Former US vice president Mike Pence resurfaced last week to remind everyone that the Republican Party is sticking to the same slogans it has been using for 30 years. These slogans about small government and a “strong America” are what the Republicans have been repeated for decades, all while fighting to send federal spending through the roof, spend trillions of dollars on endless wars, and relentlessly expand the federal surveillance state.
In a column for the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Pence wrote:
Over the past two years, we’ve seen conservatives shrug as a Republican Congress continued to rack up record debt and spending while the administration seized stakes in private companies, imposed unconstitutional tariffs on friend and foe alike and abandoned the right to life, all while copying the other side by offering government handouts and expanding entitlements. The unfinished war against Iran became an albatross around the necks of Republicans because Washington stopped short and pursued appeasement rather than allowing our troops to finish off the threat posed by the Iranian regime, once and for all.
If Pence thinks that Republicans have been shrugging off runaway debt and high taxes for only “the past two years,” then he clearly isn’t paying attention at all. Of course, he knows full well that the GOP did absolutely nothing to address debt and spending when the GOP had full control of the federal government under George W Bush. And, of course, the GOP did nothing when it had full control of the government under Trump over the past two years. But, Pence chooses to ignore the Bush era, because the whole points of the WSJ column is to settle old scores with his former boss, Donald Trump.
And, of course, Pence has to fit in there some warmongering comments about Trump “appeasing” Iran and for not “allowing our troops to finish off the threat posed by the Iranian regime, once and for all.” It’s difficult see how this means anything other than a call for “boots on the ground” in Iran.
This tells us all we need to know about how unserious Mike Pence is. Not only is he disingenuously claiming that the GOP would do something about spending and debt, were it not for Trump, Pence is also calling for an invasion of Iran. This is something only the most devoted neoconservative would call for, and it’s also an indicator that Pence couldn’t care less about what the voters want. He just wants to get himself and his friends back into power so they can ratchet up yet another war for Pence’s real boss: the State of Israel.
But don’t worry, Pence has a plan. He continues:
For now, we walk through the debris, pick up the pieces, and start to rebuild. As we enter this postelection season, I will double down our efforts to revive the conservative movement through our voice and the work of Advancing American Freedom Foundation. I invite you to join us.
Like most people of faith, I’m an eternal optimist. I know that with God’s help, we can save our movement—and our country—again. We can return the Republican Party to the timeless principles that have led to our greatest successes and, more important, have made America strong, prosperous and free.
Gee, it turns out the whole point of the column was to act as a advertisement for Pence’s personal “non-profit,” the Advancing American Freedom Foundation. Just write him a big check and he’ll make sure the Republicans do all those wonderful things they surely would have done were Trump not the president. This is what politicians do once they’re out of power: start a personal non-profit which is actually a lobbying firm and a source of income for out-of-power politicians.
But note the entire tone and text of the WSJ column—in spite of being a cynical call for cash for himself and his friends—is the same tired language that we’ve gotten from the Republicans for decades. Do people still fall for this schtick about how the Republicans are going to embrace “timeless principles” and make America “free”? Oh yes, for the first time ever, Republicans sill surely slash federal spending and federal power.
The whole Pence column reads like a press release from 1988. Or 1996. Or 2012.
The only thing I do believe in this text is that Pence wants more war with Iran.
But to get a sense of what Pence’s idea of Republican governance actually is. Let’s look at his record in office.
Pence has spent much of his career supporting increases in federal power and federal regulation. He supports the federal war on drugs He has supported federal bans on online gambling. There is nothing in the US constitution that authorizes a federal role in either gambling or drugs. But trust me, Pence couldn’t care less about the text of the Constitution. And if he did, he wouldn’t have supported the Patriot Act which essentially has abolished the Fourth Amendment, and created a surveillance state that spies on every Americans without a warrant. The Bill of Rights prohibits that, but this surely does not trouble Pence. Since 9/11, Pence has supported expanding the federal police state every step of the way.
Pence is also a committed and hysterical Russophobe, encouraging more federal spending on NATO and more aggression toward Russia. And, of course, Pence is a devoted servant of the Israeli state calling that parasitic foreign country ”America’s most cherished ally.”
Pence is more or less the poster boy for the cynical Republican politician: pretending always to favor “traditional America” and “small government” while forever thirsting for more federal power and a the fiscal and monetary strip mining of American families to support the warfare welfare state that he is unwilling to expend even the smallest amount of political power to oppose.
But, it seems he is still adept at fooling the gullible. This week, for example, the Cato Institute announced that is it hosting Pence later this month, so Pence can discuss his new book “What Conservatives Believe: Rediscovering the Conservative Conscience.”
I’m sure yet another cocktail party with the ersatz defenders of freedom at Cato will bring Pence around any day now.
Of course, there is no need to attend the talk to know what he’ll talk about. He tell his audience that they need to be prepared to pay higher prices in order to “finish off” Iran, and every patriotic American must work even harder to keep the Israeli regime fat and happy on American tax dollars. He’ll talk about a free and fair economy, but won’t even mention the Federal Reserve. Sure, he’ll include a few comments in there about low taxes and all the usual bromides of the exhausted political project that is Conservatism, Inc. The disingenuousness of it all makes it quite fitting as an event for the regime libertarians at Cato.
