I don’t read too much into the WP’s statement about the potential of job loss. In theory, Pence could be fired over this…if by fire we mean impeached by Congress. But the fact that he can’t be fired easily makes him less vulnerable than others.
As for someone else using Pence’s rather unusual idiom, yes, I’ve already acknowledged this possibility. But what’s telling is that I haven’t seen any other official’s pet words identified in that letter. Has anyone else? There’s a difference between throwing one off their scent and going out of one’s way to put the scent on a specific person. If Pence isn’t behind the letter, then he’s being set up to look like he is. Which just adds shit on top of this shit sundae.
But the Times didn’t say Lodestar could or could not be fired, only that said official could lose their job. If the editorial were definitively linked to Pence, he could very well be impeached and lose his job. It’s a thin layer of plausibility, but just enough to make the statement true, if a bit misleading (a feature, not a bug, in this case).
Write to McConnell? No offense, kiddo, but you may as well write to the Great Pumpkin than to expect Turtleman to do his constitutional duty to the republic. Now, throw in Santa Claus, Bigfoot and the ghost of Elvis, and you’ve got yourself a dream team.
I think I’m willing to give the anonymous op-ed writer a bit more slack than most here. Consider the following analogous thought-experiment – not a perfect analogy, but bear with me:
You’re the mayor of a small town in Nazi-occupied France, 1941.
Do you:
(a) Stay in your job. Keep the garbage picked up. But work with the Resistance (the OG Resistance) in getting Jews out of town.
(b) Escape to England and join the British Army.
And consider that your replacement would be guaranteed to be a Nazi collaborator.
As others have pointed out, banana slugs are cute and cheerful. Pence is more like slime mold.
I have 2 theories. One is that someone wanted to drive the president into even more erratic displays before the midterms, and the other is that someone is laying the groundwork for a 25th amendment removal.
I wonder if any of this will impact fears of the so-called Deep State?
But what sense does it make to announce you’re doing (a)? Now, you’ve alerted Hitler to the subterfuge and have given his supporters extra reason to believe that a disloyal Deep State is the only enemy worth worrying about.
The intended audience? Democrats. Frankly, this editorial reads to me like a calculated response from Republicans to reassure Democrats that, hey, there really are grown-ups running things! Don’t worry, we’re keeping his ugliest impulses in check! It’ll all be fine! No reason to vote us all out in November, we’re on your side! Secretly, so you can’t see it, but trust us, it’s true!
I think it’s a move to sandbag against the blue wave coming on Election Day, to keep it from being as ugly as they fear it’ll be, by reassuring Democrats that there’s already a check against Trump in place. I’m not buying it.
I kind of agree with this? If we make “don’t be part of the Trump administration” a condition of being a good person, then we won’t even get the “maybe not quite as awful” people in the administration, we’ll just get the worst of the worst because everyone else wouldn’t bother. Imagine Bolton in Mattis’s position and you may see the logic there.
That said, when you’re in that position, an anonymous op-ed like this is fucking stupid. You don’t pen an anonymous op-ed. You either shut up and keep doing what you can to wait it out without a major catastrophe, or you aim for a 25th amendment solution (or 2nd amendment, if things get really bad; this would be the “Stauffenberg” approach). Going to the press doesn’t further the latter goal, and it actively undermines the former. At that point, you actually are considerably better off speaking up, stepping out, and naming yourself - at least then, nobody’s going to argue about a “deep state”.
ETA: @Typo Negative: the analogy still works just fine in that case. Sure, the person is a nazi, and this is partially their fault, but better them than fucking Mengele, right?
I think the intended audience is old school, non-Trumpist Republicans who are having a crisis of faith as they watch the party devolve before their eyes. The author believes if he can convince these people there are “adults in the room”, then they will see all is not lost and that they shouldn’t yet abandon the GOP.
The author has misjudged this audience, I suspect. Old school conservatives aren’t rebels or conscientious objectors; if they didn’t put a premium on duty and loyalty, then they probably would’ve jumped ship a long time ago. I mean, as liberal as my ass is, I too am bothered that the author flaunts their insubordination; those who much more classically authoritarian than me will really be bothered.
That’s my thinking: They’re essentially poking the insane rabid monkey with a sharp stick, with the hope he’ll lash out and need to be put down. But they can’t put him down until he does something so heinous and insane (or at least threatens to) that the fools still wearing their “We the Insane Rabid Money” t-shirts will be largely neutralized.
If they can make him feel weak, he’ll do something to make himself feel strong again, and it’ll likely be something insane, and it’ll likely be announced on Twitter where no one can steal his hopes and dreams.
Right, especially since they still protect and enable him, and use the positions to do their own dirty shit.
This isn’t “the adults handling things” the way they are trying to sell it, at all. It’s the snakes trying to not be eaten by a bigger snake. While they eat everyone else.
the Insane Rabid Money” t-shirts will be largely neutralized.