A largely irrelevant hack called Mike Pence, who has exactly zero chance of winning the GOP nomination, recently took to the podium at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire to offer what was arguably the most milquetoast, snore-inducing speech in world history.
This guy makes Jeb Bush look charismatic. The “please clap” vibes hung heavy in the room; he could barely muster a wisp of a golf clap from the attendees. If he weren’t such a backstabbing, sniveling weasel, one might feel bad for him.
He literally said nothing that Mitt Romney wouldn’t have said in a similar performance in 2012 or John McCain in 2008.
Here is what was apparently meant by Pence’s handlers to be the central thrust of the spectacle, the purported irreconcilable differences between populism and conservatism:
Should the new populism of the right seize and guide our party, the Republican Party we’ve long known will cease to exist and the fate of American freedom would be in doubt…
The future of this movement, of this great party, belongs to one or the other — not both. That is because the fundamental divide between these two factions is unbridgeable…
Today, another strain of this ideology challenges conservatism not from the Democratic Party, but from within, for control of the Republican Party. It takes the form of what’s known as “populism,” rather than “progressivism,” but make no mistake about it. Those ideologies are fellow travelers on the same road to ruin…
The Republican populists would abandon American leadership on the world stage, embracing a posture of appeasement in the face of rising threats to freedom. Republican populists would blatantly erode our constitutional norms. A leading candidate for the Republican nomination last year called for the “termination of all rules regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” His imitators in this primary have demonstrated a willingness to brandish government power to impose their will on opponents.
“Conservatism,” to Mike Pence — to the extent that there’s any substance to the term as he uses it rather than the vapid, tired platitude it has become to cynical politicians such as him — means the continuation of the Swamp oligarchy, endless neoliberalism via Cato Institute-style “free trade” agreements that only serve to gut what’s left of American industry, and endless foreign wars.
To Pence, “conservatism” means repeating whatever clichés his donors and the parasitic consultants who feed on donor money stuff into his empty head – ideally with some panache, which Pence seems pathologically incapable of. He’s a consummate performance artist without any of the charisma. He’s a used car salesman without the gladhanding.
What conservatism actually meant before it was bastardized for cheap political gain by GOP consultants is that its adherents conserve what is good and decent about society — like, perhaps, for instance, the middle class that Pence couldn’t care less about when they stand in the way of Nike or Ford exporting their factories to Indonesia to exploiting third-world slave labor for pennies on the dollar.
Here’s a thought for sad Michael: “populism” shares a root with the word “popular,” meaning that one appeals to a large swathe of people/voters. To win an election — at least until the Brandon vs. Trump debacle of 2020 — one must win support from a majority of said people/voters. Failing that, Pence will be forever relegated in the polls to under 5% — which, frankly, is much higher than he deserves.
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