A democracy that depends on Pence is a democracy in trouble
The republic was saved not with a bang, but with a whimper.
This free edition of Public Notice is made possible by paid subscribers. If you aren’t one already, please consider signing up. Just click the button below.
This week we learned from ABC that former Vice President Mike Pence initially decided not to preside over the joint session of Congress to certify former President Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden. Trump had requested Pence absent himself so he wouldn’t be a barrier to Trump’s efforts to delay the count and prevent the transfer of power. Pence, in short, agreed to act to facilitate the coup.
Of course, Pence ultimately changed his mind and did preside over the joint session. That’s why Trump encouraged his rioting supporters to hang his own VP when they stormed the Capitol on January 6. Pence, in short, did the right thing — but only barely, and only reluctantly.
It’s a reminder that Trump’s assault on democracy was defeated in large part because many of his sycophants couldn’t quite convince themselves to cross the last line for him. The republic was saved not with a bang, but with a whimper. That’s an ominous precedent if a newly emboldened Trump wins the White House again next year.
Pence’s Christmas miracle
According to ABC’s reporting, Pence told Special Counsel Jack Smith he had his quisling night of the soul over the 2020 Christmas holiday. Trump had suggested he should not attend the joint session on January 6, presumably so someone else more amenable to Trump’s plot would be in charge instead.
Pence wrote in his notes, “Not feeling like I should attend electoral count. Too many questions, too many doubts, too hurtful to my friend. Therefore I'm not going to participate in certification of election." The “friend” Pence refers to must be Trump himself; Pence didn’t want to distress the president by forcing him to confront the fact that he had lost an election fair and square.
Pence told Smith that he changed his mind when his son, a Marine, chastised him. “Dad, you took the same oath I took,” his son said, “an oath to support and defend the Constitution.” Pence decided that he had to fulfill his duty and attend the joint session even if he didn’t want to.
When Pence showed up and made it clear he would (in line with his constitutional duty) certify the election results, Trump was enraged. So were his supporters, since Trump had assured them that Pence could and should (illegally) overturn the election result. Pence’s refusal to go along with the plan was part of what sparked the attack on the Capitol, which succeeded in temporarily (and violently) halting the electoral count proceeding.
Who would have presided if not Pence?
Since Trump didn’t want Pence at the joint session, the obvious question is who would he have wanted to preside instead? If Pence had been absent, the duty to preside at the session would have passed to the Senate president pro tempore — Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley.
Grassley on January 5 made comments which suggested he believed Pence would be absent from the joint session, and that he would preside instead.
Many at the time took this to mean that Grassley was in communication, and perhaps collusion, with Trump. However, further reporting indicated that Grassley was referring to a different Senate meeting, rather than to the joint session. There’s no reason to believe that Grassley was working with Trump to displace Pence.
Trump may have wanted Grassley in charge anyway, though; he knew that Pence was balking at his demands not to certify the election, and may have hoped Grassley would be more amenable to persuasion and/or bullying.
Would Grassley have helped Trump block certification and advance his coup? We don’t know. But we do know that as far as Trump is concerned, Grassley’s backbone of late has been of dubious solidity. In February 2021, Grassley condemned Trump’s election denial and his actions on January 6. He specifically reprimanded Trump for “encourag[ing] his own, loyal vice president, Mike Pence, to take extraordinary and unconstitutional actions during the Electoral College count.” That doesn’t sound like Grassley would have helped Trump to steal the election.
And yet, Grassley made that statement as part of his explanation for why he voted against convicting Trump following his second impeachment. By refusing to convict, Grassley and other Senate Republicans gave Trump the opportunity to run for president again. And it didn’t take long for Grassley to make peace with Trump’s big lie.
By late 2021, Grassley was holding joint rallies with Trump and gladly accepting his support in his 2022 Senate race (which Grassley won).
“I’m smart enough to accept [Trump’s] endorsement,” Grassley boasted at an October 2021 rally.
Would Grassley have been “smart enough” to do Trump’s bidding and block the electoral certification? Trumps was betting he would, but Trump is wrong about a lot. On the other hand, a democracy that’s dependent on the moral courage of Mike Pence and Chuck Grassley is on the ropes.
