Mike Pence’s junk drawer
Picture an empty beach. It’s completely silent, and nothing much hovers nearby except junk. Junk candidates. Republican candidates. Haley. DeSantis Christie. Scott. They all sit, each one encapsulated in their own world, trying to think of ways to be relevant, to charm the American people, to mold themselves into likable images that will garner responses, to push away the shade and welcome in the sunshine of popularity.
As each scheming candidate plots their way to the top, one can see a sandbar. On the sandbar is a lone man. He, too, is a candidate, but he’s alone. Always he’s alone. He sees the world differently. He refuses to move to the center, to do much of anything to reel in the people. His head is in the clouds as usual. His fishing rod remains empty. And he continues his delusion that Maga loves him.
It is Mike Pence. Mike Pence, the man on the sandbar, the forgotten one, the candidate who has given away his everything — including his pride and his soul — for a try at power. Pence IS different from the others. His mind seems to always think about life as it WAS instead of how it is now.
The man wants a national abortion ban. He doesn’t believe in taxing the ultra-rich. He says racism is over because all his kids graduated from college. Mike Pence is not just alone on a sandbar; he seems to be alone in a cave during Prehistoric times.
He gazes into the past as some eagerly await the future. He’s a man denying the present. And yet, for one brief moment, we saw a different Mike Pence. A strong Mike Pence. He was campaigning in Iowa when a woman voter blamed him for not throwing the election to Trump. Pence’s reaction was terrific. He seemed genuinely angry. I did not know anger still existed in Mike Pence.
“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” Pence said almost coldly. “No Vice President in American history ever asserted the authority that you have been convinced that I had.” Bravo Pence! You had it. For one moment, you had it. A spine. Pence then told the woman to read the Constitution. How nice. How nice to see Mike Pence actually DEFEND HIMSELF.
Alas, it was but a hint of breakthrough. Pence has been ruined by his time with Trump; his anger does not come out much. It would be most helpful for him if it did. It could be his way of letting go of the past, which was about as sordid as it gets.
Alas, in no time at all, Mike Pence was back on the sandbar, back in his ocean of denial, his brief flare of spunk gone like a flash of lightning. Will it ever come back? I have my doubts.
