You don’t really know what someone is like unless you spend time with them, work with them maybe. If you can’t spend time with someone then the only way you can know them is by listening to other people who DID spend time with them.
If we really want to know Trump, for example, we could listen to his 2016 running mate who then served as his Vice President for four years, Mike Pence. There can’t be many people who know Trump better than Mike Pence does.
So, what does Mike Pence think about Trump?
In September 2023 Pence gave a speech where he discussed the political philosophy of Trump and his imitators in the Republican party. He said, “The growing faction would substitute our faith in limited government and traditional values with an agenda stitched together by little else than personal grievances and performative outrage.”
Pence knows that Trump and his followers are not true conservatives who believe in “limited government” and “traditional values.” Instead of campaigning on these principles, Pence reminds us, Trump and his cronies whip up their crowds with “personal grievances” and “performative outrage.”
We know that Pence is right about Trump not believing in limited government. Trump has claimed that a president should have breathtaking powers, extending all the way to assassinating political rivals with impunity. There is nothing limited about the powers Trump wants for himself and his government. He wants the power of life and death over American citizens just like any ancient despot or any medieval king claiming divine right demanded for himself.
Remember what Trump said in a speech to conservative students in July 2019? "Then I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president, but I don't even talk about that." It would be good if Trump did NOT talk about Article II of the Constitution because that does NOT say the president can do whatever he wants. But that is what Trump WISHES that it said, because Trump does not believe in limited government as long as HE is the one in power.
Just as Mike Pence has warned us.
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Pence is also correct when he warns us that Trump does not believe in traditional values. Any one who has been found liable in courts of law for sexual abuse, repeated defamation of his sexual abuse victim, and years of business fraud, certainly does not believe in traditional values.
And anyone who doesn’t believe Mike Pence when he says Trump’s campaign is driven by personal grievances only has to listen to the ex-president for five minutes. There is currently no one in America - over three years of age - who whines and complains more about how unfair everyone is to him than Trump does. He is a billionaire and a former president who loves insulting people and calling them names, but isn’t it so terrible how people can be so mean to HIM?
Mike Pence knows Trump very well. He knows Trump is NOT a conservative, does NOT believe in traditional values, and seems to be able to whine just about non-stop for 20 hours per day.
This link here will take you to these observations of Mike Pence about his former boss.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/mike-pence-goes-trump-imitators-shift-gops-roots-rcna103743
But there are far worse things about Trump than his lack of conservatism, his lack of respect for traditional values, and his unbearable, endless, infantile whininess….
At a Gridiron Dinner Mike Pence said: “President Trump was wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”
There are a couple of really shocking points made in this quote.
First of all, Mike Pence is telling us straight out that Trump wanted to overturn the 2020 election. There may be Trump supporters who refuse to believe that Trump wanted to overturn an American election, there may even be Trump supporters who are so far lost to what America stands for that they don’t even care about elections anymore, but Mike Pence KNOWS Trump tried to overturn that election, and Mike Pence is still American enough to know that was WRONG.
Secondly, Mike Pence is telling us here that it was Trump who was responsible for the violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Mike Pence knows it was Trump’s “reckless” words that inflamed a mob to attack the Capitol of the United States of America. Trump supporters can pretend that Trump did not whip that angry crowd into a fighting frenzy, or maybe some Trump supporters are so lost to what America stands for that they no longer even care if their political leader inspires violence, but Mike Pence knows it was Trump who put his own Vice President and his Vice President’s family in danger on that shameful day.
Here is a link to Mike Pence telling America that Trump wanted an American election overturned and then inspired an attack on the American Capitol.
https://apnews.com/article/pence-trump-january-6-capitol-riot-carlson-1e38cb44d55737031ca528b4f33aa1fb
And for people who think that maybe, in spite of all his despicable flaws, somehow, deep down inside, Trump really does respect our American Constitution, here Mike Pence drives the nail into that coffin by telling us what Trump really wanted on January 6, 2021.
According to Mike Pence, “The American people deserve to know that President Trump and his advisers didn't just ask me to pause. They asked me to reject votes, return votes, essentially to overturn the election," and "On that day, President Trump asked me to put him over the Constitution. But I chose the Constitution and I always will.”
That lays it out as clear as day, doesn’t it? Trump wanted the 2020 election overturned and he wanted the Vice President to put Trump’s desires above the Constitution. On January 6, 2021 Trump tried to carry out a coup d’etat and seize illegitimate power in the United States of America. It is probably ONLY because of Vice President Mike Pence that Trump’s evil schemes failed.
Here is the link where Mike Pence tells us that, if Trump cares about the Constitution at all, he certainly doesn’t care about it as much as he cares for himself.
https://www.axios.com/2023/08/02/pence-trump-jan-6-indictment-lawyers
Mike Pence has known and worked with Trump for years. He certainly knows Trump better than any of us who only see him on TV. He has warned us over and over again that Trump is a bad and dangerous man who should never be president again.
I hope enough Americans will heed the warning!
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https://amzn.to/3uyy52D}
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