Vice President Mike Pence is where charisma goes to die.
If you are going to act delusionally upbeat, as Pence did by implying that things are going well in Trump-Pence’s America, you should at least be interesting. But that’s not Pence’s strong suit either.
Speaking to a small somewhat-masked audience at Fort McHenry near Baltimore, Pence gave a clinic on how to say nothing, at great length. He basically claimed that everything is wonderful in Donald Trump’s America, that Trump has done a great job protecting the United States from COVID, but that “you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America.”
He seemed to blame Biden for the riots and chaos in the country, but didn’t seem to recall that he and Donald Trump are in office while the country is going through a couple of pretty big unsafenesses, namely a live pandemic and a rash of urban riots, both of which were gathering steam as he was speaking, without him really acknowledging them much.
“Last week, Joe Biden said democracy is on the ballot,” said Pence. “But the truth is our economic recovery is on the ballot. Law and order is on the ballot.”
By what logic (one might ask) was Pence blaming Joe Biden for the current awful state of the economy, or the breakdown of law and order, escalating even as Pence was speaking, with lethal urban unrest flaring back up?
Pence doesn’t flat lie, as Trump does. He just acts (or maybe is) oblivious to so many important elements of the moment that, unfortunately for him, the country knows are going on at a time when Joe Biden is not directly accountable. Does he know who is in charge? I assume so, but it would be hard to reconcile such knowledge with his remarks.
“We’ve already gained back 9.3 million American jobs in the last three months alone,” said Pence, without mentioning where those jobs had gone before they came back, or why they had gone, and how many more that had gone still haven’t come back, and who was president (and vice president) when all those jobs went before (some of them) came back.
“The hard truth is that you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America,” he said, at a time when sane Americans are feeling kinda unsafe in Donald Trump’s America.
He seemed a bit like Ted Baxter, the white-haired, cheerful, clueless news anchor from the old “Mary Tyler Moore Show,” reading whatever was on the cue cards, smiling obliviously, whether the news was good or bad.
In addition to clueless, Pence is famously and undeniably boring, at least as a public speaker. I don’t claim to know whether he is more interesting when he is at home with “mother.”
When he lets his hair down, he says things like this, from his Fort McHenry remarks:
Last week, Joe Biden said democracy is on the ballot, but the truth is … our economic recovery is on the ballot, law and order is on the ballot. But so are things far more fundamental and foundational to our country. It’s not so much whether America will be more conservative or more liberal, more Republican or more Democrat. The choice in this election is whether America remains America.
This could be coded racism. I don’t claim to know clearly what America is when it is America. And I certainly don’t know what role Pence may have had in writing such a paragraph.
What defines the days of America being America? It would really be cool to see someone put him on the spot about that, and follow up and follow up. I think it would be hilarious, but I have no illusions that it would change any minds.
I caught the after-speech analysis on CNN, where the panel included several Republicans who couldn’t understand why anyone might’ve perceived a racial pitch.
Nia-Maliki Henderson explained that there’s no way to separate the message from a racial pitch, about which Trump is quite blatant. Said she: “The message he wants to deliver, particularly to white people, is that he [Trump] is the only thing standing between them and the lawlessness of Black and Brown people.” She added that such messages could very well succeed in activating “the rising anxiety amoung white people about the changing demographics of this country.”
Anyway, that was Pence’s night as the headliner. Trump himself made a “surprise” appearance at the end of Pence’s talk, and acted very pleased. Tonight will be Trump’s big night. I can’t wait to hear his shtick, and I even more can’t wait for this convention season to be over so I can get back to watching old movies.
You’re a saint to watch it and file a report, no matter what you might be paid as a journalist.
The fact is, what can Pence (or Melania or Eric or Tiffany or Donny Jr or Today’s Girlfriend) say? “You may think things are bad now, but just wait until Biden and Pelosi are in charge! That’ll be real chaos, unlike our chaos-lite! 75% of you think we’re on the wrong track as a country, so naturally the answer is Stay the Course, 4 More Years!” Not flawless logic…
With a public as failed as the American one, appeals to “logic” are quite beside the point, baffling even, and a “conservative” strategist would simply refer you to Rove’s famous dictum: “We create a new reality while you are diligently critiquing the old one”.
