The “Jesus, He Gets Us” folks made a splash during the Super Bowl on Sunday with their commercial about how “Jesus didn’t teach hate, he washed feet.” I don’t get what their intended return is for that kind of investment, but as far as commercials go, I liked that one as much as any of them this year. The “love your neighbor” messages never get old. To me, anyway.

In the last week, the frontrunner for the GOP nomination for president has said many troubling things. But what makes them most problematic is that there is no one left in the GOP to object anymore. For Donald Trump to keep his angry and loyal following whipped up into their frenzied mania, he must keep escalating his rhetoric, or they will lose interest. It’s a predictable process.

First, he threatened to mobilize military forces to round up millions of undocumented migrants for deportation. According to Axios, not since Eisenhower has such a thing been pursued, and thankfully, that was a far different time.

Next, he mocked his Republican opponent, Nikki Haley, for her husband being absent from the campaign trail. Never mind that Trump and his wife, Melania, have only been seen together at her mother’s funeral during the last several months. Maj. Michael Haley is on a yearlong deployment with the South Carolina National Guard in Africa. There was a time when that kind of un-American mockery would turn off Republican voters.

Finally, nothing would have sickened Reagan Republicans more than taunting members of NATO. With what? With the threat of inviting Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to any non-dues-paying members of what Trump apparently believes is a Mar-A-Lago-style country club.

Capitalizing on anger

In today’s Republican party, an angry voter base is everything. But most people tire of being mad and need refueled on a regular basis. Feeding the desire for grievance is of paramount importance.

Buddhism’s Second Noble Truth states that the cause of suffering is craving. MAGA world’s insatiable desire for the next angriest idea is that craving.

Joshua J. Mark writes about it extensively for the World History Encyclopedia. “People whose understanding of life is darkened by ignorance, craving, and aversion condemn themselves to spinning round and round on this wheel, dying only to be reborn in the same suffering state eternally,” he writes.

In other words, the suffering won’t ever end until the craving ends.

The Republican-led killing of the immigration deal in the Senate last week confirms that keeping its own hatred addiction fed is more important than anything else. The Democrats capitulated to GOP desires and gave them what they wanted, to then find out nothing would ever be enough. Even the Trump-supporting Border Patrol union supported the deal, only to have the Trump sycophant of the week, Sen. Marco Rubio, declare the union is simply wrong.

Of course, Rubio also said that Trump’s pro-Russia, anti-NATO comments were simply misunderstood storytelling. That the Florida senator happened to say that is one thing, that he specifically appeared on CNN’s Sunday morning show, State of the Union, to give that excuse is quite another.

The crowd at the rally where it was originally said cheered the disgraceful comments just like all the rest. And in the Capitol, this cheering is converted to Trumpists’ opposition to fund Ukraine’s self-defense.

Back home again

Back here in Indiana, under pressure from fellow Republicans, Gov. Eric Holcomb on Friday announced he would deploy 50 Indiana National Guard soldiers to Texas’ border with Mexico, “effective immediately.” The move might be more than a political gimmick if he was also supportive of the Senate deal. But his slippery Indy Star editorial on Monday avoids overtly expressing that support, in a nod to MAGA rage.

The GOP wants to continue funding Israel’s campaign to decimate Hamas. Ironically, the Jewish hate of which I’m most familiar in America has historically also come from the political right.

Which brings me back to the Super Bowl.

Stand up to Jewish Hate also had a good spot during the game, featuring Dr. Clarence B. Jones. He was one of the original drafters of Dr. Martin Luther King’s iconic, “I Have a Dream” speech. Yep, it was another good ad filled with imagery detailing the peril of all kinds of hatred, including anti-Muslim hate, and the benefits of a better approach to life.

These ads are so much more interesting than someone trying to sell me a car or make me feel better about a car I already bought.

From the Hebrew Bible, “There’s no peace, said the lord, for the wicked.” Especially when they don’t want peace and are too ignorant to see they actually are the wicked ones.

Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com. Follow Indiana Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Twitter.

Las Vegas specializes in making money off of people who just can’t walk away. But on Saturday in Sin City, that’s exactly what former Vice President Mike Pence did. An ironic place for the most pious politician I’ve covered to announce what will likely be the end of his political career.

It was a long shot bid from the start, so, its early end was no surprise. “It’s become clear to me: This is not my time,” was the apt comment he delivered at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual conference. I cannot recall agreeing with him more strenuously, but for more reasons than I expect he intended.

Pence’s time ended shortly after the 2016 election, as did the era of his entire brand of conservativism. The GOP shift toward the populist, inarticulate, grievance-based platform of today cannot credibly tout the Holy Bible as its guide. It never really could, but the party’s hate-based rhetoric of today has made the hard-to-take-seriously piousness of the party’s past an unfunny joke. Pence never wavered from his version of Christianity, though.

Message discipline could be his greatest asset. No matter how bad the message might have been, he was always entirely committed to it. So much so, the repetitiveness of it eventually would damage his authenticity on the stump. However, this skill was a difference maker for the ticket in 2016. He was the only guy who could stick to the script in that chaotic campaign, and I firmly believe that without this contribution, Hillary Clinton wins.

Not his time

Many give him high marks for his public speaking talents. I absolutely don’t. Admittedly, I already know that I am about to disagree with him before he makes a sound. But that’s part of the task at hand in political speech: to move people.

Try to recall a time he did that. Ever. There’s not a moment when he moved a crowd from hostile to simply opposed; from opposed to interested in listening more; or, from neutral to agreeable. On his own side of the aisle, he only succeeded at choosing a narrative he already knew his audience would applaud. As a political writer and communication consultant present in Indiana for almost his entire career, I can attest that I’ve never heard anyone say, “You really should have heard that Pence speech last night!”

It’s not the time for his policy positions either. The American people disagree with him on abortion. His viewpoint had its biggest victory last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe, but what has followed has been a clear objection to it that will likely haunt the remains of the GOP for the foreseeable future.

I’ve written about it before, but governmental control of anyone’s body is not conservatism. It’s pushing totalitarianism. Conservatives adopted the pro-life mantra without reconciling its fundamental contradictions with their platform. And Pence was one of that duality’s leaders. Again, a knock on his authenticity that his supporters are unable to see.

Lack of victories

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act and his monumental mishandling of it, is the event that defines him for many Hoosiers. It was a law that discriminated, by design, against the LGBTQ community. Pence knew that as well as anyone, but he knew he couldn’t get away with just saying that. So, he didn’t. And it cost him twenty points in his approval rating at the time, points he never got back.

In twelve years as a member of the U.S. House, none of his bills became law. He would cause trouble for things his chosen constituency abhorred, but he doesn’t have any policy victories on his congressional resumé to tout. That’s probably the thing about his career that translates to today better than anything, his tendency to cause more problems than he solves.

Modern conservatism, beginning with Barry Goldwater’s “The Conscience of a Conservative,” in 1960 as its opening act, through the George W. Bush presidency, has been put to rest. Compassion is not even seen as an admirable quality in today’s GOP — it has become synonymous with weakness.

There isn’t a lane available for Pence to take to the White House anymore. His most valued qualities are no longer assets in the eyes of his party. Maybe things would be different for him today had he fully embraced the hard truths of the 2020 election, and more fully taken the high road through the mess his old boss’s lies and criminality have caused. Maybe.

His political brand is highlighted by a career’s worth of troubles, some of his own making, others through his willful acquiescence. His sins are now ironically unforgivable, by a crowd that has never been more in need of forgiveness.

Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com. Follow Indiana Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Twitter.