From Pine View Farm

Misdirection Play, Shilling for Pence Dept. 0

The punditocracy are united in marketing Mike Pence as somehow a sane and safe choice for vice president, a calm and cultured counterweight to Trump’s trumpeting boorishness.

Erika D. Smith begs to differ. Here’s a bit of her column:

A year ago, I left Indiana, in large part to get away from the first-term governor and his policies that too often seem to punish anyone who isn’t white, straight, male, middle class and Christian. In fact, cities in California and across the country are dotted with young ex-pats who are proud to call themselves Hoosiers – not “Indianans” – but want nothing to do with a man hell-bent on running his state like a church.

(snip)

On paper, the two men are very different – in an ulcer-relieving way, if you’re an establishment Republican or a social conservative. But look a little closer, as I have in meetings with him as member of the editorial board of The Indianapolis Star, and you’ll see that they’re really just two sides of the same crazy coin.

Like Trump, Pence is tone deaf and uninterested in learning what he doesn’t know. He’s an ideologue who surrounds himself with people who tell him what he wants to hear. His bubble is so airtight that differing opinions often come as a complete shock to him.

Think of your Bond villains: which is more dangerous, the quiet one stroking a cat or the loud one brandishing a gat?

Remember, a soft-spoken fanatic is still a fanatic.

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