton was a predator, for having consensual sexual relations, and God made Trump president to keep Hillary, an eminently qualified candidate, from winning. Apparently, Republican actual sexual predators are fine with him and Douthat's God hates America.
No true follower of Christ could ever support the likes of Donald Trump, or his enabler Mike Pence, despite his very public religiosity. That said, the real answer to the question "Why not Mike Pence?" lies in the separation of church and state as stipulated in the US Constitution, a concept Pence appears to ignore.
3
Why not Pence? Because he's a reactionary, gay-bashing, lying cipher who has managed to gain no experience in government in 15 months in office. What does he do?
Nevertheless, anticipating a Democratic House -- and maybe the Senate, too -- President Pence would be preferable to the racketeering crime family we have now.
But he will have to explain why he lied about the Russians, about Flynn, Manacort, Papadopoulos and Jared and others.
2
“That God would offer religious conservatives in danger of selling their souls a chance not just to step back from the brink but to literally replace Donald Trump with a fellow religious conservative”
A “fellow religious conservative”...? Are you kidding me. To suggest that any conception of a truly Christian god shares “religious conservatism” with American conservative “christianity” is at once laughable and depressing. To be Christlike is to be selfless. One cannot be simultaneously politically ambitious and Christian. Please stop.
1
after all the self congratulating you have done as a #nevertrumper, I would assume serving as Trump's VP and errand boy should be disqualifying offense for any elected office. Maybe it is a measure of the man's character?
1
Ross: you embarrassed yourself with this column. the evangelicals are interested in power and anyone willing to share it with them. if has nothing to do with God or faith.
From former reality TV star to former conservative talk radio host as president? Perfect.
1
In his own quiet, humble and pious way, Mike Pence is every bit the liar that Trump is.
1
"...legal tempest in a D-cup" may be one of the great lines of modern journalism. Well done!
Mike Pence is the only reason I do not want to see Trump impeached.
2
I was talking with god over breakfast today. We had a sunrise Tee Time and were enjoying our egg 'n cheese burritos in the truck. I mentioned this covfefe with Trump. He told me that he was smiting the conservative Republicans. I looked at him dribbling hot sauce on his eggs and dripping onto his Tiger Woods red Nike golf togs. I told him I didn't understand. He said he was using Trump to discredit and expose the hatred and hypocrisy of said Greed Over People Party. Like a flash I understood. The flash was him removing the stain from his shirt however, but I still got the idea I think. When I mentioned Pence moving up into the Presidency could excite his base, he did a spit-take all over the windshield and dash. As he choked and sputtered I quickly handed him his Big Gulp of Mt. Dew. ( Why he always Does the Dew I'll never understand.) Once he regained his composure and magicked the mess off the dash, (I had to point out the defrost vents needed cleaning too) he explained that Pence et al, wasn't his base and never knew him when he begged out front of their door. Which he does often. But he had a smirk smile as he looked sideways at me. I gave him the what?! He told me the self-righteous, hypocritical, sanctimonious, prosperity gospel, evangelicals, (he really, really dislikes this group!) that had made a false idol of Trump Mammon, would follow Pence into the pits of everlasting fire. We laughed and high fived. Eggs and burrito flying everywhere.
2
Ross's writing and reasoning are far too good to use these lamentable two individuals as props on which to pursue the "ordained" possibilities of his arguments.
The United State of America, in its tremendous diversity, wouldn't benefit an iota to elevate Pence to the presidency? And enough has been said already about the current President's effect on our country.
Also, of all the reporting on who constrains our president's worse instincts, Mike Pence's name doesn't come up. Just because he was the "choice of least resistance" doesn't make him worthy of the office. Oh, right, this is a political construct: the "evangelicals' dilemma."
1
I have never read an opinion piece as logically flawed as this one by Douthat. God is working to offer evangelicals a way out of this by promoting trump's right hand man and enabler?
Not one positive comment about Douthat's column today. Small wonder.
It ain't God who is behind any of this. It's the devil who is in control - of our government, of the churches, of pretty much everything. Evangelicals have been duped by him.
"Tempest in a D-cup" - !! (Made my day.) Surely wise to reveal through history how these things could play out - I would add that after the shocking corruption, many sordid affairs and early death of Warren G. Harding, pious Cal Coolidge became president and was re-elected on his own "merits." But that was then and this is now.
"... a religious conservatism that sacrificed a lot of cultural credibility in defending Trump might regain a little by abandoning him".
In whose eyes?
Certainly not in the eyes of those of us who saw clearly what Trump was (and is) long before he clinched the nomination, never mind the election.
Religious conservatives who embraced Trump have soiled themselves beyond any simple cleansing. The beliefs they (allegedly) cherish and represent in the public sphere have been debased. This is precisely why so many wise observers, including some of the Founders, have for centuries counseled against too eagerly flying the banner of religion in the political arena.
It would be civically responsible for religious conservatives to deny Trump their support, recognizing the corrosive effect he is having on the body politic. That withdrawal of support, however, will not restore one whit of their credibility in the wider culture. That can only happen with a lot of time, a lot of public good works, and a lot of reflection on how their judgment went awry so badly.
Could not help thinking this past year of donald in front of cameras, watching Mike Pence standing just behind him with that angelic smile thinking, "by the grace of god there go I".
Unfortunately, Democrats are dumb enough to grant Douthart his wish. Pence can do much greater damage than Trump and would be harder to beat in 2020. And don't tell me Trump is going to blow up the world. He owns too much real estate to do that.
This might well be an acceptable choice for Evangelicals but Pence’s archaic and bigoted views on gays and frankly, his fear of being alone on a room with any woman he’s not related to,make this seem less like a choice for a democracy moving forward and one lurching towards religious fundamentalism. Which sounds more like Taliban-lite and less like the US.
Electing Mike Pence would be telling the world we're not even trying anymore.
"Why not Mike Pence," you ask. Because our Government, our Country, believes in the separation of church and State. Pence believes that the church, at least his church, IS the State. That's WHY NOT Mike Pence.
1
Oh, yeah. Mike Pence is the vice president. I'd forgotten all about him. I guess he doesn't have much to say these days.
That which we call poison, by any other name would kill as surely. (Apologies, Will).
Let's have a replay of Gerald Ford's entry into the Oval Office. The Speaker of the House after the 2018 election... and maybe finally get our first woman president.
Quoting Patrick Lawrence from his article last year following the election of Donald Trump: "There is only one thing worse than this president: the liberal reaction to his election."
The Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways.
pence? no we dont live in a single relgion country - we are not israel or pakistan
I have a bone to pick with Ross's phrasing: our first openly Hefnerian president gets impeached for illegalities related to an adult entertainer and her charms. This seems to blame Stormy, rather than keep Trump's decision to sleep with another woman and then lie about squarely on his shoulders. Consider your words, Ross. This one is all on Trump!
Karmic law in action; simple.
"One does not have to agree with the ultimate decision that most of them made to understand the logic that motivated a decision for Trump." Logic? Don't you mean hypocricy? Betrayal of Christian values? Sacrifice of the exhortation "Love thy neighbor" to gain the possibility of ramming their anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-climate, anti-life agenda down our throats? Logic, my foot (not the body part I would have used in a non-moderated post).
1
I'll tell you why not Pence. Trump is a liar, con artist and entitled, all to a degree that is shameful, but at least he does so pretty much openly. It's not been all that hard to trace his steps back to his crimes. Pence is every bit the liar, con artist and entitled but he does so in back rooms with his cronies, single handedly crushes the rights of people, women in particular with secret bills passed and signed, and sells it all as religious righteousness. This is worse than trump. It is harder to guard against his wrong doings and clean up his messes. As bad as trump is, pence is worse. That's why not pence.
Had to look up priapism when I got to the last paragraph - totally not what I was expecting!
Nothing can vitiate the fact that Pence is a true Pharisee with false pieties erupting at every moment. He would embrace policies that kill and impoverish people, destroy civil discourse and create class and religious warfare.
Evangelicals may prefer his cynical hypocrisy to Trump's blatant flaunting of core Christian beliefs, because Pence matches their own vile disregard of their own purported beliefs. They are the poster children for bearing false witness.
I would not want to hitch my wagon to Pence or the despicable evangelicals. They are all headed south--way, way south.
1
Why not Mike Pence?
This is an intriguing question, which turns out to be "Why in the world Pence for POTUS?"--if the GOP wants to win presidential elections?"
If Trump is impeached or resigns and Pence becomes POTUS, by default, I think the Republicans know well that Pence is no entertaining, in-your-face, outrageous Donald Trump poking fingers in the establishment's eyes the world over. The likelihood of Pence winning the 2020 presidential election is slim.
Remember, Trump beat all those dull GOP presidential wannabes in the primaries, who had far more political experience than the TV personality and lying, rude, failed businessman Trump.
Clearly, true Christianity and a Jesus spirit of love and forgiveness has nothing to do with it, as far as evangelicals are concerned. Trump appeals to evangelicals because of his irrational, highly emotional Elmer Gantry style--similar to their attraction to the errant Jimmy Swaggart and corrupt Jim Baker.
I am sure Republicans have asked themselves: Would voters rather have a Diet Coke and sloppy Big Mac with Donald Trump or stale store-bought vanilla cookies and a glass of Country Time Lemonade (which has lots of high fructose midwestern corn syrup and no real lemons) with Mike Pence?
Come on Ross, there are many aspects of character - and sadly, Bill Clinton's sexual license and evasiveness about it was anything but out of the ordinary among politicians then and it remains true today.
Isn't it time to admit that the hysteria and outrage around Clinton's behavior was politically motivated?
Character IS important, but Clinton's character regarding how he conducted himself with other leaders and other politicians was fine. His sense of compassion was intact. His intelligence and understanding of the issues was great. His administration was relatively open, compared to his successor Bush, who closed the visitor logs.
Clinton should not have been impeached simply because Republicans hated him.
If the Republican embrace of Trump has shown us anything, it's that the character issue was manufactured. It was true then and it should be irrefutably obvious at this point, no matter how much people want to convince themselves otherwise.
A better question might be, "Why Mike Pence?" I can think of no better reason than that he happens to be Vice President to a president who is so ethically, morally, spiritually, politically and intellectually compromised that the ice upon which he skates would turn to water with a single match.
3
Why don't you, Ross, go out and ask these 'evangelical 'christians' how they like Pence, and report back to us..Now there is an idea!! Ask them why they support racists,liars, pederasts, and women-abusers over government workers, the poor and homeless, and mothers, while you are at it - then write a column and let us know..
3
Got to say Mr. Douthat I often disagree with your columns but Especially this one. I'm tired of anyone trying to pass off their opinion as somehow God's point of view. All I can say as a lapsed Catholic who is still a Believer, based on the Jesus of the Gospels, there is NOTHING I can see where any Republican policy, and hence any Republican politician including Mike Pence, that has Anything to do with the Gospels.
Republicans are Christian in Name Only & I would appreciate any of them Demonstrating any policy or law of theirs that would correspond to any of the teachings that Jesus advocated.
There is Not One Word about abortion in the Gospels so please don't try & pass that off as the Republicans standing with the Christ of the Gospels. And please don't get me wrong I in no way am advocating that somehow Christ would be ProChoice, what I'm saying according to the Gospels Jesus never said a word about abortion. I would also ask are the Republicans truly deserving of their reputation for being against abortion as a Party? There have been several instances of Republican office holders who've stated their stand against abortion but when someone in their family got pregnant & decides on an abortion for an unwanted pregnancy these politicians have stood with their family member & some of these politicians have even advocated such a choice.
And lets not forget that the Vice President has spoken of how the current occupant of the White House would bring honor to the office.
Remember, this is a man that actually says outloud that the universe is 6000 years old...his belief system is pre- Scopes. He is also someone with the basic political skill to bring together the GOP caucus which has been splintered for at least the last ten years. I understand how Douthat sees him as a rescuer for the religious conservatives, my problem is that he may be a rescuer for the religious conservatives.
1
From the viewpoint of evangelicals Pence may be an obvious choice, but in terms of a battered country he is not. For one thing, there is nothing Reagan-like about Pence, Reagan was not an evangelical and despite claiming to cater to the religious right, he himself was not a true believer. Pence on the other hand has shown that he has no compassion for anyone, when Indiana faced an AIDS crisis because mostly of shared needles, his answer was basically "let them enjoy the wages of sin", and this is a man who cannot have dinner with a woman without his wife being there because he thinks women are natural tempresses like eve...worse, if you think Trump is the mouthpiece of the greedy side of the GOP, Pence would rubber stamp anything the McConnels of the world push forward on the behalf of the Koch brothers. Environmentally, he believe Climate Change is an affront to God, that if it is real God will handle it. He might claim to talk to Jesus, but he certainly doesn't act like it.
More importantly, he will only further divide the country when he tries, as he likely will, to try and turn the country into a theocracy. He might be more attractive to the Evangelicals, but he likely will turn everyone else off, because he may be less abrasive, but he is equally as repugnant, as Trump.
3
You have to be kidding, Mr. Douthat. The majority of our Country wants to move forward. We have no desire to slip into a theocratic semi-democracy, with a man who refers to his wife as "mother" and will not be alone in a room with another woman alone. He is anti everything I stand for. On top of that is the end of days that these so called Christians long for. Don't fool yourself, Pence will bring them on, believing he is god's right hand man. Keep church and State separated.
4
Two wrongs do not make a right. Trump and Pence are not mutually exclusive. In other words, as I said in regards to Rosanne 2.0, to belittle our nation with the consolation prize of Mike Pence is beyond the pale. His anti-gay, pro-white, scared of women agenda should scare every living and breathing person with a conscience. And as I’ve said before, you have to be from Indiana to understand people like Pence. I am from Indiana. We have subtle ways of getting into people’s psyche. We seem distance. But there’s a lot of calculating going on behind that facade. Best to boot the whole lot of them out and don’t let it hit them on the way out.
