Former Vice President Mike Pence’s announcement in Iowa last week that he is exiting the GOP race for the presidency wasn’t surprising. He polled near 4 percent in a contest that had his former boss, Donald Trump, dominating. Pence’s campaign suffered many flaws — including difficulty in criticizing a front-runner who routinely mocked him — but ultimately was undone by shifting attitudes within his party.
Pence’s brand of conservatism often conflicts with our libertarian approach, but when push came to shove, the former vice president did the right thing. He refused to abet Trump’s cynical — and probably illegal — plan to overturn the election. “(M)y oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,” he explained.
Yet it’s long been obvious that Pence represents a Republican Party that no longer exists. “This is not my time,” he said during his exit speech. He’s recently offered pointed warnings to a party that once celebrated the principles of Ronald Reagan, who championed free markets, international trade and a hawkish foreign policy. In Iowa, he urged the GOP to reject “the siren song of populism” — a welcome message even if it’s too little, too late.
Pence’s “Time for Choosing” speech (and Wall Street Journal column) last month was even modeled on Reagan’s famous 1964 speech. In it, Pence warned if the GOP chooses populism it will place America’s liberties at risk given the nation will no longer have a major party devoted to advancing freedom.
The GOP’s traditional opponent, he argued, was progressive socialism — and its dominance in the Democratic Party. But GOP populists would also “substitute our faith in limited government and traditional values for an agenda stitched together by personal grievances and performative outrage.”
These populists “would abandon American leadership on the world stage, embracing a posture of appeasement in the face of rising threats to freedom.” Although we advocate for a more restrained foreign policy than the one embraced by Pence and Reagan conservatives, we generally agree.
Pence also took a swipe at a “leading candidate” — who could that be? — who once “called for the ‘termination’ of ‘all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,’ while his imitators have demonstrated willingness to brandish government power to silence critics.”
Furthermore, he said populists “would have us trade in our time-honored principles for passing public opinion.” That’s spot on. Republican populists echo the Left by wanting to use government to advance their cultural preferences. Populist intellectuals openly challenge traditional conservatives who insist on playing within the rules established by our founders.
Pence is correct the divide between the two groups is unbridgeable: “Like our founders, we know the imperfect nature of men and women and that granting them unlimited power imperils liberty. That is why we have a brilliant system of checks and balances, divisions of authority, coequal branches of government and sovereign state governments.”
After seven years of Trumpian showboating, it was refreshing to hear a Republican speak for the GOP’s long-held limited-government principles. Typical of Pence, however, his comments come late in the game. The party already made its choice, but at least he left a forward-looking blueprint for Republicans once the populist fever breaks.
