Mike Pence’s chief of staff is who we thought he was
Mike Pence’s vice presidential chief of staff Marc Short has given extensive and cooperative testimony to the January 6th Committee. But now Short is insisting that the committee has no right to try to compel Pence himself to testify. As always, this has led to debates on our side of the fence about whether Short is “good” or “bad” or “can be trusted.” And as always, such conversations are irrelevant to the point of being gibberish.
Here’s the thing about politics. With exceptions so rare you can usually count them on one hand per century, the “bad guys” in politics don’t suddenly become good guys. It doesn’t work that way. What actually happens is that sometimes, the justice-driven agenda of the good guys just happens to line up with the selfishly driven agenda of a specific right wing political villain on a specific matter, or for a finite period of time.
Liz Cheney is the perfect example. Her decision to join the January 6th Committee and help America finish off Donald Trump doesn’t mean she’s suddenly become a “good guy.” All you have to do is look at how she continues to vote corruptly on nearly every piece of House legislation, and you can see that she’s still a horrible person in general. That hasn’t changed, and won’t. Yet we can very much trust her on the specific matter of finishing off Trump, because Trump’s downfall would happen to greatly benefit her goal of becoming the next leader of the Republican Party.
The key is to understand that you can trust Cheney when it comes to taking down Trump, and you simultaneously can’t trust Cheney when it comes to anything else in politics. Both these things are true. Understanding these kinds of situations, and using them to our tactical advantage, requires enough nuance to understand that this isn’t about who’s “good” or “bad.” It’s about the good guys needing a majority or certain leverage in order to win any given political battle, and sometimes only being able to get that by temporarily aligning with a bad guy who happens to selfishly have the same goal as the good guys on that one issue.
As we get further into the January 6th Committee probe and the inevitable public hearings, it’s more important than ever to understand and embrace these concepts. Marc Short is perfectly willing to rat out Donald Trump, because he has no interest in getting indicted for contempt just to protect Trump, a guy he hates anyway. But Short is also perfectly willing to help Pence avoid testifying, because Short’s future political ambitions require keeping Pence’s shirt clean.
Is Marc Short good or bad? WHO CARES! This is about winning – which means using someone like Short to our tactical advantage, to the greatest extent that we can. We all need to understand that once Trump has been fully finished off, people like Short, Pence, and even Cheney will end up being our enemies on future political matters. It won’t mean they’ve gone from “bad” to “good” to “bad.” That’s a child’s view of politics. It simply means that sometimes some bad guys happen to temporarily be on your side, for reasons that have nothing to do with right or wrong – and sometimes the good guys have to take advantage of it in order to win.