2
I adhere to liberal philosophies but find it often worthwhile to read Douthat. He provides a worthy other viewpoint to debate and his logic is generally consistent. But...though in this column I know his intended audience to influence did not include me, he definitely lost me at the end when he wrote, "— well, that seems like just the kind of opportunity that a beneficent deity would grant to erring members of his flock." Why use the masculine pronoun to refer to his mystical deity?
What not Pence? How about, besides his odious politics and creepy personality, the fact that he went along to get long and is just as much a Trump enabler as Ryan, McConnell and the rest of the spineless Republican party?
3
Mr Douthat, the question is moot - as this Trump/Pence clown show will not make it past 2020.
The larger question is what should Christians do about their leaders - the prominent evangelicals, and their ilk - who have so clearly shown that they are happy to trade in their Bibles for an invite to Mar-a-Lago
2
As a non-conservative on most issues, I have to take issue with this. It's a great, witty piece but Pence is actually pretty dangerous. His extreme, archaic views about women and morality (except when it comes to his beloved boss) will do nothing but turn back time on the women's movement. And let's not forget he's also a liar and a bootlicker. Do we really need someone like this representing our country on the world stage? I actually think there is no "lesser of two evils" in this case. Both Trump and Pence are equally disingenuous, power hungry and hellbent on destruction.
1
Why not Pence?
Trump is merely disconnected from humanity, dignity and democracy.
Pence is disconnected from reality; he is 10x more dangerous because he actually BELIEVES the regressive stone age ideologies he espouses. Couple this with his messianic notion of dominionism (god chose him to bring in the theocracy) and we're all in for an even more disturbing ride.
4
Sure it's fun to muse about the unknowable will of an arch-ironist God testing the faithful.
Or Christians can follow the plain-spoken refrain of the Bible: listen to and stand up for the widow, the orphan, the homeless, the poor, the neighbor from another country...
1
1. Prediction: Trump hangs in until the first quarter of 2019 and will then "resign". Pence will come in a clean house (remove Pruitt, DeVos, Carson, et al. He will then have less than two years of Trup's term and will look for two terms of his own.
2. This is why Dems need more of a message in 2018 than "not Trump".
I am such a fan of your prose, Mr. Douthat. It is Sorkin-esque in its musicality. I really enjoyed this piece, because I totally agree with it (rare with your pieces, though I always enjoy the read), because I am completely convinced that sixty percent of this country has no interest in a traditional evangelical conservative like Mike Pence as President, but also because of the musical ebb and flow of the writing. Please always remember that you have big fans who are liberals who completely disagree with your policy prescriptions.
1
Several points. One, God hates Mike Pence. He views him as an American Francisco Franco and a duplicitous phony religious opportunist to boot.
Don't ask me how I know.
Two, with the exception of evangelicals, mainstream Trump supporters—as opposed to Republicans who have swung behind Trump—don't particularly like Pence either. They view him as an accidental Vice-President and if the Republicans were stupid enough to impeach Trump to get Pence, they would reap the whirlwind; losing the Trump base while still facing an outraged Democratic base. Bad politics.
There are a lot of evangelicals but even if you assume mainstream Republican Trump capitulators will join them in backing Pence, you are still left with a huge electoral hole that suburban Republican leaning women, standing row upon row on each others shoulders would still not be enough to fill, even assuming they'd want to.
So no, the Republicans are stuck with Trump and they will rise or fall with him. Which is why Paul Ryan resigned.
if evangelical Republicans had been making sensible choices rather than being conned by the con man and liar, Trump, they would have supported Evan McMullin, an honorable, intelligent, and experienced choice. Instead, they chose the shiny trash that is Trump.
This piece stinks to High Heaven.
It glides past the fact that Pence has been caught lying about his own culpability more than once and the possibility that Trump would leave office for crimes committed during the campaign that might incriminate Pence as well.
And it's more than a little cravenly opportunistic, though the image of Pence crawling out of a Trump Trojan Horse does offer some comedic affect.
But mainly, Pence is an unfeeling, extremist jerk whose ideology is so far out of the mainstream he was looking at losing his re-election bid as governor.
1
Sorry. Pence sold his soul to a demon named Trump. He should forever stink of that unholy alliance. A man who buries his self worth and dignity in the backyard of a lying and morally bankrupt fool deserves no respect or support. Forgiveness can come later when Pence has had some reflection time in prayer and solitude.
1
I have only a single disagreement with this essay and that is Ross' assertion that Trump is our first Hefnerian president. That particular distinction and the accompanying embarrassment of paying hush money goes to Bill Clinton and the recipient of a six-fgure check, Jennifer Flowers.
1
"That God is using Trump not as an agent of his good work but as a kind of ongoing test of everyone else’s moral character seems like a not-unreasonable inference to draw."
What, then, shall we make of the moral character of Mike Pence, Apologist in Chief to your Hefnerian president? Sorry, you can't have this both ways.
Pence is as much a hypocrite as the evangelicals that now support the sinner-in-Chief. He often states he is a Christian first, a conservative second and a Republican third. I think he got that backwards. But the main difference is that Pence suffers from different delusions, those relating to a magical spirit that supposedly guides the universe. At the end of the day, Trump understands the laws of physics and he is merely gambling with them to feed his insatiable ego. Pence wants to pretend they don't exist, which can have far more lasting damage if he is president.
1
"Mad Dog Mattis" ( number six in the line of succession ) is probably the first person I would consider sufficiently trustworthy and competent to take over as president. How scary is that?
2
Why not Pence? No. Because Pence wouldn't stand a chance. Institutional antitrumpist started with golden showers story in moscow 75 wks ago. Since then, almost wkly "leaks" from government sources mostly have lead to Stormy Daniels.
Evangelicals and many others understand these same folks will turn on Pence also. Pence wouldn't have a chance,he is too nice. Trumps flaws are no secret, on his sleeves every day. But..Trump has a chance of defeating this institutional beast
I don't believe God has anything to do with this on going mess. Trump should resign or be removed by impeachment. He's an abomination. Pence is no bargain either. There's no one in this administration that is fit to be president. Further, the republicans have demonstrated what they are made of and I'm not buying anything with an R on it.
1
That someone as intelligent as Ross Douthat believing in a "God" who would orchestrate the outcome of US politics is astounding. I have more faith in the Easter Bunny running Trump out of the White House. Regarding Pence, anyone who values tolerance and LGBT rights should find the idea of his presidency abhorrent. Douthat makes fun of the Handmaids who would stalk his campaign, but for women there is a real seriousness behind the protest.
I don't think we're meant to take this question seriously.
If Trump is impeached and convicted, Pence will be the president until 2020. It is impossible that both men would go down at once. Then we have Paul Ryan, if he hasn't left town by then? On his own, I don't think Pence would be elected. But we can take a decent, civil man for two years. The country will be suffering from PTSD, so we could use a dull prez.
This take by Mr. Douthat illustrates, once again, that not only man created God in man's image, but also attributes to God man's own machiavellian rationalizations of human conduct.
I learned from the evangelicals that a person can be forgiven for any terrible things they do, so there is no reason not to just do whatever you like. You don't even need to be sorry for it....it is that simple. I'm pretty sure if Trump can be the leader of the evangelicals then there are no rules any more....go wild everybody!
Disregard the "religious conservatives" who are not double frauds and phonies (actually neither religious nor conservative), and those too ignorant to know the difference between Trump and Pence or between Republicans and Democrats, and those who basically have zero understanding of the Constitution's impeachment clause, and you are left with a minority. But even that minority, and even those in it who voted for Trump, is unlikely to prefer Pence.
Most Trump voters have never been all that fond of him. What they've really liked has been his incessant bashing of establishment politicians. Pence has never delivered that level of red meat.
Douthat writes: "Vote Trump or get Hillary. One does not have to agree with the ultimate decision that most of them made to understand the logic that motivated a decision for Trump."
I am sorry, there is no religion based logic that validates their choice. Not now, not then, not ever.
That Douthat even thinks that there is any moral/ethical /religious balance that could possibly put Trump ahead of Clinton indicates to me that Douthat himself is guided solely by politics, not by morality, not by religion.
Right or wrong, he is a Republican.
And his columns are fake because while pretending to balance, they are ideological to the core.
I certainly hope Democrats can gain control of at least one house in the midterms. Pence is odious and a hypocrite. But he would be far more effective at enacting a far-right agenda than Trump. The current clown show is a nightmare...But perhaps more transitory than what Pence might put in place.
You wasted a lot of space, Mr. Douthat.
The answer: complicity in Russian ties, therefore, a liar; a radical theocratic outlook; bought and paid for by donors; likely to produce a dark lurch to the right of a badly compromised Congress; an ambitious lackey for Trump with robotic devotion; the majority of Americans would never vote for this rigid suit.
By mentioning "God" you've really established you're not worth reading.
Wow, Ross. Even for you this is pretty far out there. With respect to your suggestion that Pence be the replacement standard bearer, you're forgetting one very important point: Mike Pence couldn't get elected dog catcher. Especially after all those pursed lips of his over the various unsavory things that Trump did during the primary, and then signing up to work for the slimy reality star. While Pence's religious convictions may be genuine, anyone who could do that isn't. You mention Gerald Ford: The reason Ford nearly won in '76 was that he was a genuinely decent man, a fact that was very obvious to nearly everyone. He knew that pardoning Nixon would kill his chances, but he did it anyway because he believed it was the right thing, and the merciful thing to do. Cite me an example, please, of either Pence or Donald "Two Corinthians" Trump doing something similarly principled.
1
Evangelicals are only now starting to consider the possible exit of their beloved Donald Trump. Here, Visioneer Douthat is floating a trial balloon of the World Post Donald (WPD). His vision for WPD is a bland, yet dignified Mike Pence presidency. It'd be a soft landing for evangelicals whose prayers had been dashed by the Donald's extravagant promises. Yet it's a prospect that Douthat hopes might be accepted by the base.
But what happens if Pence is implicated in the scandals and is impeached alongside Trump? If the Democrats take back Congress next year and that's when Trump and Pence are both impeached, then presidential succession would go to the Speaker of the House, who would be a Democrat. (Note: the Dems already know that they need to get rid of Pence as well as Trump if they want to restore government to sanity--- so if Pence is complicit in the Trump corruption, as he almost certainly is, he will be impeached alongside Trump, i.e., no new Republican VP.)
Of course, Visioneer Douthat knows that evangelicals are not ready to consider the possibility of a President Pelosi. And the Republican pundit class, represented by Douthat, don't want to crush their only chance at retaining some power. A Democratic president next year means that evangelicals will sink into pessimistic apathy. It means reduced influence for Douthat and fellow influence peddlers.
So it's in Douthat's interest to rally the troops to Plan B--- Mike Pence. Ain't gonna happen.
2
One is a hedonist, the other a religious zealot. One is sacrilegious, the other sanctimonious. One is a billionaire, the other is indentured to a billionaire. One treats women as sex objects, the other as religious taboo.
Both are misogynists, narrow to closed minded, deluded absolutists, anti-science, allergic to truth.
Both are anti-democracy. Both mistake obstinacy for conviction.
One is a Hobbesian Choice -- which is essentially no good choice; the other a Hobson's Choice -- which is take it or leave it.
In both instances, it's not really a choice but a dilemma, a disaster, a degradation.
Pence is the catastrophe waiting to happen. Trump is the catastrophe -- a 30 car pile up on the freeway -- that's upon us now.
Pick your poison.
3
Good job Mr Douthat. Tempest in a D cup:D! Very good. Hepnarian. Ha! I always did like Gore better than Clinton and have never forgiven the Clintons for being so stupid about Monica. "None of your business," would have been a better answer than a lie. Imagine, if we had impeached Clinton, Gore would have been president, and if Hillary had divorced, she'd probably have been president too. Clinton brought them all down. My memories of those times and the awful consequences for New York and the Middle East are what keep me from wishing for a Trump impeachment. The only thing more dangerous than Trump are normal Republicans. Pence would be more effective, and that would be worse for us all. The GOP needs to have a great fall. Let's keep Trump awhile longer and hope he doesn't blow us all to pieces.
By agreeing to be Trump's VP, Pence disqualified himself for any public office and from ever preaching morals to others. Same is true for anyone voting for Trump...what a nasty disgraceful amoral human being. Value voters? I will be laughing in their face if I ever hear this phrase again.
Pence is on his own path, a religious path to eliminate all abortion, rid society of same sex unions and pave the way for the second coming (Jerusalem) with a new war in the Middle East to facilitate that end. I don't think much else truly interests him. If it takes his present position with Trump to serve those holy tasks, then so be it. If he should become POTUS by Trump's impeachment, then it will be fast forward on the holy agenda.
Evangelicals need not "root" for impeachment, but they should make clear to those who are interfering with the Special Counsel investigation that they support a full investigation and will support impeachment if evidence of criminal wrongdoing is found. The truth may set us all free.
Why not Pence? Well, let's start with the most obvious thing-by being a part of the administration, he de facto hitches his reputation and any credibility he possesses to the administration.
Running for president is a years long job interview, and if your resume indicates that your most recent job was to carry water for, and were the #2 guy in the most corrupt, immoral administration in modern American history, what sane employer would hire you?
1
It's just so irrational, our politics from 2016 to now. I understand the underlying problems and dissatisfaction faced by the Trump supporters, but to describe what they are choosing now as "tribal" is simply not sufficient.
The main concerns of the Evangelical is supposed to be about ethics, but they are nothing but angry, hateful and vindictive to their opponents.
