On Monday, writing for The Week, Neil J. Young noted that former Vice President Mike Pence made a "deal with the devil" to position himself for the presidency in 2024 — only to see those ambitions implode as the Republican base marginalizes him.
Pence's recent speech condemning Trump's claims that he could have overturned the election, wrote Young, were an outlier. "More than evincing honor or bravery, Pence's speech served to highlight all the times he stayed quiet while Trump ran roughshod over the Constitution, demeaned the office of the presidency, and weakened the democratic foundations of the American system. Instead of showing his integrity, Pence revealed his bald self-interest. As a person close to him admitted to CNN, Pence has never wanted to rebuke Trump for any of his many wrongdoings or his numerous character failures. 'But if something is falsely said about him,' the source said of Pence, 'he is going to correct it.'"
And all of this appears to be for nothing, wrote Young, because assuming Trump doesn't run again in 2024, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) appears to be better positioned than Pence to serve as Trump's ideological successor.
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"There are several factors working in DeSantis' favor, including being a fairly-popular, if controversial, governor of a state with the third-largest slate of Electoral College votes," wrote Young. "That controversy, driven by his laissez-faire handling of COVID and his aggressive response to Florida counties that sought to enact stricter pandemic regulations, has made him a darling on the right. Thanks to steady appearances on Fox News, plus lots of gushing coverage of his governorship by the network, DeSantis is gaining an impressive national profile. And his assault on voting rights and stoking of fears about critical race theory in Florida's public schools show how deftly he's pulling straight from Trump's playbook."
"What's Pence's plan?" wrote Young. "If he's angling to position himself as Trump-lite — someone who can deliver Trump's hardline policies without his heinous personality — he's misjudging the moment. The mood on the right is one of revolution, not reformation. Pence's solemn, choir-boy posturing has little appeal when what so many Republican voters seem to want is an unhinged political arsonist."
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