They Can't Quit Him

Brilliant analysis of why "conservatives" will not quit Trump.  It starts from the position of "Why not Pence?" Many non-conservatives like myself wonder, "Why not just let Pence give you your reactionary judges and regressive taxes? What conservative policies has Trump advanced that Pence couldn't also? In fact, given the shitshow he's currently unleashing in Syria against the Kurds, wouldn't Pence be much more preferable?"

The problem of this line of reasoning is that, well, it's a line of reasoning.

Conservatives Reactionaries don't really care about policy.  Sure, they want to strip away abortion rights and LGBT rights and some other things.  Their view of policy is overwhelmingly negative. They want to strip away certain things that have changed their world in the past twenty to thirty years.  Again, on a fundamental level the "conservative" movement is really a reactionary movement.

Trump is a perfect avatar of this movement.  "Make America Great Again" is the perfect slogan for a reactionary movement that imagines some idyllic past where white men ruled the world with perfect benevolence.  What's more, Trump is a seething mass of resentments and grudges, which is perfect for them. To the Reactionaries, Trump is a "fighter."  They have deluded themselves in thinking that he's fighting for them, when really he's either fighting to enrich himself or simply lashing out in tantrum after tantrum.  But then again, the tantrums are the point.

"Donald Trump hates who I hate" is pretty much the current state of politics in the GOP - outside of those with some modicum of education and perspective. They think that Trump has unlocked some sort of political magic that will allow them to hold on to power.

The reality is much different.  Mitt Romney - who typifies the sort of callow, professional politician that Mike Pence also represents - won 47.2% of the popular vote in 2012.  Donald Trump won 46.1% four years later.  Both numbers represent a shocking reality for the Republican Party.  Outside of the sort of "drawing to an inside straight" that Trump pulled off in 2016, they simply will not be able to reach a majority of the electorate.  Trump, however, at least nurtures the flaming grievances that define so much of their lives.  The piece above references the Kavanaugh hearings, which Reactionaries see as a "win."  In fact, Kavanaugh crystalised the problems for many suburban college educated women who don't burn with the culture war resentments of the Republican base.

The WaPo came out with a poll today that shows that Americans support impeachment hearings by 58-38.  Slightly fewer think he should be impeached at this time (49%), but that 58% number should shock the hell out of Republicans, because all that's happened since the first whistleblower came forward has been additional damning information.  When the dam breaks - and we can feel the foundations shaking - the sheer totality of Trump's criminality will be overwhelming.

Mike Pence is not Donald Trump.  If you're a rational person, you would prefer Pence every day of the week and twice on Sunday.  Not because he's a "better person" but because he's a less-worse person.  He's a bland, theocratic dipshit, but he's unlikely to double down on disastrous policies like a trade war or abandoning the Kurds. He is not so actively friendly towards the world's worst dictators.

The fact that Mike Pence is not a pulsating orange blob of omni-directional rage-tweets actually works against him in the mind of the Reactionary movement.