The main concerns of the conservatives is supposed to be about fiscal and cultural conservatism, Trump is neither.
The GOP even without Trump has been very good at pointing fingers
Whatever their excuses, their apparent actions are hypocritical to their said values and they are destroying all of us.
Pence is dirty, but at least he has enough sense to keep quiet. He will not become President unless Trump resigns or dies suddenly. Even then his tenure in office would be brief.
Because but for whatever chicanery Trump pulled which helped him get elected, Pence is still governor of Indiana and holding back rights of women, gays etc., along with whatever other policies which would have made him unelectable. He is the beneficiary of what is likely illegal conduct by Trump and should not be rewarded for having tagged along for the ride - especially on the back of someone whose personal qualities we have to assume he finds abhorrent.
If we were living in a normal world MIke Pence would be sullied to evangelicals and any moral person by his support of Trump.
It was one thing to hold one’s nose and vote against Hillary but to vocally and consistently excuse the inexcusable is unforgivable.
I like the King Daniel reference but Trump isn't even in the same ballpark with that biblical figure. Even King Daniel repented and asked forgiveness from his Lord. Trump will do neither. And to paraphrase the Creator when He responded to Daniel's transgressions, "All you had to do was ask."
1
The question I have, is what are the evangelicals hoping to accomplish by meeting with Trump? Do they think they can offer him guidance in navigating through these scandals? Are they hoping to find reassurances that he's heard the word of Jesus and has changed his ways? I just can't imagine what influence they think they could possibly have over him. The answer to this question may well represent their most delusional thinking yet.
1
What a nightmare America. Imagine if Pence took office for whatever reason - would Trump be quiet? I can't imagine that he would go away quietly if forced to go away. He'd be tweeting himself silly.
1
I may not have seen the name, God, so many times in one sermon than I have read today in your column. What an embarrassment for a so-called enlightened society to suggest that God is testing us in this moment of national disgrace.. Our founding fathers, in their most difficult and challenging moments, would not suffer the disingenuous use of invoking the name of God as you proffer.
Say no to the vile GOP! and any GOP candidate.
Get woke - vote the GOP out.
Reverse our race to the bottom (for most of us) and our war against modernity.
Reverse our trend toward Plutocracy, Demagoguery, and Evangelicalism.
Get out and vote and vote Dem and then let's form 2 rational MODERN honest goodwill opposition Parties from there across time.
Honest rational people - Progressives and Conservatives - work together now to uphold our most precious promise - a government by and for the People.
I believe 58% out there see it as I do - and Ross I think Pope Francis does!
There are more issues that we in the modern World have to deal with than the Pharisees the GOP courts for their Authoritarian aims believe important!
Go back and listen to recordings of Pence's old radio program in Indianapolis in his pre-congress days. He is more extreme, close minded and tone-deaf than trump. And, given that the has political experience, he might actually get some of the hateful GOP agenda passed. He would be, in any context, a much worse option than trump. Dems should take their chances with trump in 202 and leave Pence where he is.
1
Why not Mike Pence? 1) He's as big a moral hazard as Trump, albeit in totally different ways. If you don't believe in the separation of church and state, then he's your guy. 2) The evangelicals never cared one way or the other about the infidelities of Clinton, John Edwards or a host of Republican and Democratic politicians- unless it served their political purposes. Their positions have nothing at all to do with 'religion' (at least, no religion I was ever exposed to...) It's all about Trump normalizing their worst impulses- to be close-minded, bigoted, uncharitable and often racist and misogynist. Religion is just a convenient cover, as I'm unaware of a single law passed under any previous President that somehow abridged their rights of freedom of speech and freedom to practice their religion- as long as it doesn't impose on others' freedoms and civil rights.
1
Donald Trump’s saving graces are his stupidity and incompetence, which together have lessened the damage that a more smartly sinister version of 45 could have wrought. (Hard to believe, but yes, things could be worse.) Of course, evangelicals will go for Trump and/or Pence, now and in 2020, no matter what transpires in the interim. The salvaging of America will up to the rest of us.
1
Why not Pence?
Because he's not, as you referred to Gore, 'untainted by support for a lying boss'--Pence has lied for Trump many times (no, there were no meetings with Russians--why would there be?)
Because he revealed himself to be as much as a hypocrite as so many evangelicals when he signed on as Trump's running mate, in spite of the fact that Trump stands for almost everything the holier-than-thou Pence claims to stand against.
Because he won't meet alone with a woman who's not his wife, meaning he's willing to discount the input of more than half the nation's population because of his own hang-ups.
Because he's anti-LGBTQ, and would do nothing to support those American citizens who are.
And because, if you listen to the people of Indiana, who grew quite disenchanted with him as their governor, he's dishonest and dumb.
Why not Pence? There are so, so many reasons. No thanks.
1
Evangelical leaders cannot turn against Trump. Their followers believe deeply that they should be faithful to their leaders no matter what. These people need the structure of authority in their lives. If evangelical leaders turn against Trump, what is to keep their followers from turning on them?
Brilliant "Magnetic Resonance" of those who have disrupted the healthy life of the inhabitants of this blessed and great country. Congratulations for making see through the fog, the shadows and the ambushes hatched by Trump.
If we can blame Paul Ryan for being feckless and allowing Trump to act as he has been, unchecked... then we have to view Mike Pence as the same sort of absolute failure as a leader. He has done nothing to stop Trump. He has embarrassed himself doing Trump’s bidding.
Pence is like Trump but more disciplined and he is another wolf in sheep's clothing. He traded on his faith to have access to power. He almost broke with Trump when the Access Hollywood tape came out. But was back on board like other republicans after offering a mild rebuke. Pence and the Christian Right forget that only Christ is eternal and what politicians can offer you is temporary and comes with a high spiritual cost.
1
"Legal tempest in a D-cup?" Thank you for reducing a businesswoman (how unfortunate that you don't agree with her practices) to an easy pun. It's microaggressions like this which really prevent two sides of an argument from empathizing with each other and coming to common ground.
I think you deserve Mike Pence. I sure don't want him.
the reason why not is because he is completely unelectable by a majority of the people--in the Sarah Palin mold. He was a bone to the right wing during the general election because of his retrograde stances on women, gay people, people of color, and science. The man is less in touch with the reality of the world most of us inhabit than DJT.
That's why not.
1
Hillary needs to run for Congress this year - when Dems take the House they can make her Speaker. Impeach Trump AND Pence, then Hillary will be moved into her rightful place, albeit two or three years after winning the election, and the country will be the way it was meant to be.
5
I, for one, am very much against the impeachment of trump. If that were to happen and Pence became President before the 2018 mid-term elections, it would drastically change the outcomes. It's the loathing of trump that is motivating the multitudes of voters to change the makeup of the House and/or Senate, state and local legislatures and judiciary, and governorships, etc. If Pence is in office by that time (which I can't see realistically happening in the time between now and November unless trump is arrested), many will be soothed simply by the fact that trump is gone and may no longer feel the urgency to rally the vote. We need trump to remain in office, at least until after the mid-terms; to remain the focus of our rage and loathing in order to get the vote out in high enough numbers to ensure the changes this country so desperately needs.
5
You are addressing this opinion exclusively to evangelicals, which itself answers your question, "Why not Mike Pence?". Some of us follow other, or no religions, and we firmly believe that not only are we entitled to the same constitutional protections as evangelicals, but furthermore, that we are just as much American as they are.
17
Because Mike Pence was not a competent governor (he was going to struggle to be reelected) and he so does not represent what Trump enthusiasts want in terms of policy.
2
Alert! "The Fallacy of the False Equivalence".
Donald Trump=Bill Clinton therefore Pence=Gore?!?
Can we all agree Bill Clinton's behavior toward women was inexcusable? Might we otherwise acknowledge, he devoted his entire life to public service. Perhaps that's why his approval rating never flagged (65 to 73% during impeachment).
As for Trump?...He has cheated, lied and bullied his way to enriching himself his entire life. We only need to read his daily "tweets" to get the full measure of his desperate attempts to tell us who he is...yet religious conservatives, Pence, and the present day Republican Party have aided and abetted his behavior and actions at every turn.
Let's pray the American people will not soon forget the role they have all played in getting us here and hold them accountable.
As for Gore? A good man who won more votes than Bush but fell victim to the Electoral College.
34
So many god references here, it's more theology lesson for a 7-year old than a column in a literate publication, even with all the might-have-beens.
Mike Pence will never be president because Americans will never elect one who so theatrically wears his religious hallucinations on his sleeve. The religious right is no longer ascendant; their hypocrisy had been exposed long before Trump proved what fools they are.
We, as a secular republic, wil never allow any religion to be blasted into our faces, especially the christianism of screamers like Pence. Perhaps Trumpism will turn out to have been a necessary purge to force our country to look into the abyss and reset. And perhaps we will even be thankful for it. We have no need for zealots like Pence to realign our country.
27
Mike Pence will never be elected President? It would require a lot if hard organizing, reasonably unified opposition, and a strong candidate with broad appeal to ensure that such an opinion is not just wishful thinking.
2
Republicans need NONE of that. Trump did no organizing, had no broad appeal and was not a strong candidate. Only Democrats need all of those things in order to win. Republicans pretty much win automatically.
Why not Mike Pence?
Because much remains to be learned about how Pence was supposedly misled by Mike Flynn about Trump's communications with Russia during the transition.
As the leader of Trump's transition, Pence was either:
1) up to his eyebrows in its dealings with Russian
or
2) so daft that he couldn't get hired to manage a Waffle House.
27
Brilliant and very funny.
Here's a scenario. With a big win in November, the House Democrats draft article of impeachment. Next, enough of the remaining and totally shaken Senate Republicans provide the votes necessary to convict Trump and remove him from office. Then for the following two years, the Democrats use their majorities to keep Pence at bay (especially in the case of Supreme Court nominees, with special thanks to Mitch McConnell) until he's kicked out of office in 2020.
13
Two words make Mike Pence a scarier substitute for Trump. They are: Mike Pence.
13
have top be kidding........ Pence is Trump´s enabler and therefore the same kind of person but more retrained and controlled ....... they are all contaminated...that is why it is called the swamp.
Although you and I come from completely different ideologies, I do respect your intelligence and truly believe in dialogue between opposing parties, but Pence is not an option.
5
I doubt Trump presidency is the result of some supernatural being testing humanities morality or character.
10
Why not Mike Pence?
How many reasons do you want?
15
Oddly, Pence is a less appealing candidate than Trump. Trump is self-absorbed, calculating, dishonest, ignorant, and mean-spirited. Pence may not be ignorant but he is fiercely homophobic, which is more of a concern than any of Trump's character flaws. He projects himself as a highly moral and religious man, but a highly moral and religious man would never stand "shoulder to shoulder" with Donald Trump.
16
As much of a travesty and parody of governance that is the Trump Presidency, I'm not sure that replacing "Hail to the Chief" with "Onward Christian Soldiers" would be any improvement. Pence is forever tainted with the stench of his own fawning adulation of the man he serves. He is the 'umble Uriah Heep of the Trump Administration. To which I say (mixing my Dickens references) bah, humbug!
14
I'm old enough to recall the presidency of Gerald Ford, a decent man, less divisive than Pence and certainly more appealing than that troglodyte Agnew. His big problem was that he represented a party in utter disgrace.
Be my guest and repeat history. The GOP does it endlessly in other ways--budget-busting, reckless deregulation, sexual hypocrisy. I wish they would get sober and instead make a stab at good governance.
7
Why not Pence? said no educated, independent, thinking woman ever.
36
Um, because his views on women and how religion rules his views, that is why not. The supposed conservative intellectuals like Dross are such hypocrites - they will swallow any justification to achieve their policy goals, no matter how out of step. Sorry Dross, the ends does NOT justify the means.
16
Don't know about your little circle of 'religious conservatives', but the big bunch of them out in the hinterland who voted for Trump voted for him for the same reason most Trump voters voted for him - race.
Despite the fact you write like an old man, particularly when you write about Stormy, those of us who are actually old see you're not old enough to know the actual Clinton-Gore history since most politicos at the time thought the straight laced Gore keeping his distance from Clinton during the 2000 campaign worked against him.
Oh, and Mike Pence was an extremist, inept governor who was going to lose re-election when he jumped on the Trump train to make the Kochs happy. He likely would make the hypocritical Christians conservatives giddy, but his incompetence as head of the Trump transition & his lies for Trump would work against him, if they haven't put in Mueller's sights, too.
13
The Evangelicals have lost all respect and credit after their hypocritical attachment to a soulless, vike, morally repugnant thing as Trump. Trump has pulled the curtain back to reveal what they really are: mean-spirited grifters like him looking for power at any cost.
17
Pence represents the same "lies" that Trump does. The subtlety of hypocrisy is not a defensible position. Mostly it is the same con job, used to fool people. Given how foolish the American people already have proven themselves to be, it just may work. "Heaven" help the rest of us.
6
It might be worth having Trump continue to be the exemplar of the hypocrisy of the Evangelicals. Two birds with one stone.
3
The only positive thing I can think about a Pence presidency is that he probably won't tweet us into a war.
1
Why not Mike Pence? Because he hates gays and doesn't believe in the civil rights of others. he would put his interpretation of godliness before the application of charity and compassion and grace. The man is a menace waiting behind the curtain and would never have been elected president if he had run on his own. No, a thousand times, NO!
13
There has always been speculation that Pence was brought in for the evangelical vote as well as the distinct possibility that he would have to take over. What Pence lacks is the "base" beyond the evangelicals i.e. the rust belt, angry, white truck driver who previously may have even voted democratic. Pence will generate an even bigger progressive backlash because it will be about the issues, not the individual.
5
They should be anxious, judgement awaits.
