Where's Mike Pence?

In a new opinion piece for CNN, journalist Jill Filipovic details the events leading up to and including the January 6 coup attempt by the Malignant Loser, with a focus on the attempts to intimidate former VP Mike "Fly Guy" Pence to lawlessly overturn the results of the 2020 election. Heeding the warning of former Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig of a "clear and present danger" still posed by the Malignant Loser, his spineless enablers and his cult, Filipovic wonders "where is Pence" in the coming battle against authoritarianism:

"As conservative former Fourth Circuit Judge J. Michael Luttig put it in his closing remarks, "to this very day, the former president and his allies and supporters pledge that if the former president or his anointed successor as the Republican Party presidential candidate were to lose that election, that they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 2020 election, but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020."

And where is Pence?

He's largely silent on the ongoing threat to American democracy. While Pence rightly didn't cave to Trump and has publicly confirmed the fact that Trump was wrong about Pence's ability to refuse to certify the election results, he also hasn't risked his own political future by doing the right thing: holding the former president -- and his own party -- to account not just for January 6, but also for the lies about the 2020 election that they continue to perpetuate."

It's probably too much to ask of Pence to wake up and realize he'll never be the nominee in a party committed to the Big Lie and total fealty to the Malignant Loser. After all, he signed on the 2016 and 2020 ticket obviously knowing that his ticket mate was a corrupt, lawless,malignant narcissist and pathological liar whose only concern was himself. Filipovic concludes:

"It makes a normal person want to shake some sense into him: This is a guy who put your life in danger! He didn't seem to care if you were killed! And it sets a person concerned about the future of American democracy on edge: If the person with the most power who knows so intimately how high the stakes are won't publicly name dangerous anti-democratic forces within his own party loudly and consistently, what hope is there for making sure that January 6 was a one-time event and not a harbinger of worse things to come?"

The fact that he did his duty on January 6 shouldn't excuse him from the duty to resist the ongoing "clear and present danger" his former ticket mate represents, which could begin by offering testimony to the House January 6 Select Committee.

(photo: Pence during electoral vote certification. Coda Story, Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)