Like many who served in Congress alongside the late John Lewis, then-Rep. Mike Pence made a pilgrimage to Selma, Ala., in 2010 to commemorate the 45th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday.” He marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge just a few feet from Lewis as they retraced the historic route, and posed for a photo at the foot of the span — the Indiana Republican in crisp gray and the Georgia Democrat in somber black, their shoulders touching.
But when Lewis died last month of pancreatic cancer at 80, Pence, now vice president, held off on issuing a public comment on the civil rights hero’s passing. President Trump was no fan of the congressman and openly complained about Lewis’s refusal to attend his inauguration. Only after the White House distributed a perfunctory proclamation on the death in Trump’s name did Pence feel comfortable releasing a statement of his own, memorializing Lewis as not just an “icon” but also “a colleague and a friend.”
That hesitation — deferring to Trump for cues, and then following his lead — was classic Pence. It exemplified the well-honed subservience of a man who once governed his home state of Indiana but who as vice president has transformed himself into a loyal student and servant of Trump — binding his political ambitions to a mercurial and capricious boss now trailing in polls with just over two months to go until Election Day. Continue reading.