1
The thought of Mike Pence as President is the only reason not to impeach Donald Trump. That thought sends me into prayer every day.
8
I don't recall when the conservative evangelical community's ideal was a man whose sycophancy at the feet of an immoral and corrupt leader knows no limit.
5
"...a legal tempest in a D-cup." Good one!
3
We "professional feminists" [what does that even mean?] may find Pence's politics odious, but we also recognize that he colors [wrong term for him?] between the lines. He isn't entwined with the Russian mafia, or NY molls, or the real world, but that last one is a matter of partisan opinion. He seems capable of basic decorum, and to have some sense of the rule of law. He's a troglodyte but will not continue the shredding of the fabric of civility.
2
Pence is a theocrat. Religious freedom will be at peril with him in the Oval Office.
My humble opinion as a former Hoosier.
8
Pence would be s dangerous to our society as Trump.
He is the one who advocates conversion therapy.
6
Why not Mike Pence ? Because he is a liar !
Politifact rates more than 50% of his statement "Mostly False", "False" or "Pants on Fire" and another 31% "Half True".
And at the time of Flynn's forced resignation (March 2017), Pence said on national TV:
"Hearing that story today was the first I'd heard of it,"
No !! Rep. Elijah Cummings sent him a letter on November 18 (three months or more earlier) laying out the information in detail.
Liar and a hypocrite - is that the best the GOP (or the church) has got ? Really ?
7
Not to mention he's no rocket scientist.
The failure of Christian conservatives to see the obvious logic behind this article shows that they are motivated by neither logic nor morals. They are not a religion at all; they are a fascist political movement intent on destroying democracy. Nothing less.
8
Thanks for making me look up 'priapism.'
It's always good to extend one's vocabulary.
1
Hefnerian. Love it. I get it, too, except Hefner wasn't a hypocrite. He was open with his life style and seemed to live it with honesty.
7
Stormy Daniels's payoff as "a legal tempest in a D-cup" just won the award for Dorothy Parkerism of the year.
Congrats, Mr. Douthat. No others need apply.
2
I have been recently disappointed by Mr. Douthat's columns. While we share little ideological ground, I have found him, until recently to be rational. But increasingly his columns seem hopelessly skewed by faith that lead to rhetoric that is utterly irrational. Pence has advanced an agenda steeped in "faith," but which has fallen far short of actually being "Christian."
5
Who? The preist?
Given the appointments to the executive branch by Trump, it could hardly be more conservative or Evangelical. At least with Pence there is truth with advertising. Not a truth I like but no agnostic supporter could hide behind Trump's lack of religious conviction.
1
What will probably happen is that Trump will eventually resign before his guilt is unequivocally established, allowing Fox News and Infowars and Breitbart to portray him as a victim hounded out of office by the deep state. Nothing will be resolved, tribalism will continue to reign, and Mike Pence and a Republican congress will continue to run the country into the ground.
2
Pence can’t be president. According to the constitution you have to be born here to become president of the U.S. Pence wasn’t born anywhere, he was built in a Koch Brothers lab. Hopefully his batteries run down soon.
14
Has anyone heard of separation of church and state? or has everyone forgotten? Keep your God out of this.
8
Modern evangelical leaders are like the pharisees and the money changers from the Bible. They have lost their way. They have helped create a monster. They should each go back to their Bible and really read it this time.
8
“If Gerald Ford could almost win in Nixon’s shadow, why not Pence in Trump’s?”
I’d be okay with Pence almost winning, aka losing. Go for it, Mikey.
2
Why not Mike Pence?
Unfortunately the NY Times comment system only allows 1500 characters in my response, so I'll have to send the full list of reasons via FedEx bulk, overnight.
3
Christian evangelicals is an oxymoron. There is nothing Christian in slavery, segregation or hatred of others. America was created as a secular nation by enlightened founders.
13
The Republicans rode Trump for all he's worth. They have their new tax code. They disabled the EPA, the State Department, HUD. Now that his usefulness has expired he is trapped in a maze of his own making. Once Muller shows the evidence Trump is done. There will be no reason for them do do anything other than 'let the law take its course,' just as they have been saying from the beginning. Jeff Session might be despicable but he's not stupid.
6
Pence would be just another Emperor, like Emperor Trump is now for the very same Empire.
"We can't be an Empire"
Empire is the cancerous tumor in our body politic
2
Mike Pence’s shallow moral convictions and pretentious Christian ethics are exposed with the demonstration of his political greed and acquiescence to the bottomless pit of amorality that is Donald Trump. That is the answer to: “Why Not Mike Pence”!
8
We hardly hear a peep from Mike Pence, especially concerning the egregious stances Trump puts forth near daily. If he does somehow become our next president, his push into the limelight will force the exposure of a severely out of step persona.
"Why not Mike Pence" will become obvious.
Luckily, as I see it, he is not internally driven to do much, so his presidency could pass with lessened further damage to the USA.
3
Bravo Ross, bravo!
Because it's pretty clear Pence does not like women at all. He doesn't trust or respect them. A man that damaged shouldn't be president . . . oh, wait . . .
13
Why Not Mike Pence? Pence can't even go to lunch with woman without his wife present, what does that tell you about his character?
7
That he is cautious; that he thinks before acting; that he considers the opinions of others important; that he does not choose to create risk for himself; and that he is nobody's fool. Sounds extremely presidential to me.
What? You wanted Bill Clinton?
The idea that people who have Christian religious beliefs are all in the camp of "religious conservatives" is so just offensive. For the most part these people are more political than religious, with pretty much everything being tied to being anti-abortion and pro-NRA. The kindness, love, and gentility of Christ and his teachings are hard to identify in people like Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham, and Mike Pence.
7
Because he's a religious fundamentalist and we need a president whose values represent tolerance, openness, and a commitment to pluralism.
Is that enough reasons why not?
9
"One does not have to agree with the ultimate decision that most of them made to understand the logic that motivated a decision for Trump." No, I don't understand. I'm sorry. No amount of mind twisting will help me understand. It was the most cynical and truly awful decision that a voter could make. I know WHY they did it, but that is not understanding.
7
The "evangelical" leaders will base their decisions on the same principle by which they base all decisions: Which way will yield the biggest take in the collection basket and that is immune to taxation?
5
Why do pundits insist the Cohen raids were about the doxies? The man was Trump's "fixer" for years, the only non-family figure trusted to represent Himself in his myriad overseas deals with despots and oligarchs.
Payoffs for the Great One's dalliances do not get judges to sign warrants to search lawyers' offices. Serious financial crimes do.
7
So Douthat tells republicans they can impeach Trump with no threat of needing to compromise or treating one another with civility. Could be compelling.
2
I suggest we invoke the McConnell rule and have the voters decide. Push up the next Presidental election or let Hillary take over (she did get more votes than Trump after all). If works for the supreme court, why not the Presidency?
Nobody elected Pence, not even the Trump voters.
2
The other possibility, not proposed, is that God sent America Donald Trump to save it from Ted Cruz. The first objective having been achieved, Trump is dispensable.
4
Douthat’s obsession about sexual morals leads him to make some assumptions that are questionable, to say the least. As he often does, Douthat asserts an equivalence between Trump and Bill Clinton on the basis of their common history of adultery. However, sexual misbehavior is just one aspect of Trump’s defective character, along with his self-dealing, dishonesty, petty vindictiveness, and remarkable lack of impulse control. To transcend Trump, the Republicans would have to do a lot more than proclaim a new commitment to character by closing ranks to support a sexual Puritan like Mike Pence. Douthat assumes that advocacy of a conservative code of sexual morality plus a negative history for adultery equate to a strong character, but Pense and other Republicans have shown their own failure of character by aligning themselves with Trump. Not only that, but the Christian Right with its embrace of Trump has forfeited its claim as champion of moral virtue. Did not the Israelites wander the desert for 40 years after worshipping the golden calf? The Republicans have been worshipping their own false god, and should expect no shortcuts to redemption.
11
Ross, you’re occasionally right; however, you’re wrong this time. I was raised as a Roman Catholic; to me, this act by the evangelical right, following the Jesuit tradition of the end justifying the means, is as wrong and ill-begotten now as it was when first espoused hundreds of years ago. Is this behavior consistent with the Sermon on the Mount? I’m fairly certain the God of those lessons is not an employee of the Internet Research Agency.
3
Because Pence can't win a general election. He could not have gotten elected again in Indiana. Trump is the phenomenon that he is because he could dog-whistle and rile up his base. Pence does not have that (malign) charisma. He's the last candidate the GOP would want; otherwise, they'd be angling for him now.
3
I live in Indiana and although I was glad to see Mike Pence go, I certainly had no idea that he would go become Trump’s VP. I disagree with Pence on many things, the greatest of which is his unhesitating support and outright encouragement of Trump’s completely unpresidential conduct.
However, I’d take Pence any day over Trump. He is a gentleman, which means he treats people with respect - all other people. Pence does not insult his own staff, let alone other Americans. He knows how to speak to foreign leaders without taunting them. He is a person who uses his education, unlike Trump. He values expertise; he knows that he does not know everything. Pence will show us his tax returns. He will not use the presidency for financial gain except in the acceptable way: after it is over. I am not a conservative, but I can live with Mike Pence as President. He’s a decent man. After Trump, we will welcome Pence’s decency, his courtesy, his lack of personal and financial skeletons. We’ll have a president who believes in our Constitution. I don’t expect to agree with Pence on a number of issues, but at least we’ll know that the arsonist in Chief is gone.
1
"...we elect a quasi-monarch, whose removal seems as traumatic as a regicide. "
In normal presidencies, yes, but does anyone really think the removal of Trump would be seen as traumatic?
The daily embarrassments and transgressions of this man would be cheered by most Americans, except for the Evangelical hypocrites and the "good people" marching in Charlottesville chanting "blood and soil."
4
Trump is dangerously unpredictable, true. Lately, he's playing the part of an autocrat and an ideologue; but it's all just for show--or for the shows to come later, when he becomes the eternal object of media adulation he so desperately wants to be.
Behind Pence's waxen, vacant face is a real belief in a set of astonishingly troglodytic cultural values. The scruples of religious conservatives can take a backseat for a while--look what they've done for us so far--while we focus on surviving, and moving beyond, the next few years of Trump.
4
Some evangelicals will remember a great Veggietale movie in which the prophet Nathan (I think he was an onion) bravely and wisely dancing around the prideful sinful king, spinning a fable of a man who wanted all the yellow duckies, even arranging for Uriah to killed to get his ducky.
At the end, the king, deeply ashamed, repented his evil prideful ways, promising to be always be content with just his own duck. Nathan saved the king and the kingdom with his moral fortitude.
Can you imagine Pence or Trump playing either of those roles?
Pence is not a brave nor wise prophet, he is an opportunistic weak enabler possessing neither the character or the moral/religious strength to stand up to Trump nor to any other strong force. He will do what is expedient, convenient, and rewarded.
Instead, Pence will smile, tightly embarrassed, morally challenged, ethically frozen, awkwardly collaborating, uncomfortably facilitating.
Clear to all especially Trump - Pence is no Nathan.
He is instead a product of his demographic.
Trump knows that too.
5
After rereading the column and reconsidering the its' thrust, I am truly dismayed that any person with a platform as wide reaching as this continues to spout mythology.
This is the 21st century and these thoughts only demean the progress of thought. To consider that the future of our species may rest in the hands of people who not only give credence to the so called "super" natural, but may also lead our nation into its' destruction, is an absurdity that flies in the face of reason.
Were this column not read by more than the handfull among us who bother to write, there would be little with which to quibble. "Nobody pays attention anyway" would be my response, but this column is read by far more.
As it clearly promotes mythology of both the religious and political sort it doesn't strike me as belonging to that group of news known as "fit to print".
Am I jesting? Only to a point.
5
The explanation for the president's behavior and the rationalizing of those who voted for him is the same. As Flip Wilson said so profoundly, The Devil made me do it.
2
It should not be trump's priapic puerile priapism that should give voters pause, it is his poor, political performance that compromises and imperils our republic that begs for his replacement. Teapot Dome anyone?
2
An even more apt descriptor of these christianists by Mr Douthat's "beloved Christian author of many years ago" would be That Hideous Strength.
1
This isn't about God, this isn't about Christianity, this is about racism. So-called evangelical "Christians" support Trump because he is a racist and panders to their racist fears. This is a president who prefaced his campaign by smearing President Obama with the Birther Conspiracy theory. Character matters, and with racists everything hinges on pandering to their deepest fears. That's why it doesn't matter that Trump lies, commits adultery, encourages corruption and betrays his country. It's all about racism.
8
And you, the resident of a foreign country, know the real motivation for American evangelicals behavior? That's uncharacteristically presumptuous for a Canadian.
While it would make a certain kind of sense for evangelicals to endorse Pence over Trump, those same people don't seem interested in doing so.
Meanwhile, Pence is not a panacea to the Trumpian era. He is not bombastic, but he adheres to a philosophy about women that is more akin to the dark ages than the current age.
He would see us all at home, barefoot and pregnant, regardless of the talent that would cost our society. It's not clear either whether Pence understands the nuances of diplomacy any more than Trump does. He simply keeps quiet most of the time, deferring to his master. Not the sort of "solution" I'd like to see.
5
In the beginning there was faith—which is childish; trust—which is vain; and illusion—which is dangerous.
Elie Wiesel "Night"
6
Pence is a proven hypocrite whose supposed moral stance crumbled to nothingness when he accepted, in full knowledge, the job of kowtowing to the person who personally embodies just about everything he opposes.
