Former President Donald Trump has further undistinguished himself by again attacking his vice president, Mike Pence. In another of his email messages to supporters, Trump says he wanted Pence to overturn the results of the last election. He referenced a bipartisan effort to strengthen the Electoral College Act of 1887, ensuring that no vice president can be allowed to overturn presidential election results, assuming that vote counts in the individual states are accurate and governors have properly submitted them to Congress for ratification.
While the wisdom of updating that law is debated, there is another issue that is long overdue for consideration. And that is Trump’s condemnation – not criticism, but condemnation – of anyone who disagrees with his claim to have had the election “stolen” from him. This is not about that claim. It is about Trump’s language and personality, his demeaning of Democrats, the media and even some fellow Republicans who don’t subscribe to his line.
Trump effectively lumped his most loyal vice president into the tub of “RINOs” and others he regards as enemies. During their four years in office, Pence never spoke ill of his boss. When I once asked him about Trump’s personality, he responded, “look at the results.”
In some ways, this has been a bargain with the devil. Republicans and especially evangelical Christians who once honored character and the practice of personal morality as at least equal to a president’s stand on political issues refuse to hold Trump to that standard.
What does it mean to make a deal with the devil? Anne W. Zahra is a language teacher. She responded to the question on the website Answers.com: “When you ‘make a deal with the devil’, you ally yourself with a person of ill repute to accomplish what you want. The idea here is that you compromise your principles in a way that may turn out to be extremely harmful to you.”