Who will stand against Orange Jesus?
And sure enough, our democracy is in many ways dependent on Republican moral courage and clarity, and as a result we are in a great deal of trouble. There are a handful of Republicans, like Sen. Mitt Romney and former Rep. Liz Cheney, who have opposed Trump consistently since January 6. But not coincidentally Cheney lost her primary election to a Trump-backed challenger, and Romney is retiring.
To survive in the GOP, you either have to be a true believer or “smart enough” to be willing to apply your principles only very selectively. In her recent book, Cheney recounts how Tennessee GOP Rep. Mark Greene, in the middle of signing his name to electoral vote count objections at Trump’s behest on January 6, said “sheepishly to no one in particular, ‘The things we do for the Orange Jesus.’”
Note from Aaron: Collaborating with brilliant contributors like Noah takes resources. To support us, please click the button below and become a paid subscriber.
Much has changed since 2020, but one thing hasn’t — the GOP remains in thrall to their oddly colored savior. New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, who has been a sharp Trump critic, suggested this week that he would vote for Trump over Biden if Trump is the nominee in 2024. Similarly, Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr, who has called Trump a “consummate narcissist” who “engages in reckless conduct,” has refused to say he’ll vote against him in a general election.
Pence himself has demonstrated to his peers exactly what happens when you take a stand against Trump, however hesitating and half-hearted. Immediately after he defied Trump, of course, he was targeted for assault and possibly worse than assault by Trump’s mob of angry supporters. But his political future was also blighted.
Pence presumably took the vice presidency because he thought it would be a good step toward becoming president. Instead, when he did run for the 2024 nomination, Trump ran against him — and Pence’s spasm of principled opposition to the frontrunner was his undoing.
Never mind that Pence for years refused to condemn the man who incited his followers to murder him. Never mind that Pence, like Sununu, refused to say he would vote for Biden over Trump. The base never forgave him for refusing to go along with the coup attempt. He was booed at an NRA convention in his home state of Indiana, and his campaign fizzled almost before it began. Pence’s message about loyalty to the Constitution trumping his loyalty to Trump did not resonate with GOP voters, and he dropped out at the end of October, months before the first primary vote.
As Pence’s sad story indicates, Republicans have huge partisan incentives to back the Republican nominee for president, and to support a figure who has about 70 percent approval among Republicans. Weighed against that is their wavering commitment to democracy — and perhaps, in certain cases, a worry that backing Trump might result in criminal prosecution.
Pence on January 6 reluctantly opposed Trump. If he hadn’t, maybe his coup would have succeeded, and Trump would still be president. That’s not really a reason to cheer on Pence, though. It’s mostly a reason to be very worried about the state of a country in which people like Mike Pence are what pass for a bulwark against fascism.
That’s it for today
We’ll be back with more tomorrow. If you appreciate this post, please support Public Notice by signing up. Paid subscribers make this work possible.
We know that Grassley now says he was never himself involved in any conversations about presiding over the January 6 joint session of Congress. We know that someone from his office or associated with his office had to have been, however, and thereafter communicated the substance of such conversations to Grassley so that Grassley could make his Insurrection Eve declaration that he would preside over the joint session.
This should place a considerable federal investigative focus on who inside Grassley’s office was in contact with those who had spent late December 2020 plotting ways for Trump to stay in office. But given that Grassley also insists that no one who was a part of his office at the time was involved in the plot, investigators might wish to start with those associated with but not formally part of the office of Senator Grassley in the days immediately preceding January 5—a list that would have at its head Barbara Ledeen, she of a longstanding, dodgy, elections-related association with Michael Flynn.
Please start doing a deep dive on Nikki Haley’s christofascism wrapped in a cozy soccer mom sweater….. Jennifer Rubin has an article today calling her “normal”, sorry is saying you “want to be pastor hagee when u grow up” “normal”? Maybe for the GOP now a days but not the broader cross section of America. Now that Koch is backing her and Trumps indictments are closing in, she might get some juice