8
Reading this article got me thinking why Trump felt the need to pay off Stormy in the first place. We already knew him to be a philanderer, and everyone voted the way they did given that information. Did evangelicals somehow hint to Trump that sex with a porn star was a pill they couldn't swallow, so he had to hush her up to preserve his candidacy? The president certainly doesn't seem to ever be ashamed of anything, even if it's on tape.
5
Yeah, why not Mike Pence?
I guess he is better than the current sociopath in the position. However, Mike Pence is a supreme mediocrity, bereft of new ideas, and incapable of addressing the twin pressing problems of a postindustrial economy and climate change.
In the 1930s, if we had Republican do-nothing instead of FDR would things have worked out well? We need a practical progressive president.
Alas, I do not think the Democrats have had a solid platform. The last Democrats in power have been triangulated with Wall Street. And as of late, they have not known how to address the common man. That was part of the breeding medium for Trump.
Nonetheless, Pence is a cipher whose presidency would send a clarion call of weakness to the world.
5
Pence is Mitt Romney without the charm. GOP voters rejected Mitt overwhelmingly when he was the option. Pence's gubernatorial record and his pious mewling from the side lines will not guarantee him the position of POTUS should Trump be impeached. More likely, the GOP will be in the wilderness for a decade or so.
2
Why not Pence?
...because any moral or ethical credibility he had evaporated when he agreed to be Trump's VP.
...because he has been an apologist for the most corrupt, inept, un-American and damaging administration in the country's history.
...because the majority of America does not want an evangelical ideologue setting the course for America's domestic policy. Religion is fine, but get it out of our governing.
8
why not Mike Pence? just look at his record in Indiana. delayed money for needle exchange programs which led to spikes in HIV and Hep C infections, signed a law that originally was intended to allow businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ persons, like a dinosaur in his views on contraception and women's abortion rights (signed anti-choice bills into law in Indiana that were later found unconstitutional, wasting taxpayer money), has called climate change a myth, bought and paid for by the Koch brothers, says he's a christian but signed an executive order banning resettlement of Syrian refugees (who had been vetted) in Indiana. this man is part of the reason we have Trump in office right now. he's chomping at the bit, waiting for his turn. he's as dangerous as Trump, just in different ways.
8
Thanks, Ross, for saying what I said a long time ago--or at least last year--which is that a reasonably temperate individual in the White House infinitely preferable to what we have. I share only one opinion with Mike Pence--his pro-life stance--and reject nearly everything else, but I repeat: he, at least, is a rational individual and a fair and honest opponent for Democrats. Parliamentary system or not--which I think we desperately need--the Republican Party needs to wake up to its real condition without Trump, and it won't do that until Republicans are without Trump.
Once they take back the House and Senate, Dems must resist the temptation to impeach Trump and work with all due diligence to investigate, hamstring, and just plain humiliate the Prez at every turn. Do not present the GOP with any opportunity to make a martyr of him - just put him in a box, and start squeezing.....Make him look back on the Mueller Era as the Good Old Days.....
5
Why not Mike Pence? The answer is easy. He would allow his religion to rule his decisions, and that is unconstitutional, and dangerous. JFK specifically stated that his religion was of no concern regarding his decision making, and he would govern according to his Presidential vow to uphold the Constitution of the US.
8
This articles gets two important points exactly right. Nothing would be a greater gift to Republicans than replacing Trump with Pence. And the greatest gift George W Bush got from Democrats in 2000 was the Democrats insisting in 1998 and after that Bill Clinton stay in office even after he deliberately, repeatedly, and, under oath, lied.
Trump is absolutely unpredictable. He could wake up tomorrow and endorse single payer healthcare, something he's supported in the past and seemed to favor when he praised the healthcare system in Australia. Pence will absolutely establish the primacy of private insurances in healthcare, a system that's failed to give us universal, easy to use, and affordable care for the last 70+ years.
Clinton was the dead weight around Gore's neck. Instead, Gore could have had the incumbency advantage in 2000, if Clinton, for the good of the party and country, had stepped aside when impeached.
Democrats will be far worse off with Pence replacing Trump, both immediately and in 2020. Pence knows exactly how to implement the radical conservative agenda that Trump hasn't entirely succeeded at and maybe doesn't believe in (think Social Security, Medicare changes), and Democrats will get the blame from Trump voters for removing their guy.
2
Ross, you are more fun than a barrel of politicians.
1
Ross...I don’t always agree with your opinions but respect your writing ability. Had to complement you on the phrase,”tempest in a D-cup.” Well done.
3
“our first openly Hefnerian president“. Love it.
2
Pence, McConnell, Ryan, and the rest of the GOP: all complicit, all on the grift. Burn down the lot, let God sort then out.
6
Q_Why not Mike Pence? A_Because he has been a lying enabler of the worst president in history.
13
What Donald Trump and the Evangelists have in commun? Their God is Mammon.
3
Why no to Mike Pence?
For the same reason as no to sharia law.
26
Because we would need a President. Not a medieval, intolerant, hypocritical, delusional religious leader.
28
Why Douthat, who likely feels that stating that kindness and help to the poor, abandoned, destitute and immigrants is absolutely as important as the rights of the unborn (see recent comments from Pope Francis), is somehow subversive of Christian/Catholic teachings, has a column in this paper is beyond me. Pence, the homophobe and anti-abortion zealot who is eagerly anticipating the Rapture and thus would blindly support Israel even if it means the death of the planet? Unbelievable!
11
So you want to go from a person who has no integrity to a person who has no integrity and is a religious fanatic who wants a theocracy?
18
How has Pence evaded the public criticisms that DT has bestowed on the majority of his cabinet picks and advisors. Interesting how Pence has steered clear of DT's public shaming.
4
So the net/net of Mr. Douthat's comments really boils down to a defense of Religious Conservatism. If that meant leaving religious conservatives the right to practice as they please, that would be fine; it's the very pillar of our founding and a core point in the Constitution.
However, what Mr. Douthat is side-stepping is the fact that religious conservatives want to impose their morals on others through legislation and that goes against the Constitution.
If the religious conservatives promise to keep their hands off my religious freedoms then I'll keep my hands off of theirs.
15
The evangelical Christians, in particular (although they're certainly not alone here) always seem to not comprehend the very first words of the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law respecting religion,..". Which guarantees all Americans the freedom FROM religion.
8
Exactly.
Shades of junior high school misogynous humor, here is a contender for the SmirkingPprize of the year: "The sudden investigatory focus on Cohen and Daniels might turn out to be a legal tempest in a D-cup." No, it's a tempest in the life of an entire woman, protesting a "fixer", and exposing an illegal contract. And maybe an illegal contribution to an election campaign beyond any in decades.
It's about a White House's lying carnival. It is another threat to the rule of law.
It is not funny, not something to kid about, nor justification for reducing a whole human being seeking equal treatment to a body part. And isn't the meme like "woman as D-cup" Trumpian? "Liddle Mario?" "My button's bigger than yours?" Maybe the junior high disease is best ignored. Ross is an important writer. I just wish he had resisted that metaphor.
10
Could it be more simply (or perhaps presciently) analyzed as the death spiral of the Republican Party, caught at last in a deal with the devil; a Wizard of Oz exposed as the curtain is pulled back by the innocent dog?
A cynical approach has long characterized the Republicans’ methodically constructed recent rise to control of the levers of government. So cynical that the foolishly innocent idealism of the Democrats seemed to be nothing but laughable naiveté.
Maybe it is analogous to how worldly Europeans have long denigrated America’s idealistic approach to the philosophy of governance.
Let us hope payback is coming for dealing with devil.
2
Pence gives me the creeps, the way he stands behind Trump as the loyal servant, always with that strange look about his eyes. I really think that Ryan's decision to retire sets the stage for some move by the Republicans -- but hopefully not Pence.
8
It would be refreshing for you (and others in the OpEd list) to address issues based on a grounded sense of core beliefs and good judgment, rather than have to struggle to read these attempts to fit your core beliefs around "tribal" predilections. Sometimes you comments could easily come from "Gumby".
2
Humans need to take responsibility for their own actions and not opine that their reprehensible decisions are somehow a playing out of the will one whom they call God.
2
Hillary Clinton is a Protestant and, apparently, a believer. Why is that an anathema to the Evangelicals? A completely indifferent to religion individual, with no scruples was preferable. It begs belief.
6
Mike Pence is a horror show of the opposing order of Trump.
He's just less transparent, if you are not paying attention.
I say this as a lifelong Chicagoan until a decade ago, who spent a lot of time in Indiana. Hoosiers loathe Pence and for good reason. Not only is he emotionally juvenile in his legal need to control women's bodies and toss away LGTBQ persons, but he also has no regard for Mother Earth. Indiana is a major polluter which has shortened the lives of its citizens, and killed many.
This includes the AIDS spike he caused after closing health clinics who treated those he didn't approve of. When environmental experts from Indiana's many fine universities approached Pence to offer, at no charge, an environmental policy for the state, Pence refused to meet with them.
And please don't think Pence isn't part of Trump's illegalities. His cooperative presence is a suppression of justice.
22
Note to self:
Yes - you did just read that in 2018. Yes - it is a product of the same country that launched the Hubble Space Telescope, the leader of the enlightened free world. Yes - this is what cognitive dissonance feels like.
If I was still a believer I'd be inclined to think: "Please God, can't you save the US from fundamentalist religion?"
11
I have no fondness for Mike Pence or evangelical hucksters that allayed themselves with Trump.
On the other hand, I sure wish Bill Clinton would have been impeached and replaced by Al Gore. I didn't feel that way at the time. I now see it would have been better for the country and both parties.
Give Pence a chance (sung to the tune of "Give Peace a Chance"). It will restore some stability and allow us to contain Russia.
1
Bill Clinton was impeached but wasn't convicted by the Senate. The line of succession remained unchanged.
1
As an atheist, I find this op-ed absurd. Leaving God aside, the debate between a Trump or a Pence presidency comes down to this dichotomy for me: on one hand an erratic authoritarian, driven by ego and impulse, who commands a vast cult of personality vs. a puritanical pol who would love to impose his stringent view of society on an evermore diverse America.
Who is more dangerous? I believe the answer is Trump, because at the heart of it, he is wholly corrupt and unconcerned for anyone but himself. Primarily, Trump is the more likely of the two, to lead us into an international conflict on a whim or as a distraction from the probe into his family business. In such a scenario, he would rally his masses under the guise of "patriotism". Of course a President Pence would try his best to roll back progress on societal issues, but I think the court of public opinion (and the actual courts) can keep a lot of damage at bay.
3
If it comes to Mike Pence, the questions seriously revolve around what did he know, when did he know it, and did he come forth to the FBI with cooperation or was he part of a coverup.
This already clouded by various statements made by Mr Pence which don’t conform to the truth. Hard to make a liar the moral choice.
3
Last I heard 70% of Evangelicals support Trump.
Jesus and Trump are petty much polar opposites.
Jesus and the Republican Party are petty much opposites.
Jesus was about love and peace, helping the poor and the sick, and against greed.
Evangelical Republicans are about hate and war, blaming the poor and sick for their problems, and think that greed (putting money above all other interests) is a force for good in society.
Trump Evangelicals, who like Roy Moore, are also against most of the Constitution. They believe in a religious test for public office. They want to base law on the Ten Commandments, wish the Confederacy won the Civil War, and are not sure woman should even have the right to vote.
The religious right are dangerous greedy hypocrites who follow religious leaders that are having gay sex in private while they bash gays in public, warn of the dangers of Muslim Sharia Law, while trying to impose Old Testament Sharia Law (which is essentially the same thing), want to attack any country they feel like, and have no problem using violence to intimidate minorities and anyone else they feel threatened by.
I don't care what Evangelicals want. I would pick Pence over Trump too, because he is truly a Lesser Evil, but only in the worst senses of those words. He pushes the same policies as Trump, but didn't have the media instincts Trump has, so would be less effective.
The right wants 12th Century morality run by corporate overlords.
The future is in the left.
8
why not Mike Pence? Because if the Russians facilitated Trump’s election, Pence is tainted too. This situation is unprecedented and calls for unprecedented remedy like a total reset not impeachment of one and reward to the other.
4
Who cares? Either Trump will be impeached or otherwise driven from office, or he won't. If he deserves to be removed, then he should be removed regardless of the consequences. We cannot sacrifice the rule of law to consideration of whether his replacement is or is not desirable.
3
When evangelicals had a choice between one of their own - Ted Cruz - and Trump, they chose Trump. Why would they now find religion(!) and choose Pence over Trump?
In point of fact, Pence is practically guaranteed to lose against any Democrat (perhaps even Clinton) in 2020, even without the Trump overhang. It is far more likely that Trump would be able to inspire his coalition of those fearful of "the other" and those wanting to punish women by de-legitimizing abortions, and get them to turn out in larger numbers than Pence ever could. Hopefully there will be enough voters, this time around, to beat that coalition.
3
What on earth makes you think that God, should God choose to get involved, would favor a Mike Pence, or try to please evangelicals? Neither Pence, nor the evangelical corporation show any real sign of living the message of the New Testament. If God were to become involved, God would, it seems to me, to favor someone of humility, who sees the drive for personal wealth as evil, and who would devote policy consideration to how to raise the least among us: the poor, the refugee, the suffering.
3
A query, Mr. Douthat: In your political and religious circles is a religious conservative different than a religious fanatic? If so, please explain how.
One might still hope that the time of religious inquisitions, verifications and exclusions have really gone with nothing but memories and anecdotes left as warnings.
4
Why does the concept of a god of any sort have a mention in this column?
If the reason for separation of church and state is to keep that camel's nose away from the edge of the tent, why isn't that animal staked far away? Why are those who tend that animal ever invited to discuss politics which has to do with the reality even unbelievers face?
This song has been played too many times.
Flip the record, change the tape, find another station.
