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U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, a longtime friend of Vice President Mike Pence, had a long conversation with his friend on Jan. 6. He described it in an interview with Randy Krehbiel of Tulsa World that day, saying he had never seen Pence that angry.
Pence was in the midst of enduring several days of pressure from President Donald Trump and his delusional supporters. They wanted him to attempt to overturn the Electoral College results of the November election during the certification process last week. In his anger, Pence told Inhofe, “After all the things I did for” Trump.
Really? Did Pence really do anything at all for Trump? Simply answered: No.
The charade perpetuated on the country since the presidential election was decided more than two months ago has been disgusting. Allegations of election “irregularities” are merely conspiratorial excuses for an outcome that our president and his cult cannot bring themselves to accept. But don’t confuse that refusal to accept the truth with loyalty to Trump. More important, don’t confuse that refusal with loyalty to America.
Too many of those in public office today have lost track of the fundamental reason for the offices they temporarily occupy. The American government—and every state and local unit within it—exists to serve the public. None of them exist to serve any executive, any caucus or any sect. Most of all, none of these offices exist for the benefit of those who occupy them.
That disconnection leads to the inability of those “serving” to accept uncomfortable, inconvenient or embarrassing electoral results. That disconnection allows for things like the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 that was instigated by Trump. It also allows for the un-American movement to “object” to the congressional certification of election results, an effort led by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, and supported by several members of the Indiana delegation.
None of that had anything to do with serving the governed. All of it was designed to serve the governors.
Hawley, like Pence, is clearly jockeying for position to run for higher office in 2024. All those who joined him in the fool’s errand last week were seeking some benefit for themselves. At no point in that congressional charade could a rational argument be made that it was done in service to the nation. And the brightness of the shame attached to the endeavor should never fade for Hawley, or for anyone who followed his seditious lead.
It is enraging to read that Pence describes the things he has done since July 2016 as being done “for Trump.” No. All the things Pence has done since he attached himself to the worst president ever were obviously done for Pence himself. And he almost made it to the end of this dark episode in our nation’s history politically unscathed. Almost.
I have written numerous times over the last five years that the absence of any governing ideology is the most dangerous attribute of the outgoing president. It creates the environment that the person in the office is more important than the service he or she plans to provide. All “loyalty” must therefore be pledged to the person, not the mission.
The objections to the Electoral College were an assault on our democracy. The riots that interrupted that assault were merely a different form of the same assault. The conditions that allowed each to occur grow from the same disease: the thinking error that democratic government exists to serve only the victors.
I hope the next chapter in our nation’s lives will start by healing that specific wound.•
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Leppert is an author and governmental affairs consultant in Indianapolis. He writes at MichaelLeppert.com.
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Interesting comments and opinion. What is not addressed is how these manifestations are evidenced “across the aisle by Democrats” as well. Many believe the multi-million dollar Mueller investigation that failed to indict President Trump, to be evidence of the Democratic Party exercising exactly what Michael Leppert describes as “That disconnection leads to the inability of those “serving” to accept uncomfortable, inconvenient or embarrassing electoral results.” The Mueller investigation was the first sanctioned “objections to the Electoral College” …, that … “were an assault on our democracy” in modern times. In order for healing to take place, the wound’s of all factions must be salved.