Former Vice President Mike Pence (R-Ind.) announced at the Republican Jewish Coalition that he is dropping out of the 2024 Republican presidential primary, citing, “This is not my time.”
No, Mr. Vice President – it’s not. Your time was on January 6th, when you should have supported your President, Donald J. Trump – and more importantly, the American people and many elected representatives in Congress who at that time were certainly not convinced of that election’s integrity – to have walked away from certifying the electoral college ballots.
As we hear elites and RINOs go into hysteria about democracy regarding that previous sentence: Pence did not have the “power” – it was ceremonial; it would have created a “constitutional crisis;” Trump was going to stage a coup….all nonsense. Hysterical, woke nonsense, intellectually bereft of a common sense approach: What if?
What if Mike Pence had done the right thing, stood up for the American people, condemned the left for pushing questionable election results (arguably beyond argument to question at this time in 2021) without investigation, supported his president and refused to certify?
As we have seen with the freshly concluded legacy media elitist “constitutional crisis” of the hour, the much ado about the speaker’s race – the impact on “governance” and doing the people’s work would have been minimal.
Indeed, in the case of the election of 2020 Pence correctly choosing not to certify or refusing to participate in the process would have helped half – half! Think on that! – of America’s voting public probably has regained some faith in casting their vote. That their vote mattered. That the vote they cast, if in doubt, would be supported by their elected officials or third parties to ensure election integrity and lack of outside interference on the process – whether it be outright ballot tampering or failure to follow the rules with absentee ballots – and the vote would count.
The voter’s voice would be heard.
Instead, Pence spurned the common man he so many times espoused to support; rejected his president; rejected his party and ultimately rejected his duty to God and country to follow good conscience to delay the process temporarily. This delay would have allowed for debate and thought; ultimately leading to legal wrangling, investigations, recounts with careful examination of ballots cast — but, to the dissatisfaction of many conservatives who supported the 45th president, still would have led to the certification of the election of the 46th president, Joseph Biden.
Pence’s failure to decisively act with clarity and purpose, rejecting the certification of those votes, or just walking away from the process citing his concerns, is certainly one of the key factors leading to the events in Washington D.C. on January 6th, 2021. By not questioning the integrity of the election himself, but instead standing up for it at that moment in time when so many unanswered questions remained, was a direct slap in the face of all who attended President Trump’s rally that fateful day.
Now, while many in the progressive Democrat party cast about scenarios where lengthy court battles; coup posturing and somehow Biden would be kept from being sworn in by “Trump supporters” – it was all a smokescreen to scare the left into hysteria and threaten those who felt disenfranchised on the right with a “coup” – or worse – label.
And yes, a whole variety and litany of possibilities may have occurred if Pence had stood there on the dais in the well and said “no” – so many have speculated on this so many ways. Not here. But it’s really simple after the fear tactics and intellectual “what if” bullying is sidestepped.
Truth is, then Vice President Mike Pence could have opted out, and, “not being able to perform his duties” – would have been replaced with Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), then president pro tempore, the most senior Member of the majority party in the Senate, who serves in this capacity. By all accounts, Grassley was ready to go forward with certification of the Electoral College votes for 2020.
Mike Pence had his time – and blew it. He could’ve made his mark by taking a stand for half of the voting public by letting them know their vote mattered and was counted by a simple refusal to participate. But by his participation, he instantly failed to acknowledge the utter lack of faith so many have in a process that he so badly further weakened in his misguided action by certifying tainted electoral college votes to bolster our Constitutional values. And now Mike Pence’s time has passed on to the dustbin of what if.