Mike Pence is trying to save the Republican party
Spoiler: It won't work
I am endlessly fascinated by Mike Pence’s bid for president.
It’s been hopelessly doomed from the start — and Pence, no political dummy, has to know that. And yet, he runs and runs and, occasionally, does something that I think is actually really important as it relates to the future of the Republican party.
Pence did that really important thing last week — I have been pondering on it ever since — when he gave a speech in New Hampshire about the rise of populism within the GOP.
You probably didn’t hear about this speech. Because, well, Mike Pence gave it. And he is not only an afterthought in the presidential race but also decidedly boring.
But you need to pay attention to what Pence said — and understand why he said it. Because he framed the choice before Republicans extremely well, even if Pence is almost assuredly on the losing side of the equation he laid out.
“The truth is the Republican Party did not begin on a golden escalator in 2015,” Pence told the crowd.
He then went on to outline the choice between the conservatism which had dominated the Republican party from the time of Ronald Reagan all the way through 2016, and the new national populism that the likes of Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis advocate.
“I ask my fellow Republicans this: In the days to come, will we be the party of conservatism, or will our party follow the siren song of populism unmoored to conservative principles,” Pence asked.
Which, yes, exactly!
One of the most baffling things for me over the past 7 or so years is the idea that Trump is, in fact, a conservative.
Consider:
He has been a Democrat and an independent before in his political life
He is decidedly a protectionist (at best!) on trade
He is deeply skeptical of the role of the U.S. as policeman for the world
He backed a tax plan that would have heavily taxed the wealthy
He expressed little concern with the burgeoning government debt
There’s more — plenty more — but you get the idea. Compare the idea of conservatism backed by, say, Paul Ryan — the party’s 2012 vice presidential nominee and former Speaker of the House — and that of Trump. The two are basically unrecognizable to one another.
And that’s because Trump’s conservatism isn’t ideological, it’s tonal. It’s about being tough and strong and never backing down. (I still remember when Trump, at rallies, would urge the police to rough up protesters.)
It’s about grievance and victimhood. About being persecuted by the so-called “Deep State.” About being treated unfairly by the media. About being shamed for trying to defend “traditional” values.
Listen to a Trump speech. Or an interview with the former president. There’s not an issue or a policy prescription mentioned. It’s all rhetoric about how he is the aggrieved party and how the elites are punishing him to get at the average Joe.
Victimhood and grievance are not planks around which a party can be built. Hate them if you like but the traditional conservative policy prescriptions — low taxes, small government — are.
Again, Pence hit the nail on the head — blasting a party centered on “personal grievances and performative outrage” and insisting that “should the new populism of the right seize and guide our party, the Republican Party as we have long known it will cease to exist.”
He’s right! He’s also too late.
The time to effectively fight the rise of Trumpian populism was in the 2016 election. Trump was then who he is now: A gifted demagogue who understood that playing on fear and division made for an effective if polarizing politics.
But, no one took him seriously in that race until it was way too late. By the time that the likes of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio and even Ted Cruz understood that the Republican party was being taken over by Trump, they couldn’t stop it. Again, grievance and victimhood are a hell of a drug.
What makes Pence’s paean to a return to conservative normalcy a little bit rich is the fact that he spent the four years from 2017 to 2021 enabling the installation of Trump’s populism as the default view of the Republican party.
Gone were the likes of Ryan and former Speaker John Boehner. In their place were Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, politicians without any discernible interest in policy but highly skilled in the performative part of the job.
For Pence to claim, as he did in this speech and as he has on the campaign trail, that he and Trump governed like conservatives and it’s only of late that the former president has embraced a “new” populism is, um, laughable. And that’s being nice.
But, I digress. The broader point here is that Pence in his speech is calling on Republicans to take on a fight that has already been lost.
Just look at the state of the current 2024 Republican field.
According to the Real Clear Politics polling average, the three top contenders for the Republican nomination are, in order, Trump, DeSantis and Ramaswamy. Combined they take almost 75% of the total vote in the GOP primary. (Trump, at 54%, represents the lion’s share of that percentage.)
Now look at where the “normal” conservatives stand in the race. Nikki Haley takes 6%. Pence is at 5%. Tim Scott is at 2%. Asa Hutchinson is at .3%. Add that up and you get a little over 13%.
So, yeah.
Or take another, less quantitative measure. In the first debate — where Trump did not appear — Hutchinson and Chris Christie were roundly booed for suggesting that the former president might not be, with his four indictments, the best choice for the Republican presidential nomination. Ramaswamy, on the other hand, was cheered wildly as he insisted Trump was the victim — there’s that word again — of an out of control federal bureaucracy.
Pence is then, about 8 years too late to this fight. Which doesn’t make him any less right! I totally agree with him that the populist version of the Republican party — in which tone and vibes have replaced policy positions — is a dead end. Grievance isn’t a substitute for actual views on actual issues. And when you are trying to reach beyond your own hardcore base, having policy positions does, usually, help.
The way I have started to view Pence — at least in his present iteration in this race — is as Don Quixote. Like Don, Pence sees the world as he would like it to be, not how it actually exists. And he is forever charging at windmills — a lost cause in action.
There’s some chivalry there, though, even in the hopelessness.
He is not only too late, he is MUCH too late. That ship sailed years ago, and honestly, he bears a large measure of responsibility for that fact, given that as the VP, he sat there mutely and legitimized everything that Trump said and did. He has also indicated that despite everything that has happened--including Trump's sending of a homicidal mob after him--that he would not rule out voting for Trump if Trump is the Republican nominee in 2024. So, I take his words with a boulder of salt.
All of THAT being said, and as others have already said, the GOP is now the party of Trump, Gaetz, MTG, Boebert, Jordan, Cruz, Tuberville, DeSantis, etc.--a bunch of performative clowns who stand for nothing and contribute even less to the welfare of the country.
Chris,
You've written before that Pence's campaign is better understood as a reputation reclamation project than a bid for the presidency, and that he has to know he can't win. Likening him to Quixote seems too generous. He knows they're windmills. He helped build the windmills. This is all theater.