One flighty and endearingly capricious, enthralling the masses as he flounces from stage to stage, flailing his arms like a windsock puppet and unspooling from wet lips his one slogan about making America great. The other a man of firm conviction, the steely glint in his eyes matched only by the steely grey of hair whose colour somehow seems to permeate the rest of his pallid body.
There can be little doubt that in Donald Trump and Michael ‘Mike’ Pence the Republican Party, in the Year of Our Lord 2016, has stumbled headlong upon its dream ticket. If Trump’s heady theatrics weren’t already enough, this modern-day Liberace has managed to find his perfect running mate. And if Trump sometimes seems like a lot of hot air, Pence can be the cauldron of ideas bubbling under. One quality both men certainly share is not caring a jot what other people think.
As Governor of Indiana Pence signed into law a Religious Freedom Restoration Act which was widely considered to discriminate against LGBT people. Condemned by a whole host of businesses and organisations, as thousands protested against the policy and the mayors of San Francisco and Seattle banned all official travel to Indiana, the Republican-dominated state legislature quickly issued an amendment to the act, leaving Pence perplexed but otherwise unmoved. Then this past March, Pence signed off on the anti-abortion bill HB 1337, so extreme that it caused even committed state anti-abortionists to baulk in disgust.
Isn’t this sheer bloody-mindedness precisely what the United States of America needs – especially in the current climate of global conflict? Do we expect Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad, or whatever bogeyman a Republican leadership would surely cook up in Iran to acquiesce in our best interests? As Pence memorably stated in a recent interview on 60 Minutes – at least when he managed to conjure sufficient words to form a meaningful sentence – when it comes to international relations the Trumpish course of action ‘begins with deciding to destroy the enemies of our freedom’. We can hardly destroy them today and invite them round for donuts tomorrow.
As he sits with Pence and sips on tea, surrounded by party members and fingering nimbly the dainty china, Trump might seem flamboyant but he has the connections to back up his boastful claims. He has spoken of waging war without American troops, and of coercing NATO by means of ridiculing NATO, but when push comes to shove Trump can rely on the wrestling and ultimate fighting goons provided by his good friends Vincent K. McMahon and Dane White the ‘Mother Goddess’.
Bold and bellicose whenever he is not bumbling, in addition Pence is also a healthy sceptic, inclined to dismiss the faddish scientific consensus on topics ranging from climate change and evolution to the benefits of contraception, the effects of smoking, and the concept of citizenship as it relates to place of birth. He and Trump might both be male and white, but they straddle the only demographic divide which really matters to most committed Republicans, that between advanced middle age and senior citizenry. Trump is 70, but Pence at just 57 is positively sprightly, the perfect candidate to chill out with the next – and perhaps last – generation.
