Not recognizing a madman, and voting for him, is a mistake

[Hortensis]

13. Pence doesn't HAVE to, Woofless. I don't see the right's

hard-core opposition to Democrats as mere cultism. A far more dangerous word I'd use would be authoritarianism, which has a much larger following. But even that doesn't range wide enough.

Almost all of today's conservatives, including those repelled by Trump, would support Pence for the same reasons -- the right's political ideology has degraded to little more than acting as attack dogs to oppose and destroy whatever they're told is liberal. They will support their leaders, regardless of who they are, because that's what they do. But Pence would probably come across as a welcome return to sanity -- until they saw what was also behind Door #3 in 2016.

Plus, and this may be far bigger, the religious right would be far happier with Pence, who is a religious extremist committed to "restoring" a religious basis for the founding of our nation and to our system of laws. They're already all over DC, in everything, directing almost everything.

But, if that's not enough (scary as hell, I hope), another huge one is that Pence is a choice of the Koch alliance and other klepto-billionaires. He's been their man for a very long time, and they will work with the religious right and white nationalists to create whatever cult following they need him to have.

If it came to it. He's likely to have spent 6 intensely disciplined years playing a Nancy Reagan acolyte to a man he loathes for nothing. (But I confess I'm hoping "nothing" comes after a stretch in a federal penitentiary. Just how much separation has he been able to maintain?)