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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGod's Plan for Mike Pence
Will the vice presidentand the religious rightbe rewarded for their embrace of Donald Trump?
MCKAY COPPINS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 ISSUE
No man can serve two masters, the Bible teaches, but Mike Pence is giving it his all. Its a sweltering September afternoon in Anderson, Indiana, and the vice president has returned to his home state to deliver the Good News of the Republicans recently unveiled tax plan. The visit is a big deal for Anderson, a fading manufacturing hub about 20 miles outside Muncie that hasnt hosted a sitting president or vice president in 65 yearsa fact noted by several warm-up speakers. To mark this historic civic occasion, the cavernous factory where the event is being held has been transformed. Idle machinery has been shoved to the perimeter to make room for risers and cameras and a gargantuan American flag, whichalong with bleachers full of constituents carefully selected for their ethnic diversity and ability to stay awake during speeches about tax policywill serve as the TV-ready backdrop for Pences remarks.
When the time comes, Pence takes the stage and greets the crowd with a booming Hellooooo, Indiana! He says he has just hung up the phone with Donald Trump and that the president asked him to say hello. He delivers this message with a slight chuckle that has a certain, almost subversive quality to it. Watch Pence give enough speeches, and youll notice that this often happens when hes in front of a friendly crowd. Hell be witnessing to evangelicals at a mega-church, or addressing conservative supporters at a rally, and when the moment comes for him to pass along the presidents well-wishes, the words are invariably accompanied by an amused little chuckle that prompts knowing laughter from the attendees. Its almost as if, in that brief, barely perceptible moment, Pence is sending a message to those with ears to hearthat he recognizes the absurdity of his situation; that he knows just what sort of man hes working for; that while things may look bad now, there is a grand purpose at work here, a plan that will manifest itself in due time. Let not your hearts be troubled, he seems to be saying. Ive got this. And then, all at once, Pence is back on message. In his folksy Midwestern drawl, he recites Republican aphorisms about job creators and regulatory red tape, and heralds the many supposed triumphs of Trumps young presidency. As he nears the end of his remarks, his happy-warrior buoyancy gives way to a more sober cadence. Weve come to a pivotal moment in the life of this country, Pence soulfully intones. Its a good time to pray for America. His voice rising in righteous fervor, the vice president promises an opening of the heavens. If His people who are called by His name will humble themselves and pray, he proclaims, Hell hear from heaven, and Hell heal this land!
Its easy to see how Pence could put so much faith in the possibilities of divine intervention. The very fact that he is standing behind a lectern bearing the vice-presidential seal is, one could argue, a loaves-and-fishes-level miracle. Just a year earlier, he was an embattled small-state governor with underwater approval ratings, dismal reelection prospects, and a national reputation in tatters. In many ways, Pence was on the same doomed trajectory as the conservative-Christian movement hed long championedonce a political force to be reckoned with, now a battered relic of the culture wars.
Because God works in mysterious ways (or, at the very least, has a postmodern sense of humor), it was Donald J. Trumpgracer of Playboy covers, delighter of shock jocks, collector of mistresseswho descended from the mountaintop in the summer of 2016, GOP presidential nomination in hand, offering salvation to both Pence and the religious right. The question of whether they should wed themselves to such a man was not without its theological considerations. But after eight years of Barack Obama and a string of disorienting political defeats, conservative Christians were in retreat and out of options. So they placed their faith in Trumpand then, incredibly, he won.
In Pence, Trump has found an obedient deputy whose willingness to suffer indignity and humiliation at the pleasure of the president appears boundless. When Trump comes under fire for describing white nationalists as very fine people, Pence is there to assure the world that he is actually a man of great decency. When Trump needs someone to fly across the country to an NFL game so he can walk out in protest of national-anthem kneelers, Pence heads for Air Force Two.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/gods-plan-for-mike-pence/546569/