Democracy and Pence

[andrewducker]

The absolute biggest selling point of a democracy is the smooth, non-violent transfer of power. Instead of the ruling classes jostling violently for power they allow some subset of people to choose* who will be the next rulers of the country. You do not need to wait for things to get bad enough that the barons overthrow the king, possibly starting a civil war. You just wait a few years for the next election and you get another chance, without anyone having to get shot at.

If you take away people's vote to change things then what you are saying is "The only way you can change things is by protests or violence."

You can bend the rules, or plausibly misunderstand them, or put unfair ones in place (using other rules), but once you make it impossible for people to have a say at all, you are telling them that civil war and revolution is their only option.

I've seen quite a few posts saying that Pence finally stood up for democracy, and told Trump he wouldn't stop a fair election, and that there must be a flicker of morality in there somewhere.

And I strongly suspect that, rather than Pence suddenly developing a backbone, he looked at what would happen if he tried to tell more than half the country that having a majority wasn't enough, and that winning more than half of the electoral college wasn't enough, and decided that that was an abyss he did not want to fall in to.


*Sometimes, as in the UK, in a pretty rubbish way, but still.

Comments

[dewline]

I'll take Pence's unspoken reasoning, especially if it saves the USA and other countries as well indirectly.

[ninetydegrees]

Seems after years of following him blindly down the rabbit hole in exchange for what must be pretty darn good benefits, financial and/or political, some are now realizing how deep in shit they are. Hope they will all be prosecuted one day or another for obstructing justice, treason and god know what else happened during those 4 long years. One can dream.

[andrewducker]

I'd really like to hope so!

[darkoshi]

That's also why it's so bad with what's been going on with Trump and Fox News or whoever, claiming election fraud and that Trump really won, and convincing so many people on their side that that's true (although how many people that really is, I don't know. I'm hoping it's a very small minority. I wonder how many of them believe Biden won fairly, but have been willing to grab any chance to have their guy remain in power because they think the other side is so bad).

Because now *those* people think they won and the only way to get justice is by protests & violence. They think they're standing up for democracy when to us it looks like they're trying to destroy it.

Penny Black

[hairyears]

Pence was brought into the Trump Campaign in 2016 on the recommendation of Charles Manafort, for his connections to the Koch brothers.

Neither of these things are a flattering character reference.

So lets ascribe Pence's actions to base motives: a clue had reached him, perhaps, that Trump might be doing something dangerous, with a real risk of getting Pence sent to jail.

As it turned out, Pence faced a risk to his life.