USA: The Deep Fall of Mike Pence

First Vice, then President: This is what Mike Pence’s calculation should have looked like. But despite his staunch loyalty to Donald Trump, Pence is through with most Republicans today – a single day was enough.

There was this joke that got thigh throbbing in Washington for a long time. Question: “With what words does Mike Pence greet his wife at the breakfast table?” Answer: “Thanks to your great leadership, Mr. President, I wish you a good morning!” For four years, Pence had started every utterance on every public appearance with Trump with the phrase, “Thanks to your great guidance, Mr. President.” Flattery and submissiveness took on a new dimension in those years.

Much has been speculated about what really went through the head of the Vice President at the time in these situations. Pence and Trump: They were an unequal couple. The devout old-school conservative and the builder, casino operator and playboy who moved late to the Republicans and even later to active politics. Pence and Trump: It was a partnership of convenience. The career changer, who opened up new groups of voters for the Republicans, and the traditionalist, who initially worked loyally and then took over the inheritance.

It is known that Pence’s wife Karen was initially not at all impressed with the idea that her husband, then governor of Indiana, subordinate himself to the twice-divorced boastful Trump after he won the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 and Pence the candidacy for the Vice-presidency. But Pence sensed a chance at the time, put everything on the Trump (f) card – and lost.

Hardly any support

A recent poll from his own camp, by the “Conservative Political Action Conference”, sees Pence far behind in the potential field of applicants for the 2024 presidential nomination. Only one percent of his party friends would support the former vice president in his candidacy. “Mike Pence’s political career is over,” said Steve Bannon, New Right figurehead and former Trump adviser. “The Trump people don’t like him anymore,” said Bannon, “and the Trump opponents don’t like him anyway!”

The fact that Pence, the heir to the throne believed to be certain, has been so dramatically smeared in the favor of his party friends is bitterly thanks to his former boss Trump.

“I was very disappointed with Mike Pence,” said Trump in an interview these days. What is meant is that Pence had certified the election victory of Joe Biden in Congress on January 6, against Trump’s will. “If Mike Pence had had the guts to send the election results back to the state parliaments for examination, we would now have a completely different outcome,” said Trump.

True, all experts emphasize that under the Constitution, Pence had no choice, since not the slightest evidence of irregularities in the election could be brought forward. But Trump’s continual false assertion ensured that around two-thirds of Republicans believe the myth of Trump’s stolen election victory – and that Pence missed the historic opportunity to give Trump and himself a second term.

The anger at him is great

At an important meeting of the right-wing establishment, the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Florida last month, Pence was greeted with shouts of “Traitors, traitors!” During the storming of the Capitol on January 6th, the mob chanted: “Hang Mike Pence!” Raymond Harre, Vice President of the Republicans in Scott County, Iowa, told Politico online magazine, “There are Trump supporters who think Mike Pence is the anti-Christian.”

To this day, however, Pence does not seem to understand what happened to him. Although Trump continues to attack his former vice-president in public, he does not want to break with him: Yes, Pence said, he will support Trump if he should run again in 2024. The maximum public distance was Pence’s remark that he and Trump will probably never agree on the assessment of the events of January 6th.

How the Trump system works

The deep fall of Mike Pence is an impressive illustration of how the Trump system works. As long as his companions flatter him and do exactly what Trump wants, they are highly praised and promoted.

The favor can be withdrawn from one second to the next at any time. Almost all Trump supporters had to go through this painful experience. Actually only with one prominent exception: Ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to this day an unshakable Trump supporter.

Pompeo is at the top of the list of potential Republican presidential candidates, closely followed by two ultra-conservative governors who have repeatedly portrayed themselves as Trumpists: Ron DeSantis from Florida and Greg Abbott from Texas. If Trump doesn’t throw his hat in the ring himself, one of his loyal followers will challenge Biden. For Pence, who seemed to have been set for four years, the blooming dream of running for president in 2024 is over.