“Th’ abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.”
Brutus in Julius Caesar (2.1.19-20)
William Shakespeare

In these waning days of the campaign, team Trump has stepped up their efforts to win by focusing on linking Vice President Kamala Harris to President Biden’s policies. Everything they believe to be wrong about Biden’s administration they shackle to Harris.

Perhaps they need to familiarize themselves with the word vice used in conjunction with President. It is not the same one in which the former President liberally indulges.

The term ‘vice’ derives from the Latin word ‘vicis’, meaning “change, alternation, stead”.

In the context of Ms. Harris’s current position, this, of course, means deputy or standing by in case the President is unable to fulfill his duties.

Yet the Trump campaign insists that Harris bears the ultimate responsibility.

This made me wonder what policies, successes, and failures of the Trump Administration were Mike Pence’s sole responsibility.

Let’s pick one example: replacing the Affordable Care Act.

In the four years of the Trump presidency, he couldn’t pass any legislative changes to the ACA. He couldn’t even get John McCain, a fiery conservative who despised big government, to vote with him. Why? Because his proposals only sought to repeal ACA with nothing to replace it, as he promised.

Was that Trump’s fault or Mike Pence’s?

Let’s give Trump the benefit of the doubt and say he had other responsibilities to focus on. 

Here we are four years later, and he has managed to conceive a concept of a plan. Eight years to craft something bigger and better, four years of which he had no responsibility in government, and all we have is a vague concept.

Was that Mike Pence’s fault?

The same applies to all the significant issues, COVID-19, immigration, ensuring election integrity, releasing thousands of Taliban fighters unilaterally. All failures under his watch.

The election integrity was a phony claim anyway, so he could not fix what was never broken.

How about this unilateral negotiation with the Taliban and release of thousands of former fighters? Was that Mike Pence’s secret mission?

What does Mike Pence get credit for or blame for in the Trump Administration since the Trump campaign is certain the Vice President is a vital member of the organization?

The main issue Trump et al. try to pin Biden’s policies on Harris is with immigration, or more correctly, unlawful immigration. They are correct about this, to a point. Biden’s policies have failed to address the issue, as did Trump’s past policies with limited restrictions that did not have the force or necessary Congressional approval.

Just in case you don’t know, they never finished the wall and not one peso made it across the border from Mexico into the treasury.

Biden, Harris, and a bi-partisan group of Senators crafted a comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill, Senate Bill S-4361 Border Act of 2024. (https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/4361)

But Trump and his surrogates in Congress saw this as a political windfall for Biden and wouldn’t let that happen. In other words, Trump points out that Biden did nothing to deal with the border crisis. Then, when Biden did something about the border crisis, something that no prior administration had managed to do in such a comprehensive and bipartisan way, Trump killed the bill for purely political reasons.

At least Mike Pence is free and clear of this one. He may have been a Trump lapdog at some point but he is no hypocrite.

Vice Presidents can influence and implement policies, champion policies, and often be the last voice presidents listen to before deciding on them. However, Vice Presidents do not set policies; that decision lies solely with the sitting President.

So, over the next two weeks, when every manner and form of communication will be dominated by the runup to the election and Trump et al. continues to wax poetic about the joys of his administration and put the evils of the Biden administration solely on the shoulders of Vice President Harris, think about this. If you asked Donald Trump what part Mike Pence played in his administration, what policies he crafted, and what programs he created, imagine what that answer would be.

You know in your heart that Mike Pence would get no credit for anything and perhaps just the blame if Trump could ever admit to failures, which every administration suffers.

Vice President Kamal Harris is not Joe Biden. She complemented Biden, had an impact on the administration, and partially shares the blame and credit for anything that arose during those four years. But she was not the final arbiter of those policies. Her perspective is different and more vibrant, more attuned to the potential of the future, not a return to the past.

It is time for this country to move on. We are not a country of old men wallowing in fading and often exaggerated memories. We are a country with a potentially bright future, but at a critical juncture. At this moment, we need to embrace a new generation, and now is certainly an opportunity for a long-denied yet equally competent gender to take a leadership position.

If you don’t like her policies, then vote against her. Vote for a return to the dark moments of our past replete with racism, anti-immigrant, anti-progress policies. But don’t try to offer just criticism with no alternate solutions as your rationale.

Joe Biden isn’t running, Kamal Harris is. There is a distinctive difference, philosophical, political, and generational.

The term Trump Derangement Syndrome is misapplied. One of it’s characteristics bears a striking resemblance to Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy where, to justify their own position, they claim all manner of ills of those who challenge them. TDS is endemic among those who forgot the turmoil and deaths of the pandemic years, the overt and covert encouragement of nationalism, isolationism, and aversion to heterogeneity, and the insurrectionists acts of January 6^th encouraged by a sitting president.

In other words, they have forgotten 2016-2020.

Despite all claims to the contrary, presidents have minimal impact on short-term economic issues and their effect on long-term issues is complex. Yet the Trump campaign keeps touting his stock market performance and the effect on the average person’s 401K. Let us look at this decidedly deceptive indicator of the success of presidential policy, since they see it differently.

They prefer simple and sophomoric to deep intellectual discussion.

Under Trump, the Dow Jones Stock market went from 16,167 when he assumed office to a high of 29,388. A gain of 13000 points. Under Biden, it went from a low of 19,173 during the worldwide pandemic, collapsing just a few short weeks after Trump left office, to 42,863 this week. A gain of 23,000 points. Even if you eliminate the financial collapse of the pandemic, the market rose 13000 points over the high of the Trump years. Sounds like a tie at worst to me.

But, of course, you can’t ignore the economic conditions Biden faced. So if that is your benchmark, Biden’s economy performed better. And if Harris is fully responsible for these policies, her economy performed better.

Trump often argues he left a rising economy that Joe Biden derailed. One can make the same argument that Trump’s success was built on the Obama years.  It is a reality that presidential policies often have their greatest effect on subsequent administrations.  Some choose to ignore this reality.

What Trump did leave President Biden was a mismanaged and rising health crisis with worldwide implications and a haphazard response. Although, in the interest of fairness, their Warp Speed program was a success in developing vaccines (which, of course, the conspiracy nuts in the world turned into a vast government control program.) Perhaps Mike Pence had a hand in that success?

You can’t have it both ways. If you think a failed businessperson with a history of bankruptcies and defaults who, amid a campaign for the most significant office in the world, hawks $60 Chinese printed Bibles, $400 gold sneakers, and $500 watches, is the better candidate based on this measure of Presidential effectiveness, you are clearly suffering from delusions.

There is one thing we all should thank Mike Pence for, having the courage to abide by his oath to the Constitution and standing firm against those who would violate the same oath in pursuit of power.

Sometimes Vice-Presidents are critically necessary to the survival of the nation. We are on the cusp of another one rising to the occasion.

Here’s to celebrating a bright future, not a return to the darkness of the past.

(Can’t wait to hear how I got this all wrong, again! And save your money on buying the Trump watch. You don’t need it to know it is time for him to become a footnote in history.)

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