5
I remain baffled by evangelical Christians' assumption that the U.S. would be blessed or somehow made pleasing to God if only the citizenry would behave the way they want us to.
It's telling that Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane prayed, "Father, I ask that this cup may pass from me. Nevertheless, thy will, not mine, be done."
We could put it another way: Here's what I want. Don't give it to me.
He also had some very specific instructions on serving God: Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, take in strangers, and visit those in prison.
Note that he *didn't* say, "I have this agenda -- taking care of people, not getting killed, etc. So I'll go get a bunch of people to sign some petitions and lobby some politicians to give me what I want."
It's always more personal, more intimate, than that.
And I can think of little that is actually less personal and intimate than politics.
2
Ross reminds us that replacing Trump the corrupt authoritarian with Pence the theocratic despot may be a good trade for conservative Christians like himself but the rest of us should be careful what we wish for. After all the last darling of the religious right gave us two middle east wars that destabilized the region, a financial crisis to rival the great depression and the inadequate emergency response to the devastation of a major American city. Sad either way.
2
Oh Ross, Pence is far more like supermarket manager turned US Vice President Sprio T. Agnew who had to be thrown out of office before Nixon could face impeachment than he is like House Minority Leader Gerald Ford.
2
Spiro Agnew was forced to resign the Vice Presidency when he was caught on income tax evasion. Nixon resigned a short time as Congress began voting on Articles of Impeachment for Nixon's part in the Watergate cover up.
Once one accepts the existence of a god, then anything and everything becomes possible and miraculous, and reason becomes cheap and easy.
4
I don't think any rational observer would confuse Pence with someone of outstanding moral character, despite his attempts to present a public image of piety. It is hard to imagine how someone could so enthusiastically support and endorse the current occupant of the White House while maintaining any semblance of a moral compass. Those who regard Mr. Pence as a "decent" man should revisit the definition of "hypocrite" in the nearest dictionary...
6
1) Pence is a religious zealot who attended publicly advocating Federal control over the private health decisions and lives of over 50% of Americans in defiance of long established Federal law, becoming the first Executive to do so, a clear violation of his sworn Constitutional duties.
2) He Intentionally refused to implement disease control measures passed overwhelming by the Indiana Legislature with full knowledge of risk citizens he swore to protect resulting in the confirmed transmission of incurable fatal diseases.
3) A profound and troubling misunderstanding of a proper status of women, never acceptable, but prevalent today in countries run as theocracies or paternalistic remnants of colonial subjugation then decades of intermittent American negligence and criminal interference.
4) He claims to value the rights of unborn fetuses, yet jets to attend a professional sporting event with the sole purpose of making a show of leaving. He delivered a public and televised slap by turning his back and walking out. We paid for Pence to assert his white superiority and disdain in response to a quiet, peaceful and respectful petition for justice after of hundreds of years of the most vile inhuman treatment perpetrated by the nation he serves as Vice President.
I'm sure that there are many more, but these justify immediate impeachment, and it might be better he resign rather than subject his racist and hateful followers with two such actions in so short an interval.
7
Man, Ross Douthat has made quite a career out of stupendously bad takes. Let's leave aside for a second that Mike Pence fled to the relative safety of the Vice Presidency, because he was being chased out of Indiana for doing a spectacularly horrendous job as the state's Governor and had zero expectations of being reelected. Let's also leave aside for a moment that the only notable accomplishment that he can attach his name to as Governor was a massive AIDS epidemic.
So lets get to this actual article. It asks "Why Not Mike Pence," and yet fails to ask the rather obvious question of, why hasn't any of the investigative spotlight fallen on Mike Pence's role in defrauding the American people out of a fair and free election. Mike Pence was fully aware and complicit in the rampant illegality of the Trump campaign and administration, and under no circumstances should ever be allowed to ascend to Presidency if and when Trump is removed from office.
8
All this presupposes that Evangelicals still drive the base of the GOP. I don't think so. They may remain a significant plurality, but it's Trump's base now and the tele-preacher religious marketers are as corrupt as Pharisees always are. Tribalism has trumped all ideology, religious or economic.
1
Brilliantly written. Mr. Douthat unveils a sequential set of equations almost leading to a QED proof of God. But his equations require certain valuations which might be adjusted to result in a proof of Satan.
In either case, the evangelicals have already made their choice and lost their souls, so it's all over for them. Pence or not.
3
Everything about this is wrong. Mike Pence is a shallow, deeply flawed human being who wants to install a theocracy in America. Also, Ross, there is no God. You've been duped like all of those evangelical Trump supporters. The question remains whether the religionists will facilitate the destruction of the actual world.
If Douthat wants justice, he should hope that Pence goes down with Trump and the newly installed Democratic Speaker of the House ascends to the presidency in January 2019.
3
Ross writes:
"...if...the president were to face real legal-political jeopardy over the Stormy Daniels business, the evangelical leaders currently fretting about Trump’s political position would face a case where doing the consistent thing ... would actually deliver something closer to what they claimed to want, not so very long ago: not a liberal in the White House, but President Mike Pence."
Is anyone else completely sickened by the hypocrisy of the evangelical right?
3
The American Christians have an outsized influence on the government. The separation of church and state is being ignored and anyone of a different religion are marginalized, blocked from entering the country or subject to hate speech.
Those who require power to spread the word of God are worshiping a false idol in Trump or Pence.
Do not forget that Pence ran Trumps transition team and look what are left of his recommendations most are gone or will be removed .
3
Reading the article was enough to get the blood flowing,because evangelicals & opinion writers have this Cromwellian idea of sanctimonious righteousness of being at the right hand of some Old Testament figure. That said, the ideas of comparing Trump to King David levels ,Trumps elevation by God & the idea of sacrificing cultural credibility in the name of doing the Lord's bidding must be spinning a few heads in heaven like a jets turbine. Pence is on par with a Grand Inquisitor of another century if not eon. I highly recommend to the author of the article that he read the teachings of Christ & refrain from self-labeling one self as a Christian if not familiar with his teachings. But then again , he is only siding with Caesar, as long as he purports to be a Republican. Like Trump, or Pence claiming to be a Christian missionary in Trumps White House. Blessed are those who seek humility.
2
The reason is simple. Trump enables a white nationalism that Pence does not. We aren't talking real religious leaders here, we are talking about "evangelical leaders". This is why they supported Trump (as opposed to the candidate that actually goes to church) in the first place.
2
"That God would offer religious conservatives in danger of selling their souls a chance not just to step back from the brink but to literally replace Donald Trump with a fellow religious conservative"
In danger of selling their souls? They sold their souls quickly and cheaply in support of their totally soulless leader. Not that the religious right had any credibility to begin with, but the hypocrisy of the last couple of years puts them beyond redemption.
4
Has Pence ever once spoken about Trump's women problem? Pence says he won't go to lunch with a woman unless his wife is there, yet he never comments on Trump who plays around when his wife isn't there.
Can't Pence make a public statement that what Trump does with women is wrong? I'm sure that all evangelical Christians would appreciate his doing that. Oh, wait...
3
If Pence harbored any true Christian values — those espoused by Jesus Himself in the Gospels — he surrendered (or betrayed) them the moment he kissed Trump's ring. He may be legally qualified to ascend to the Oval Office, but in terms of any Christian character pre-Trump evangelicals deemed a vital prerequisite to earn their support, he fails. Miserably.
1
The interesting part will be whether President Pence would pardon Trump for all his crimes. If we are going to go Old Testament on this, should the wicked man prosper (or get pardoned)?
1
Pence is a micromanaging Jimmy Carter, without Carter’s intelligence, code of ethics, humility or good looks.
6
If there ever was an opinion that justified a strong and fervent separation of church and state one just read it.
3
Please tell me the final paragraphs of your column were done tongue in cheek. Even allowing that being ultra religious requires a certain amount of self-delusion, you can't honestly believe that God has any involvement in the day to day politics of the U.S. (or any country). To insinuate that God sent Trump as a test of our morality is one of the silliest excuses I've heard for him. And who failed that test? Liberals, who believe in helping the downtrodden, or conservatives, who want to make disabled Medicaid recipients work for their benefits? The trouble with Christians is that they believe in God, but not in the teachings of the man whose name they've adopted.
4
Mr Douthat, you really do have it in for the Clintons, don't you? You recognize none of the intellect and talents of Bill Clinton; his accomplishments as President.
By the way, the political wisdom at the time of the Gore-Bush election was that Gore's numbers would have been higher than the slim edge he held, had he not excluded campaign support offered to him by President Clinton, who was widely popular.
Gore, like Clinton, ran in an election where the popular will was not represented because of malfeasance: in his case, because the Supreme Court put a thumb on the scales; in her case, because Comey did the same. The President is supposed to represent the majority of voters, after all.
Both candidates would have made far better stewards of this country than their opposing candidates.
5
If there were a supreme and beneficent being (tsk, tsk), I'm sure that it would be as opposed to pence as to trump.
1
Pence may not survive the Mueller investigation. He is complicit at least in the cover up of the Flynn collusion and perhaps more.
2
Mike Pence cannot be a good president because he does not believe in the separation of church and state. If he ascends to the presidency he will try to dismantle all separation
Any oath he takes he will immediately break.
4
But what if God's idea of Irony is NOT to replace a person who is busy showing the population of the world exactly what TRUE FREEDOM of restraint actually looks like? If this makes you sick, then be careful what you ask for.
As far as Pence is concerned, God is more concerned with self-policing than (s)he is with a know-it-all tut-tutting the fallen morals of people they do not understand, and have no desire to try understanding. We still have no idea what is 'normal' behavior for the human animal, but we are warned not to judge - because a judgement awaits those who do.
2
I'll take Pence and a Democratic Congress as the absolute best we liberals can possibly hope for until 2020.
1
When Pence was running for governor there were signs all around Indiana saying "Anyone but Pence". That's why not!
3
It's ironic in the extreme to see this columnist to justify so-called Christians voting for Trump, whilst simultaneously describing Bill Clinton's defenders as "contorting themselves absurdly". Why does God need to use Trump to "test everyone else’s moral character", given that even for us mortals it's obvious that evangelicals failed the moral character test years ago? Though if that is the nature of your deity it's pretty clear why you worship it - it's a terrifying monster and you're hoping to placate it.
3
Or Trump will only be impeached, convicted and removed from office if the Democrats control both
houses of Congress including a supermajority of the Senate, in which case they could also impeach and convict Pence for his complicity then effectively elevate the Speaker of the House, a Democrat to the Presidency, when pigs fly.
So what really is going to happen in this nightmare we're having.
1
I am opposed to impeachment. Let Trump complete the destruction of the GOP on his own...
3
"for evangelicals concerned that their agenda is yoked so closely to the fortunes of that Hefnerian president, this seems like a good time to contemplate a simple question: Why not Mike Pence?"
So evangelicals now have an "agenda". Isn't Jesus' message enough? Oh right, you mean creation of the theocracy. Pence, the Pious, first protestant pope of the USA? Mr. Douthat hasn't been keeping up the the evangelical-apocalyptical death-wish movement.
2
I trust Pence about as far as I could throw him, but I'd trust him not to end life on Earth in a tantrum, which is more than I trust his current boss.
1
"That God would offer religious conservatives in danger of selling their souls..." This is a done deal, those souls are gone.
3
Sorry to be so PC here, but Mr Douthat's allusion to Ms Daniel's breast size (and the "D" party), while clever is another example of how language is used to objectify women. Shame on you.
1
Why not Mike Pence? How about because he's a religious fanatic?
4
Hoosiers know Pence is awful. We all know he's been complicit - the glistening-eyed, adoring attention showered on the would-be Tinpot Dictator confirms that. I say send them both back from whence they came.
2
I know Ross Douthat has nothing good to say about Hugh Hefner but labeling Trump as "Hefnerian" is slanderous.
Hefner was not a criminal. In fact, he was always pretty honest.
2
General Rule number TWO, from the GOP Playbook: " It doesn't matter, when it's a Republican ". Hypocrisy, MUCH ?????
4
As Mueller winds his way through the Trump/Russia labyrinth, don't discount the real possibility that Pence will find himself trapped inside a Matryoshka doll, too.
6
You must be paid by the word. This is thin on ideas, but full of lite speculation that amounts to absurdity. A better premise would have been to start with some direct answers to "why not Pence?" For starters, he's a bland stooge who was born without a sincerity gene. Couple more sentences on his abhorent ideas and his servile attentions to Trump's incessant nonsense, and your essay is done before you know it.
12
Does anyone really believe that Pence did not know about all the abuses of the Trump campaign?
He is a hypocrite and a phony. Plus he is just normal enough to get all the bad policies that Trump wants but cannot get implemented because of his character and incompetence.
5
"Am I jesting?" May the good lord hope so. Pence and his fellow "christians" failed their "test of faith" when they knowingly and willingly signed on with a grifter.
8
Religious fanatics like Pence believe they are enlightened deep thinkers.
What they think about most is themselves.
10
Theocracy anyone?
4
It' s kinda hard to have a "leader" who can't be anywhere alone with a memebr of the opposite sex unless the wife (his self described "mother") is riding shotgun.
Too weird. Way too weird. And creepy.
5
The "evangelicals" should have no credibility left among any truly religious people, because they actively supported Trump even after all of his unchristian (and I don't just mean his behavior towards women) was know and self-admitted.
But, as will become clear very soon, after the FBI's raid on Mr. Cohen, the real problem his not Trumps's piggish behavior, but rather the fact that throughout his life he has engaged in criminal behavior, not to mention the fact that he is a truly sociopathic personality.
8
Sounds good, Ross. But here's another issue.
