Ever since Mike Pence became Vice President on January 20, 2017, the possibility of his accession to the Presidency remained a looming possibility.
The unstable and negative behavior of Donald Trump made this blogger and author think Pence might succeed to the Presidency rapidly in the early months of the term.
The constant crises and two Trump impeachments also put Pence in line for the Presidency, under the 25th Amendment, or the forced removal or resignation of Donald Trump.
Mike Pence stood for the rule of law in his refusal to help Trump steal the Presidential Election of 2020 on January 6, 2021, and could have lost his life that day if the circumstances and threats of that dark day had turned out differently.
Pence stood for the Constitution, and that will be his historic significance.
But he also was too much willing to bend to Donald Trump otherwise, even though Trump was as different in a moral and ethical sense as anyone could be from the highly religious Mike Pence.
Pence had no chance to become President for the next election, and has decided to leave the race, and he will have little impact on the future of a party which has, in so many ways, abandoned its principles. The Republicans have gravitated toward a total political disaster by following in the lead of the disgraced, twice impeached, four times indicted, and totally immoral and unethical former President Donald Trump.
So Pence will be seen as part of a Republican Party that is now in the distant past, as the so called Reagan wing of the party’s history goes into the distance as a lost memory!
Trump now faces two gag orders barring him from talking about the cases in public. One is from the judge overseeing his civil fraud case in NYC. The newest is from Judge Chutkan, who is overseeing the January 6 case in DC.