"What are we going to do Mike?? We don't have any money! Who's going to pay for my inaugural gown??"

[Hortensis]

38. My guess is Pence could and would eat everyone on this thread

for breakfast without a blink. Not because I admire him, but because he's an extremely powerful man with an extremely strong ideology that regards us and our depraved, godless liberal wishes as at most problems to be disposed of.

Btw, the reliability of this book still needs to be established, but one thing that's completely easy to believe, because it's true for so many others in power, is that an extremely religious conservative VP could be an authoritarian follower of others. After all, what is god but the ultimate authority?

A bunch of our nation's conservative so-called leaders, religious or not at all, are actually authoritarian followers elevated to, or kept in, office by those they serve, which explains a lot of the behaviors of the Republican caucuses. Just following the orders it's their nature to need others to give them.

And no one should imagine that Pence couldn't and wouldn't be extremely ruthless in executing what he sees as his duty. Any authority Pence approves would by definition be an agent of God, and thus, by the transitive property of opportunistic zealotry, accumulating great power through serving their wishes would be carrying out God's will. His authorities include the enormously powerful religious right, among which he is also a leader, and the plutocracy he serves; in the opinion of many observers, he conflates his service to them and his self interest with his duty to God. And that's all the authority and justification Pence would need to do almost anything he wanted. Just needs more power. His intense, fake-subservient self discipline as he waits for it gives me the chills.