Pence Made His Bed, Now He Gets to Lie in it.
Can we really be surprised he’s hoping to leave town after he formalizes Biden’s victory in the Senate?
With the new year approaching, the end to Donald Trump’s presidency is upon us and on January 6th, Vice President Pence has the responsibility of presiding over the congressional session in the Senate that will certify Joe Biden’s electoral victory. Earlier today, I stumbled across an article published in Politico on December 17th detailing his plans for afterwards, and couldn’t help being amused by what I had read.
Gabby Orr and Nahal Toosi wrote:
“As vice president, Pence has the awkward but unavoidable duty of presiding over the session of Congress that will formalize Biden’s Electoral College victory — a development that is likely to expose him and other Republicans to the wrath of GOP voters who believe President Donald Trump’s false claim that the election was stolen from him.
But Pence could dodge their ire by leaving Washington immediately for the Middle East and Europe. According to three U.S. officials familiar with the planning, the vice president is eyeing a foreign trip that would take him overseas for nearly a week, starting on Jan. 6.
Though Pence aides declined to confirm details of the trip, which remains tentative, a U.S. government document seen by POLITICO shows the vice president is due to travel to Bahrain, Israel and Poland, with the possibility of more stops being added. A pre-advance team of Pence aides and other U.S. officials left earlier this week to visit the planned stops in preparation for the multicountry tour, which would be Pence’s first trip abroad since last January, when he traveled to Rome and Jerusalem on a whirlwind two-day sojourn…”
Ultimately, Pence made his bed, and now he gets to lie in it.
It should go without saying that the man knows he is in a lose-lose situation either way. On one hand if he went against McConnell and the donor class, and called for an alternate slate of electors, it’s worth noting that there is no way for that to win legislatively because the House of Representatives can block it. McConnell and swing state Republican Senators would be furious, and most importantly so would the donors. On the other hand of course, is the President himself with his rabid supporters behind him, who undoubtedly has discussed with him at least once that he hopes Pence would consider calling for an alternate slate of electors. Would we really be surprised to find that a man who is genuinely convinced that he won this election would be angry, and potentially unleash the wrath of the Republican base on his own Vice President?
Pence is not going to go against McConnell and the donors, so it’s sort of funny to imagine the Vice President high tailing it to Poland because he’s afraid of the ramifications for doing nothing more than his job as Vice President.
At the end of the day, this is exactly the sort of situation and embarrassment anyone who has enabled the President deserves. After all, the monster they created was always eventually going to turn on them, and over four years of bending to his will was eventually going to be tossed aside and forgotten. Pence is likely to join Bill Barr, Jeff Sessions, and the countless other Trump sycophants who at the end of the day were never, ever going to be loyal enough. As disappointing as I am already finding Joe Biden’s administration overall to be, it has admittedly been satisfying to see the Republican party scramble to attempt to contain something they were too arrogant and callous enough to imagine would ever come back to bite them.