Conservatism doesn’t “win” by use of flawless logic; it “wins” by appeals to lizard-brain emotion: fear, spite, suspicion and uncertainty, with a hefty dose of lies thrown in for flavor. Hence even a cardboard cut-out android like Pence uses the tactic shamelessly. Not only is logical thinking not used, it’s not even in the toolkit.
By basically any metric one wants to examine in August 2020, the nation is far, far worse off after 4 years of braindead Trumpist incompetence than it was before the unqualified, lying ignoramus and his criminally-corrupt minions took office as a result of the failed constitution and failed white electorate. His minority faction can congratulate themselves that they retained “control” over the political process, which is seen as their birthright, democracy be damned. But unfortunately they “had to destroy the village in order to save it”. That’s the sort of “logic” that makes sense to them….Mr Spock, they are not.
The Trumpites are not conservatives in any meaningful sense of the word.
Reactionaries, maybe.
“Vice President Mike Pence is where charisma goes to die.”
Can’t remember the last time a read a laugh-out-loud lede like that. Thanks Eric!
I’m wondering whether / to what degree the POTUS and/or RNC acknowledge the disaster going on down by the Gulf. Or is it just another “not my problem” situation for Trump?
Kinda lucky Trump’s FEMA-funds-raiding-scheme for his Potemkin Unemployment Comp charade never was taken seriously, eh? Otherwise FEMA would have about $100 dollars in the bank….
Incompetence always! A more consistent clown than Colonel Klink!
Pence’s remarks don’t really blame Biden as much as they attempt to tie him with the Democratic Governors of our state and other States like Wisconsin and Oregon, where the “unrest” has been occurring since George Floyd was killed. That’s coded for voters, especially white voters who consider themselves morally upright, law abiding members of a “law abiding Silent Majority.” It’s a message which has worked for the Republican Party since 1964 when the Goldwater wing began to draw white Southern voters away from their historical Democratic Party allegiance using the Democratic Party’s support of racial integration and voting rights as bait. “Law and order” became part of Nixon’s successful appeal to the “Silent Majority” in 1968 where he was helped in this appeal by the Chicago police riot which turned on the “hippies” protesting the Democratic Convention. Nixon refined this message against George McGovern in 1972. Reagan perfected the appeal to the “law-abiding Silent majority” in his campaigns.
The Trump/GOP campaign has presented some people of color, which I take as an attempt to defuse any charge of “coded racism” in their campaign or their policies. White supremacy and racism in this country has never been without support from African-Americans, including notable men like Booker T. Washington and Isaiah T. Montgomery, the only black delegate to the 1890 Mississippi Constitutional Convention which disfranchised black citizens in that state who spoke in support of “black inferiority.” But the Trump/GOP campaign is no less racist in using this camouflaged appeal to a white “Silent Majority” to stoke white fear of black and brown lawlessness. Hence the efforts to reverse the narrative by conflating peaceful demonstrators with a relative few arsonists, looters and rioters and to make the Democratic party, once the party of racism, into the new anti-police, “anti-law and order” party. Voters who buy that won’t bother to notice the paradox of making authoritarianism, fascism and the suppression of civil rights and fundamental liberties the best remedy for saving those liberties and democracy. After all, the same “logic” goes, sometimes “you have to burn a village to save it.” Apparently, many voters buy that “logic” too.
So Pence is right to say that the “economic recovery is on the ballot, law and order is on the ballot”. He and the others who have been speaking at the RNC Convention this week, including Trump speaking tonight, have just been making it so. But this is not to say, as Pence denies, that democracy, which is a lot more “fundamental and foundational” than “law and order”, is not also on the ballot. Will a majority of voting Americans be willing to do so? The question is now: Will voters save our democracy by rejecting Trump’s and the GOP’s coded racist appeal of “law and order”?
