I'm not going to revisit the entire history of my understanding of the formation of his worldview. Suffice it to say that his hometown is mine, that I have monitored the arc of his career - head of a statewide think tank, radio-show host, House member, governor, Vice President - and that I have some firsthand knowledge of him and his family. I was at the victory party when, after several attempts, he was elected to the House, and I was at the event at which he announced his run for governor. I was taken as a guest to a Rotary Club lunch meeting at which Pence - then a talk-show host - introduced the guest he'd encouraged the club to book as its monthly speaker, none other than Russell Kirk. I've spoken one-on-one with him on a few occasions.
My point is that I know that in his heart he embraces conservatism. He based his career on advancing ideas and principles, not hustling a brand.
That said, he knew which side the bread was buttered on in May 2016. On the day before the Indiana primary, he had Ted Cruz as his breakfast guest at the governor's mansion in Indianapolis. It was commonly understood that he was a Cruz supporter. Then came Ted's withdrawal from the race and the offer from the Very Stable Genius to be his running mate. I don't begrudge him the difficulty of the moment. But his approach to weighing his options made it clear that he intended to stay in politics and come as close to the brass ring as possible. Routes such as those taken by Jim DeMint, Jason Chaffetts or Trey Gowdy did not have sufficient appeal to Mike.
So he made his Faustian bargain.
He's been on cleanup detail ever since.
It's led to some degrading situations. Here's the latest:
Vice President Mike Pence offered a faint rejection of the QAnon conspiracy theory Friday and denied hearing that President Donald Trump embraced the movement, but he stopped short of acknowledging the harm of the viral theory.
The conspiracy theory, which claims Trump and a government agent are secretly fighting a deep-state ring of child sex traffickers, was labeled a domestic terrorism threat by the FBI last year. A number of prominent Republicans have denounced the conspiracy theory, but Trump has been conspicuously uncritical of the movement, whose paraphernalia often appeared at his campaign rallies.
Speaking with CNN's John Berman on Friday morning, Pence claimed not to know much about the theory, saying he had little time to focus on conspiracy theories while heading the White House's coronavirus task force. When asked repeatedly if he would denounce the QAnon theory in particular, Pence said, "I dismiss conspiracy theorists out of hand."
"I said it's a conspiracy theory, I don't have time for it, I don't know anything about it. And honestly, John, I get it. I mean, I get that the media, particularly CNN chases after shiny objects," Pence said.
"This is not a shiny object," Berman retorted. "The FBI considers this a dangerous group."
Berman and Pence's back-and-forth comes two days after Trump appeared to embrace QAnon supporters during a White House news briefing. Though he stopped short of accepting the theory itself, Trump said of its supporters: "I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand that they like me very much, which I appreciate.”
Pence rejected that those comments amounted to Trump embracing the movement, saying, "I didn't hear that. I didn't hear anything. I heard the president talk about how he appreciates people that support him."
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Thursday she had never heard Trump talk about QAnon, propping it as a media obsession off the president's radar.
Compare and contrast this weasel session with the forthright pronouncements from some of the few remaining public figures with Rs behind their names who aren't confirmed as cowards in this uniquely definitive summer:
• “QAnon is dangerous lunacy that should have no place in American politics” – Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), quoted by Politico reporter Melanie Zanona.
• “Why in the world would the President not kick Q’anon supporters’ butts? Nut jobs, rascists, haters have no place in either Party” Jeb! via Twitter.
• “Q-Anon is nuts — and real leaders call conspiracy theories conspiracy theories. If Democrats take the Senate, blow up the filibuster, and pack the Supreme Court – garbage like this will be a big part of why they won” – Sen Ben Sasse (R-NE), quoted by Wash. Post reporter Seung Min Kim.
I fully understand that Pence's position is different from what it was when he was in Congress. Any sign of daylight between him and the Trump Train would spell the end of his political prospects.
But that's part of what being a conservative is all about. Central to the articulation of what this worldview is all about is character, digging deep to come up with the morally correct answers to dilemmas one faces.
One way of putting this is to restate something I have offered in many a forum for exchange in the past few years: I have to believe that he has on more than one, two or thirty occasions in the last three-plus years come home to Karen and said, "I don't know if I can do this anymore."
He's at an interesting point in his existence as a human being, let alone as a historically significant American, a Christian, and all the other things that he is. He can either keep carrying water for this utterly ruinous phenomenon, or he can say, "This is so incongruous with what I am about that I must walk away."
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