Listening to former Vice President Mike Pence announce his presidential candidacy, I was struck by the nation he was describing to a roomful of supporters in Iowa.
The United States of America that the former VP was laying out there for us is a nation in decline, that we are angry and afraid of our future, that we’re heading straight to hell.
I was left to wonder: What in the name of truth-telling is Mike Pence talking about?
President Joe Biden inherited an office at a time the nation was suffering from a pandemic that would kill more than a million Americans. We had lost millions of jobs because employers couldn’t do business while fighting the COVID-19 virus. Our allies had lost confidence in our ability to defend them — and ourselves.
As for the pandemic, it’s now essentially whipped. The jobs are coming back by the hundreds of thousands each month. Unemployment remains at historic lows.
Mike Pence talked about how he would defend Ukraine against a war of aggression from the Russians. Did he offer anything different from what Joe Biden has done already? No. He didn’t!
I am not at all clear as to what the former VP would do to restore the nation. Or what he could do.
From my perch here in Collin County, Texas, the nation is functioning well. This is occurring despite the right wing’s best efforts to demonize the left, to attack that thing called “woke,”
I listened to much of Pence’s announcement today, powered through the platitudes and promises to “make America great again.”
However, I will suggest to the Pencekins out there who have swallowed that MAGA swill that America today is greater than it ever has been and that, yep … the best is yet to come.