From Esquire

Mike Pence gave a speech at the Hudson Institute on Thursday. In doing so, he tipped off what the primary counterattack is going to be from the administration to whatever Robert Mueller's investigators finally produce regarding Russian ratfcking in the 2016 election. Very likely, he also tipped off the parameters of the primary victimology that will be employed if the 2018 midterms go sour, and any time the polls look bad in 2020.

China did it. From The Washington Post:

President Trump’s leadership is working; China wants a different American president. China is meddling in America’s democracy.

Josh Marshall in TPM quite correctly points out how Pence is identifying the country with the president*, and how potentially awful that is. More from Pence.

China has initiated an unprecedented effort to influence American public opinion, the 2018 elections, and the environment leading into the 2020 presidential elections...Beijing has mobilized covert actors, front groups, and propaganda outlets to shift Americans’ perception of Chinese policies. As a senior career member of our intelligence community recently told me, what the Russians are doing pales in comparison to what China is doing across this country.

And there you have it. China undoubtedly is engaged in a cyber-confrontation with the United States just as Russia is, and there's a extra depth to it because China and the United States currently are engaged in a trade war. Nobody doubts that. But those circumstances now have been weaponized as a means of this administration*'s survival. But the domestic utility of what Pence's is arguing cannot be denied. And neither can be Pence's willingness to say that an international conspiracy of Canada geese is plotting against the president* who saved him from political obsolescence if said president requests it. The price of being the palace eunuch is ably demonstrated by the election night tableau described by Michael Lewis in his new book.

The moment when his victory was finally clear, after Pennsylvania was called, was a somber one. Lewis wrote that at 1:35 a.m. early that November morning, Trump was speechless. Meanwhile, when Mike Pence tried to kiss his wife Karen, she wouldn’t look at him. “You got what you wanted, Mike,” she reportedly said. “Now leave me alone.”

When Mother is unhappy, everyone is unhappy.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here.

('You Might Also Like',)