Clearly, Pence was involved with an election campaign that may have been victorious due to illegal means. If Trump won that way, so did Pence. Plus, there is the little incident of Trump firing Christie and Rogers (former Republican Congressman from Michigan, a very good one, I might add) as heads of his transition team and then installing Pence, who then appointed General Flynn to an inappropriate position, given his then known situation with respect to an FBI investigation.
In short, Pence's hands may not be "clean" in all of this and he may himself find problems in what he did. This would move the line of succession down to Speaker of the House and if any impeachment process is not complete by next January, and if the Democrats take control of the House, well, that might mean that Nancy Pelosi becomes President. Write a column about that, Ross.
11
As one who did not vote for Trump, but also is not a reflexive anti-Trumper but supports or opposes him on an issue-by-issue basis, there is another reason to oppose impeachment -- unless there truly are high crimes and misdemeanors committed by Trump, an impeachment and removal would be little more than a coup. One of the crucial requirements for a functioning democracy is accepting the results of elections. It doesn't mean you can't or don't oppose the policy positions and actions of the winners, but only banana republics throw out the winner because you don't like the result. The anti-Trump forces have been trying to undo the election since Election Day, and if they succeed without real evidence of real high crimes and misdemeanors, that will inflict greater damage on our country than anything Trump will do.
2
This is sickening. Why? Not because I disagree with Pence's views, but because Mr. Douthat is suggesting that "Christians" can atone for their bad-faith support of Mr. Trump by making use of the politically opportune chance to get Mr. Pence in office, RATHER than simply opposing Mr. Trump on moral and character grounds, as they should have in the first place. Yes, one can see why some people voted for Mr. Trump instead of Clinton -- but the reason really cannot be because of the voter's Christian faith, can it? No, it is because such people wanted their faith to have a political dimension, and impose it on others through the mechanism of the state.
18
Why not Mike Pence? It’s really pretty simple. The United States is not a theocracy, and Pence won’t acknowledge that reality. He represents white male patriarchy at its christian finest, and would love to have his ‘god given’ dominion over all the rest of us.
28
That you think God has anything to do with US presidential elections at all reflects how out of touch you are with basic tenets of faith. Further, standing by Trump and saying nothing speaks volumes about Pence's moral character, or more importantly, the lack thereof. Finally, wishful thinking suggesting that Pence could be like Gerald Ford, who became VP after Nixon did his damage, whereas Pence has been with Trump every step of the way.
14
"there are good reasons to suspect that as an incumbent steward of late-1990s prosperity untainted by his steadfast support for a lying boss, Gore would have had an easier time dispatching George W. Bush in 2000, and the entire trajectory of the early 2000s would have been more favorable to Democrats. "
Except for the fact that Gore won that election, Ross.
13
Evangelicals have been making this kind of deal with the devil ever since the '80s when Falwell's Moral Majority explicitly fused Christianity with partisan politics, and decided it was willing to break a few moral eggs to make a Christian omelet.
While of course the right of religious people to engage in civic life and vote their conscience is sacrosanct, this embedding itself within a political tribe has degraded this form of Christianity, as some pastors have come to publicly admit.
If the main mission of one's life is to do and support good as one sees it, being part of a political team is going to get in the way of that. It simply requires making far too many moral compromises. That goes as much for secular people as religious ones, by the way.
6
Pence often describes himself as a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican -- in that order. Has he ever said what aspects of the Christian faith are most important to him and how he tries to act on those aspects via legislation? Or would he simply fall back on his stances against abortion and same-sex marriage?
7
This article begs the age old question: Who's more the fool, the fool or the fool who follows him?
Mike Pence attached himself to Trump and all that entails. He's never spoken out against him or shown us those good Christian principles and morals. A President Pence may be better than a President Trump, but at this point, that's like saying a 15 foot storm surge is better than a 16 foot one. It's a political, economic, and moral disaster no matter how you look at it.
19
Donald Trump can only bother one woman at a time.
Mike Penske could beat that by bothering all thinking women at once.
Be very careful what you wish for, America.
26
Much as I dislike Donald Trump, I must reluctantly agree that having him as president is preferable to elevating Mike Pence to that position. Having a right wing fundamentalist in the White House could be a disaster for the majority of Americans: http://davespoliticalsatire.blogspot.ca/2018/03/should-presidents-religi...
7
"Several months ago I read a Times article about a fundamentalist minister advising Pence. If the article is correct, two items on the minister's wish list were: (1) give preference to "Christians" (i.e. fundamentalists) when making appointments. (2) Don't hire women for high positions, because fundamentalists consider it degrading for a grown man to take orders from a woman. (1) of course violates the First Amendment rule that there can be no religious tests for office. We need to know if Pence has any likelihood of following the minister's advice, or whether Pence is just stringing the guy along with no intention of implementing his wish list.
7
Yes, and God wanted Trump in place in the most powerful office in the world so that Assad could gas and chemically bleach the lungs of all those young children in Syria. Why not Mike Pence? Very old Testament question in fact.
Pence, the smiling sycophant sitting at the left hand side of the President in photos (Smiling Ryan sitting on the right hand side of the Sinner-in-Charge) makes for a pretty billboard advertisement... I can't wait.
11
Pence has always struck me as a sour, condescending and entirely wrongheaded person, but why not Pence? Because instead of cluelessly tweeting dangerous polarizing hateful one-sided positions and agendas, I fear he might be effective in actually bringing the same sort of ghastly notions to pass, just quietly.
14
Mike Pence signed on knew what he signed up for and had a gran plan. Smile and nod, and try to appear as if you support the tyrant without being too committed to the idea. Trump will go down in flames, but not before sowing chaos everywhere. Then Pence will be, in the front row no less, for the Rapture he so fervently believes in.
3
Once you get past the mistaken belief that American evangelicals genuinely care about God's word, their behavior is entirely logical. The matter has nothing to do with morality or ethics. Their goal is cultural power, and the ability to elevate the interests of their white male leaders over everyone else in the country, if not the world. They met with Trump not to condemn his behavior, but to worry over how his potential capture damages their odds of holding onto political power.
Trump once joked that he could shoot a man in the street and get away with it. This month we saw the truth of that claim. The President's aggressive neglect recently saw a man burn to death in one of his buildings, and evangelicals were silent. Values do not matter to white evangelicals unless you can use them to whip the base into a fury.
Mr. Douthat must come to terms with this reality.
24
Taking a longer term view (and that in itself begs so many questions - will there be a longer term from which to view?) it might be advantageous to let the Trump wagon roll on. Maybe we humans need reminding, every couple of generations, that there simply is no guy with a big mouth who has all the answers and can drive us there by himself. If Trump's base see him removed, they will note, with some truth for once on their side, that his ideas have not been fully tested - and they will return with some useful charmer without 45's baggage but brimful of his simplistic solutions. We will be ever deeper in the mire.
4
"Conservative Christians" is an oxymoron. Jesus preached that we have a moral obligation to help and forgive all people. American Conservative Christianity only helps those who share their religious views. They voted as a block for Trump knowing full well that Trump makes a mockery of all moral codes. But he is pro death penalty, pro big military, pro capital punishment, anti government social programs, anti worker safety rules, anti health care and anti birth control. So the "CCs" forgive Trump's immoral lifestyle because he is not a Democrat. Jesus would be disgusted with the Conservative Christians.
13
If Mike Pence represents a Hobson's choice, then it is worth considering, even for a liberal like myself.
This is about country, not party. Calculations that he would present a stronger GOP candidate in 2020 than Trump are probably true, but need to be put aside.
The probability that Trump will do something really catastrophic within the next 3 years is high.
Yes, Pence is complicit in the Trump's rise to power. His evangelical conservatism's approach to policy is not anything I would ever support. That admiring glare he directs at Trump when standing behind him reveals him to be a desperate opportunist and sycophant of the most shameful kind.
But does anyone seriously doubt he would cause more harm to this country than the chaos in government and weakened U.S. posture in the world community than Trump has created?
And if Pence has any common sense (open to question, I admit), he could do a lot to heal the country as president in the wake of Trump. In temperament, he is the anti-Trump.
A sane chief executive, even one as unexceptional as Pence would likely be, is a far better alternative for our country than an insane, pathological liar.
6
Trumpism, minus the narcissism, nepotism, Tweeting, the constant need to pick a fight and other general chaos, still leaves a collection of bad appointments and retrograde policies that are a disaster for America.
Pence, as transition chair, running mate and constant enabler, is a key accomplice to this assault on our democracy.
If it were up to me, I’d say, take the House and Senate in 2018 and impeach the both of them and make the Democratic Speaker the President. Then we begin to repair the massive damage and neglect to the government that the current administration has perpetrated.
5
So does God take sides in all elections (Russia?) or just American ones?
6
John Nance Garner is reported to have suggested the vice-presidency was not worth "a warm bucket of spit (or other excretion)." Perhaps the only reason for the vice president is in a rare case where a succession plan is necessary.
Unfortunately, vice-presidents often prove their "loyalty" by being apologists for the administration, and like Pence, sacrifice any claim to moral standing in the process. So--assuming he is not an investigative target--Pence has sacrificed his good standing by repeating administration lies and apologizing for or rationalizing unpardonable conduct. Take that and add to it his reputed fixation on punishing people for being who they are, and other views that are radical to the majority of voters, and only bad things are likely to come from a Pence succession.
Maybe it is time to give serious thought to something more akin to the parliamentary approach.
2
If Trump became president through a tainted election, then Pence became vice president through that same tainted election. Pence doesn't get points simply for not being Trump.
15
Heaven help us all if Pence ever becomes President. On this both Roseanne and I passionately agree!
2
None of the points made for any person is as significant as the point not made: The "values-driven" Evangelicals, in reality, have no values. None!
4
I rarely read "Doubt that" - his columns are unfailingly a forgone conclusion searching for a flimsy arguement - but I tuned in today mostly to read the comments that followed, and they did not disappoint. But I'll go ahead and add my "hot take" to the list.
"Why not Pence?" Because, once he joined the ticket his equally culpable for the actions of the campaign. That's the way criminal conspiracies (and the law) work. He has not once defended the rule of law or Mueller's investigation.
Beyond that, I would add, that for the vast majority of Americans, we are able to see clearly now the rank hypocrisy of Christians and few of us will EVER take seriously any claim of moral superiority or righteousness.
Many of us will not take Christianity very seriously, either.
10
Mr. Douthat, did you miss the memo re: separation of church and state?
8
Because we cannot abide a theocracy.
3
So you are joking, if only a little. As a midwesterner who has spent many hours in earnest, respectful conversation (or observation) of all manner or conservative evangelical, I can assure you that it is not a small fraction, possibly including the Vice President himself, who see their support of Mr. Trump as working God's unknowable plan to finally put a true Christian in the White House.
4
"God" has nothing to do with evangelicals stance. They crave power to oppress those they judge as sinful and Trump/Pence is their vehicle. It's good to know I can forever ignore their "sincere religious beliefs" going forward.
4
Mike Pence actually is what reluctant Hillary Clinton supporters called her in 2016: the "lesser of two evils." He's every bit as much a right-wing ideologue as the current President, and maybe even more so, but at least he the one thing Donald Trump conspicuously is not: a gentleman. At least he knows better than to antagonize Congress, foreign leaders, and the American public.
He also has enough political experience to know how to deal with what is sure to become a heavily Democratic Congress. He knows how the system works, because he is that most reviled creature, a "career politician."
Spending the last 16 months with Donald Trump as president has been like taking a flight with a pilot who doesn't know how to fly the plane. If the co-pilot takes over, at least we can have some assurance he'll bring the plane in for a safe landing, even if we don't like the destination. In two years, we can put a better pilot in the cockpit -- and we almost certainly will.
153
If you believe this rabid misogynist is the "lesser of two evils" you must care little for the fate of the women of this country. If Pence were President, I would leave: I have a gay mother, two daughters, I've had an abortion, and I support the basic equality of human beings no matter what gender. Pence is not a "gentleman," and the last time I thought about it, the noun hardly makes one qualified to run a country; he is a complete and total bigot who knows, vaguely, how to put two sentences together. Indeed, under this man, much more would get done: no more women's health services, LGBT communities would be decimated, public education gutted (more than now, if that is possible). Because the man looks and speaks like a friendly grandfather does not mean he is a better pilot for anything but his real agenda: supporting wealthy, straight, white men.
82
I beg to differ with you. Mike Pence is NOT a gentleman. The mere fact that he is complicit to Trump's bad behavior makes him NOT a gentleman.
59
I agree with everything Rachel says is wrong with Mike Pence. But on what level is Donald Trump preferable?
This is a delightfully ironic and compelling article. The trouble is, Pence has revealed himself to be venal and unintelligent through his support of Trump. But I am not an evangelical Christian, so it is not addressed to me in any case.
3
Why not Mike Pence? Quite simply, he will be in an adjoining cell to 45. He is complicit and led the transition team. He will also be impeached or indicted.
4
From the frying pan into the fire, eh Mr. Douthat. No, no, no. Pence is a radical evangelical who has no idea what separation of church/state means and as a RE he is a hypocrit and complicit, just like his cohort all over the country.
3
Mike Pence for President, a man who believes in religious freedom as long as it's his religion.
5
In this column Ross Douthat once again conveys his contempt for feminists.
Feminism is the belief that women are full-fledged human beings and not a lower form of life than men (regardless of what the Adam and Eve story says).
Feminists believe that women are entitled to the same rights and opportunities as men. Social conservatives like Ross Douthat and Mike Pence disagree. This is the major reason Pence could never be elected president. He has a verifiable lifetime record of virulent misogyny.
7
It’s sad that Pence as President is even being discussed; he is a do and know nothing sycophant cloaked in religious piety. What in God’s name has he actually done? Possessor of great intellect and academic achievement? War hero? Successful businessman? Philanthropist? My Lord we are living in weird times when a guy like this is one heart beat, or illegal payment, away from the Presidency.
