Should President Pence be Impeached with Vice President Trump in the Wings?

Put aside for a moment the specific impeachment counts with which President Pence has been charged by the House, and turn to the opinion makers’ hot question: will we or won’t we be better off if Donald Trump became president following a vote of the Senate to convict Pence and remove him from office?

Of course, Trump’s whole public, private, and business life, and especially his behavior as Vice President, makes it clear that he is a narcissistic, self-aggrandizing, oaf whose erratic public buffoonery displays contempt of all the conventions of political and executive civility. His temper tantrums together with his deep ignorance of history and diplomacy would surely lower the standing of the US in the world. Then there is the nuclear football . . .

Still, Trump is not the committed ideologue that Pence has been throughout his career. The depth of Pence's zealotry is simply more apparent now that he has the power of the presidency in his hands.

Had the opportunities been there, Trump would as readily have tried out politics as a Democrat as a Republican. His conservative populism is only political convenience. True Trump, as a Democrat, might have had to hide a little better his misogyny and biases against anyone of skin pigment not white or orange. He would, however, just as readily have supported judges who would defend Roe v. Wade, were that congenial to his base, as he now lobbies for Pence’s nominees who, believe, if they avoid saying in confirmation hearings, that Roe has no precedential force because incompatible with God’s holy writ. 

Trump wouldn’t listen to expert advice because he is pig-headed, but pig-headedness, even his, has limits. Pence is completely immune to any advice inconsistent with his ideology. His steadfastness knows no limits, because it is God, he is sure, who gives him his marching orders. What is the most experienced, most knowledgeable, and wisest advisor compared to the Omniscient One? 

Trump might be a loose cannon. Pence has shown that he is a cannon precisely aimed at core values of equality, liberty, and democracy. As much a horror as a Trump presidency might be, Pence’s, as it has developed, is very likely the greater, not the lesser, evil.

Of course, nothing of this sort should be considered by the Senate in deciding whether to convict. That should turn only on what I have here been ignoring: whether at least one of the House impeachment charges was a high crime or misdemeanor and whether the evidence shows that Pence actually committed that offense. 

The questions whether Pence or Trump is the greater evil and whether impeachment will benefit the Democrats or Republicans in 2020 are interesting to be sure, but irrelevant. For most of the senators, regrettably, these will be the only questions.