Yesterday I watched the new Lincoln Project ad featuring Pence. It shows video of Pence doing his radio show in the late 90’s. I’m not exaggerating when I say I had to watch twice to see that it was actually Pence. He was so vivid & life like, nothing like the bland monotone we see today.
It was even more amazing than the famous vid of the meeting where Pence stops writing to move his bottle of water from the table onto the floor seconds moments after Don Trump does that.
Worldwide pandemic. Perhaps some of you have heard of it. January 2020 economy, perhaps you remember it. Pandemics result in bad economies, perhaps you’ve noticed the rest of the world. You can blame the President for the pandemic, and you do. Maybe the pandemic wouldn’t have occurred under a President Clinton, I know you believe that too. Science might disagree. As for safety and law and order, just look at who controls the cities that are having the most problems (you have to dig because our media tries to hide this ugly truth even when it is in our front yard) and realize that President Biden, and he will be our next President, supports these leaders and their actions, and, for the most part, the very people responsible for the lawlessness. As for charisma, you have seen President-elect Biden haven’t you? And you hate Donald Trump BECAUSE he has charisma.
“As for safety and law and order, just look at who controls the cities that are having the most problems (you have to dig because our media tries to hide this ugly truth even when it is in our front yard). . . . ”
It’s painfully obvious that the police control the cities and have been for a long time. At least until they lose control, by negligence and unpreparedness, or maybe on purpose. The outbreaks of looting, rioting, vandalism, etc. which broke out in the wake of George Floyd’s death happened because of the police and because the police were clearly unprepared for the sort of reaction that was clearly foreseeable by some elements of the population. I’m not going to defend people who exploit tragic events to excuse their criminal behavior. But I’m not going to let Trump and his campaign blame the political leadership of Minnesota, Minneapolis and St. Paul who just happen to be Democrats. They responded the best way they could under the rapidly developing circumstances. They responded responsibly to the fact that was not immediately clear at the time that the police forces of the cities had become either unable or unwilling to manage the explosive situation they bore responsibility for having created. The Democratic leadership did bring the situation under control, partly by acknowledging that the police and policing need reform in our cities, our State and in our Nation and promising to earnestly bring such reform.
Trump and the GOP bear a lot of the blame for any breakdown in law and order. The GOP has been using this divisive “law and order” theme for at least fifty years to maintain power in this country. The US has more people in prisons than any other industrialized country. Getting tougher by more “law and order” or putting more people in prison will not make people respect and obey the law or the police. Trump and the GOP are not interested in police reform or the problem of systemic racism in this country. They are using the occasion again to use race to divide the country. Trump evidently has much support among the police. Do people really believe they can restore “law and order” by ignoring the underlying problem of systemic racism and white supremacy in the police and getting even tougher, sending more people (no doubt meaning people of color) to prisons or just making it easier for the police to be the judge, jury and executioner for the people the police are supposed to serve and protect?
As for charisma, If Trump has it, then that word has lost all meaning. Or at least any meaning that does not otherwise suggest what drew millions to fascist, authoritarian rulers. No, Biden is not charismatic in any sense I understand the word. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a good thing. He has experience and he is competent. He is someone who understands the difference between governing under a rule of law. He is no Trump who breaks the law and gets away with it because he and his supporters think he is a ruler who’s above the law.
Ask Mayor Frey who is in charge. Ask Lisa Bender who is in charge. You’re right, the police failed to ask for the National Guard in the proper manner. The police then told themselves that the National Guard wouldn’t be called because they didn’t ask properly. The police declared a mask mandate. And all the curfews. The police made the decision to let the 3rd precinct be overrun and burned down. And on and on. The police had all the control.
I noticed while changing stations during Pence’s speech a cross on the
stage behind Pence, and above the cross, the US flag, which as a person
who identifies as a believer (and member of a local Anabaptist historical
peace church) made me feel ill. In the last 40+ years of membership and
attendance, the US flag has never been on display, and would NEVER
appear above the cross.
Dan Gerber