Vice President Pence:
We disagree on just about every political, social, and cultural issue, but still, I applaud you. As the January 6 Committee evidence has made abundantly clear, after four years of apparently total devotion to Trump, when it really counted you stood up to intense pressure from him and refused to manipulate the January 6 electoral count process. I don’t believe it is an overstatement that, at least for the moment, you saved American democracy, and prevented widespread bloodshed in the streets. Given the fanatical devotion of Trump’s (and up to then, your) base, this took both political and physical courage, and I, for one, am sincerely grateful to you.
But now, you refuse to cooperate with the January 6 Committee, or to speak out about the “clear and present danger” (Judge Luttig’s words, not mine) Trump presents to the very survival of our experiment in self-government. Your prior heroic act will be rendered meaningless if there is not full accountability for Trump and the wrongdoers in his administration, so they cannot conduct “Coup 2.0” in 2024. In addition, by your silence, you have aided and abetted Trump (and sadly, the majority of your party) in undermining Americans’ faith in our elections. The underpinning of the coup was Trump’s ability to convince a broad swath of the Republican base that elections are rigged and that Biden stole the election — propositions that you know are “nonsense,” to use one of AG Barr’s less colorful descriptions.
Once again, you have the opportunity to be a real hero, to push back against Trump and the election deniers, to help expose his crimes and prevent a 2024 coup attempt. All you need to do is testify and tell the American people the truth: Trump lost, there was no meaningful electoral fraud, and Trump’s attempt to retain power was illegal and antithetical to the fundamental American principles of representative democracy and rule of law.
By contrast, you render your courageous actions during January 2020 futile and meaningless if you continue your uncooperative silence. It seems like a no-brainer: you should not only cooperate and testify, you should publicly push back against the party line that the 2020 election was stolen and that Americans cannot be confident that their votes will be freely and fairly counted in the future.
Since this so obviously seems to be the right thing to do, why have you resisted? I can see only one reason: you are desperate not to alienate the Trump base so you can retain your political viability and become President in the future. This is wrong for two reasons: First, it completely contravenes your prior good acts in January of 2020. By failing to speak the truth to the American people, you enhance the threat to the American system, the same threat that you so heroically opposed in 2020. Second, and perhaps from you personal perspective even worse, it won’t work. You’ll never be President. Trump’s base hates you more than they hate Biden, or Hillary Clinton, or AOC. As far as they are concerned, you are public enemy number one. (Just read the commentary about you on “patriots.win.”) They blame YOU for the fact that Trump is not the President. They’ve swallowed Trump’s lies hook, line, and sinker. They believe the election was stolen and that it’s your fault that Trump’s struggle to overturn this supposedly phony election failed. No amount of kowtowing to Trump now will change their views.
So this is the irony: In a craven attempt to preserve your political future, you not only soil and discredit the outstanding brave act of your public life; you also make it LESS, not more, likely that you’ll ever be a credible Republican candidate again. Only if you (along with the many other Republican officials who privately know that Trump is full of crap but are too cowardly to admit it publicly) were to stand up to Trump would you have even a chance. If enough Republican office-holders and candidates would speak truth to America, they just might succeed in getting the Republican base to realize that Trump sold them a bill of goods — not all of them, of course, because many are die-hard MAGA who are beyond the reach of facts or reason. But enough that, perhaps, a sufficient number of the Republican base might return to reality. In saying this, I merely echo what many others have observed: that one of the main factors in Trump’s power and influence is the cowardice of other influential Republicans.
Mr. Pence, you have it in your power once again to show courage, burnish your place in history, and help protect American democracy. For the sake of America, please don’t blow it!
Sincerely, RenMin