6
As a congenitally and instinctively center-left progressive/liberal, raised in the Christian faith, I cannot but love Mr. D, his wit and appreciative articulation of Divine irony. Nothing says it better: "That God would offer religious conservatives in danger of selling their souls a chance not just to step back from the brink but to literally replace Donald Trump with a fellow religious conservative — well, that seems like just the kind of opportunity that a beneficent deity would grant to erring members of his flock." Thank you Ross!
a beneficient deity would eliminate the plague, end wars and famine, strike Trump mute instead of merely dumb, and cause the GOP to wake up with scientifically and morally enlightened brains... alas
Is is strange or amazing that for *conservatives* God is always predominantly Republican? Either testing them or endorsing them? I expect to hear on republican TV ads, "I'm God and I approve this message." Mike Pence is not the choir boy Ross makes him out to be. He accepts and endorses the behavior of Trump. He's Anthony Comstock reincarnated, which should make him a Hindu, not a Christian.
2
Don't impeach trump. Let him drag down the entire GOP first. If the Dems win everything in the 2020 election, they can impeach him in November, try him in December, and throw him out a day before he would leave. Throwing someone out one day before he leaves would be Karma coming around. Too, he would not be an ex-president and might not be entitled to taxpayer provided secret service protection. Or his pension.
1
The election of Donald Trump thoroughly vindicates one of James Madison's great worries with regard to the mixing of church and politics: politics will degrade and destroy the message of religion long before religion improves the practice of politics.
3
What bothers me the most about this article is the idea that the evangelicals who voted for Trump actually believe that "God", as they define it, is actually on their side and using Trump to promote their political agenda. The promotion of Mr. Pence to the top job would, in my opinion, only exacerbate this problem. The real "freedom of religion" crisis in this country at this point in time is that religion has far too much power and influence, and separation of church and state is almost a thing of the past. The use of religion by politicians for their own purposes is shameless, as Mr. Trump has proved over and over again. When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. We are almost there.
1
"Why not Mike Pence?"
Because he has not once stood up to his boss to confront egregious moral failings - including racism, sexism, an an extreme bias against the working poor and those in need of health care, etc. etc.
This, sir, is a terrible idea.
1
If Pence is a Christian and family man sure does not show it in any measurable way, his actions speak louder than anything he says (and we don't hear anything from him anyway). he is complicit as are the rest of the Republicans in Congress.
Trump is unpredictable and scary because of that, however, Pence is like a snake in the grass.
Bad choices for all Americans and by extension for the entire world.
That's "why not Mike Pence".
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Once again, you miss the bigger point. You and quasi-Conservatives fail to understand (and learn) the Bork lesson. Progressives and Democrats never quit. As Republicans we take much to long to use Democrats tricks against them like they do against us. Removing a President creates a precedent (Nixon resigned, Trump wouldn't). For the rest of our history until Jesus comes back Democrats and Progressives would seek to remove and investigate any Republican President.
Trump is accepted because we finally learned to play the political game like Democrats. Win at all costs, morality does not matter for the individual politician. Remember Hillary? Say anything, do anything. I don't like the current system, but until the Democrats are taught that our Constitutional Republic needs moral authority we should continue to fight fire with fire.
Douthat seems to pin so much on the Stormy Daniels/sex angle. Don't the evangelicals so taken with Trump see the more essential corruptness and ethical rot this man represents? Sadly, I agree with his broader point that Pence is probably our most viable option now. But how can we discount the slavish - though often silent - support he has offered Trump? He has the same dedication to a base that has gone seriously astray.
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Douthat speaks of "(what) a beneficent deity would grant to erring members of his flock."
This same deity gives innocent children leukemia, brain cancer, and birth deformities. Would that beneficence started earlier in the lifecycle of religious fantasists.
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I have to give it to you Mr. Douthat - "The sudden investigatory focus on Cohen and Daniels might turn out to be a legal tempest in a D-cup" was one of your very best!!
On the other hand, I think that as much as I despise Trump, a midterm defeat of the GOP in both the House and Senate is preferable to Trump being impeached. With Mike Pence in the WH, I truly shudder at how absolutely terrible a Supreme Court Justice choice might be. With my alternative, Chuck Shumer can just say "Oh well, Mitch, we are just going to wait until the next presidential election before we even consider a SCOTUS nominee". Here's a bottle of Kentucky whiskey for your solace".
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This is a very perceptive column. Did Mr. Douthat just come out in favor of a parliamentary system? Such a system is looking better all the time. . .
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It appears that the author assumes that the prosperity Trump inherited from his predecessor will continue. Maybe. However it is more likely that Trump's self created chaos will drag it all down. I see Trump like an Old blind and raging Sampson who will pull down the pillars of The Temple on himself and all around him.
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I don’t see a difference in either man in regard to the health of the country. They’re both nutters, and reasonable people get that. Fundamentalists are fringe. Their representatives are fringe.
Now about the shape of our gov’t. that makes us so vulnerable to nutters in high places. As the writer so perspicaciously states: “we elect a quasi-monarch, whose removal seems as traumatic as a regicide.”
We’ve gotta stop going that. It is clear that we have always secretly wanted a king. We goof around about it in 4 year segments. We’re only fooling ourselves. The rest of the world sees our childish behavior quite clearly.
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Hilarious and foreboding in several ways. Whatever it takes..........and Ryan does not want the job.
Better the Pensive Pawn than the blaring Trumpet. Who knew?
But neither is presidential material.
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What Ross opines is a leading reason why many of us are opposed to an immediate move to impeach Trump as soon as the inevitable Dem majority takes over in January 2019. Pence is in many ways more dangerous than Trump.
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As a woman who sincerely believes in God and tries to live accordingly, I decided early on that I could not support Mr. Trump. When he criticized John McCain for being captured in the Vietnam War, saying he preferred soldiers who had not been, I thought it was a ridiculous statement coming from someone who had received several deferments to avoid serving. I could continue listing the many reasons for not supporting Mr. Trump, but we all know what those reasons are. The difficulty I have is in understanding why my fellow Christians support him.
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Pence brings three words to mind: “A Handmaid’s Tale.”
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I would accept Mike Pence readily. He knows what it means to be a governor -- an executive in government. This, rather than a continuation of Trump's ineptness & unpredictability -- a president who understands nothing deeply about discharging that high office.
As for Evangelical leaders, so called -- what frauds!
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I couldn't even finish reading this ridiculousness. Mr. Douthat presumes too much good faith on the part of our so-called religious citizens. Truly, they'd have stayed home vs voting for T666p. He is the complete opposite of ANYTHING Jesus Christ ever advised his flocks.
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A very disappointing column, Mr. Douthat. As many other comments have noted, Mr. Pence, in addition to his many other faults, sold his soul to the Devil in 2016. That is supposed to make him a salvation-figure for Evangelicals? They, and the rest of us, should instead be appalled at the prospect of a President Pence.
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Mike Pence will go down in the Russia-collusion scandal. Didn't he lie about not knowing about Mike Flynn when he (Pence) ran the Trump transition operation? Flynn's lying to Pence was obviously not the reason why Flynn was fired.
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A self respecting deity would avoid entirely the sanctimonious hypocrites who wrap themselves in the banner of 'religious conservatives'. Those who say 'Lord, Lord' but who actively work to oppose Jesus admonition to feed the hungry, help the sick and house the poor. Those who oppose any effort to limit access to firearms. Those who can't be bothered to be concerned about the plight of Palestinians if it would get in the way of allowing Israel to fulfill perceived Biblical prophecy. Those who will allow one issue, reproductive choice, to supersede any and all other factors in determining who deserves the privilege of serving in public office for all the people.
I keep wondering if the extreme right Evangelical supporters of Mr. Trump have read The Sermon on the Mount lately?
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"...religious conservatives in danger of selling their souls..."
Ross, that auction ended quite some time ago. The tent has been taken down and the folding chairs put away. Those poor souls went for a song — a crude tune sung by a charlatan with the ethics of a pickpocket and the intellect of a 12-year-old schoolyard bully.
They've already been had. Whatever religious conservatives do next time around, this one's on them — and I, for one, will never again believe any of their pious utterances about family values, personal responsibility, living the righteous life or loving their fellow humans.
They've demonstrated their true moral standing.
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Douthat states "a chance not just to step back from the brink". Evangelicals went over the brink long ago. Let's not rewrite history here!
“That God would offer religious conservatives in danger of selling their souls a chance not just to step back from the brink but to literally replace Donald Trump with a fellow religious conservative — well, that seems like just the kind of opportunity that a beneficent deity would grant to erring members of his flock.”
That logic reminds me of a time a preacher told me that dinosaur bones were put there by God to test my faith.
What a load! These “religious” leaders already sold their souls, Sir, when they backed Mr. Trump. They put their political views and ambitions before their faith and convictions. Now you are claiming that Pence could be the lifeline that God is offering, a way to redeem themselves.
Why didn’t God simply anoint Pence in the get go? Like the dinosaur bones, was he testing their faith, and in the process undermine our democracy?
I think history will simply prove them to be the hypocrites that they are.
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Mike Pence was facing a crushing defeat in Indiana when he was plucked Deus Ex Machina out of Indianapolis by the Trump regime (much as our own Sam Brownback but that's another story.)
Mike Pence is a favorite with the Koch organization and would sell his soul to get ahead. Indeed he already has.
Mike Pence wants to be president so bad he can taste it.
And they said Caesar was ambitious.
The Middle East is tearing itself apart over whose version of God is the real one. We don't need that here.
Please, do not give the power POTUS to someone who is waiting for the Rapture!
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Would Pence be better? Of course not. He's a much in the bag as Trump. Just look at Indiana.
You have got to be kidding. Mike Pence would be an empty suit if it weren’t filled with grotesque ideological baggage. Also, he was involved in the transition, right? So, he was either the worst at that job, or he knew everything about Mike Flynn’s behavior. My hope is that as Trump resigns, Pence is given two options: Either to serve our the rest of this hideous term and pledge not run for re-election, or resign now. Pence is not only not presidential material, he’s a vacuous ideologue.
"Why not Mike Pence?" Seriously? Is Mr. Douthat that desperate for any Republican to be president that he would consider someone whom two years ago was barely considered gubernatorial tinder in Indiana. But when you're drowning, even an anvil looks like a lifesaver.
Who cares what evangelicals think and want. What I'm hoping is that Mueller releases a damning report in September or October. That is followed by a midterm bloodbath for the GOP, in which the Democrats re-take the House and possibly the Senate. An impeachment trial follows in 2019, with the inevitable chaos and crisis caused by Trump's narcissistic personality disorder. The Republican party, impotent in Congress, engages in an all-out civil war between the deranged who believe the Mueller report and impeachment trial are some kind of Hillary-concocted conspiracy and those republicans who have retained some semblance of sanity and know Trump is a clear and present danger to the Republic. Trump is the first President to be convicted of impeachment, Pence is sworn in as President by late 2019, and the Republican party has officially splintered into two or more parties. In 2020, Democrats take the Presidency and a super-majority in both the House and the Senate where the traditional republican vote is split down the middle, making the Democrat the victor in nearly every contest.
First of all, thank you for using, in your first sentence, the possessive case ("evangelicals' ") for the subject of a gerund ("seeking"). I have noticed that the Times allows the use of other cases as subjects of gerunds, which violates rules I learned, with considerable effort, more than 50 years ago, and it hurts me that the effort is coming to naught.
As for the idea that Mike Pence should be preferred over Donald Trump, I could not agree more, and it would go a long way toward getting the Trump albatross off the evangelical wing of the Republican party. I am a Democrat and a liberal, and was a reluctant Hillary Clinton voter (there, I have confessed by sin), and I voted for Bill Clinton in '92 and Bob Dole in '96, because I thought, and still think, that character matters.
The sooner the Republican party sheds itself of Trump, the sooner our 2-party system can become more functional, and the all-important use of compromise in political decision-making can be restored.
If God we’re beneficent and had preferred Pence (or anyone but Trump), he should have said so publicly before the election!
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He probably thought Clinton was going to win.
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Odd how so many Christians don't seem to get the "free will" thing.
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It would be so very easy for God to express a direct preference, wouldn't it?
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The evangelicals who like Trump so much need to re-read Revelations, notably the Beast and False Prophet.
Why not Mike Pence indeed, Ross. President Pence has the character, demeanor and, most importantly, the integrity to be president. One suspects that the chaos in the White House would cease, the chance for critical bipartisan legislation would increase and our status in the world would resume its normal position.
Pence is everything a conservative & Christian would want: he espouses Reaganism in his heart, would represent a moral example to the world and the craziness of the Trump era would stop. True, the Democrats would have to demonize him as a principled conservative but most of the country could live with that. We would return to the normal arguments over policy, not personality, and our nation's divide into liberal & conservative would not be confused by Trumpian misbehavior.
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Because Mike Pence was likely a witness and/or a participant in any Russian collusion and/or obstruction of justice during the campaign, after the election and in office.
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Seriously? You still think there is some "collusion" aspect to this investigation? This will all come down to financial dealings as it would with most any D.C. elite being investigated. Nothing more, nothing less. Either way, they'll impeach him because they don't like him. I don't like him either, but I feel we should have to put up with him because he won without being constantly bombarded by "Trump" news. So exhausting.
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Trump creates the "Trump News". Fools think he can govern if only we'd leave him alone. So exhausting.
In Reply to Sandy replying to this post : Yes.
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Hmm. That Pence was a failing governor in Indiana when Trump picked hasn’t occurred to you? Failure. Not a success. In Indiana. And you think Pence is capable of being President? Pence was head of the transition team, he knew what Flynn was up to.
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