On Mike Pence

So it's official, Mike Pence is Trump's running mate. Looking up the guy, he's a former congressman who became governor of Indiana. Policy wise, he's your standard rank and file establishment republican. He's known for pushing for tax cuts, balanced budget amendments, the war in Iraq (ironic after Trump lambasted Bush for that), anti abortion laws, anti immigration laws, anti gay marriage laws, and "religious liberty." So he's an all around republican standard bearer. Fiscally conservative, aggressive foreign policy position, religious social conservative.

In some ways, this makes Trump scarier. Believe it or not, I actually found Trump's sheer ignorance and naivete on policy as a positive given he's running as a republican. He didn't have a lot of the crazy religious opinions, wasn't quite rank and file on economics, and some argued he was one of the most anti war conservatives out there. Of course, Trump doesn't seem to have any convictions, he just says what people want to hear, and will say just about anything even if he contradicts it and walks it back literally the next day, so who knows what he believes. In 2008 he even endorsed Hillary.

In some ways, Pence adds credibility to the Trump ticket and offsets his inherent inexperience and stupidity. However, he also brings establishment republican politics to a so called anti establishment ticket. But in some ways, this makes the ticket crazier and more of a threat. In other ways it makes it seem less crazy and unpredictable though. The thing is, Trump's crazy isn't your typical republican crazy. It is based on sheer ignorance and unpredictability. Some of it might even be a bit of an act to win over stupid voters. On the other hand, republican crazy is a more serious and predictable kind of crazy. Republicans actually believe the bullcrap they're selling. They believe in small government with almost religious devotion. They introduce religion to their policies. They believe an aggressive foreign policy is a good foreign policy. In some ways, I find this to be more dangerous than Trump himself, because while Trump may say a lot of crazy things, he doesn't have a crazy right wing conservative philosophy guiding his life. The only thing Trump is really interested in is Trump. Trump could pivot and change his views based on what the audience wants to hear. On the other hand, standard republican crazy never changes.

As for how voters will react, who knows. This might put more establishment republican voters at ease since Pence is basically as vanilla as you can get in my opinion with republican dogma. He's the full package without coming on too strong. On the other hand, it might alienate his anti establishment base. It's hard to say, I get the impression most will support him no matter what he says. They just eat up whatever he serves them no questions asked.

All things considered, I'm neutral on Pence joining the ticket. He both adds to and subtracts from the craziness at the same time. I also didn't see a pick like this as totally out of the realm of possibility. He's going to need establishment republicans around him if he's going to lead effectively, the guy has no idea what he's doing on his own. I kind of expected Christie to be the nominee, but this guy is neither a better or worse choice if you ask me. He's not overly crazy, but he's still a standard republican, which is bad enough for me.  Honestly I wouldn't like Trump's nominee no matter who it was. Unless it was somehow Bernie, and even then, Bernie joining a Trump ticket would make me cringe more than his recent endorsement of Clinton.

On a side note can we talk for a minute about how cringey Trump's new logo is? Just look at it, it has a lot of innuendo in it. This is almost as blatant as Gery Johnson's "feel the Johnson" slogan. Sorry, I just had to bring that up.