When Mike Pence was appointed as the head of the coronavirus task force, I shit a brick. Like an actual, brick-sized brick. Mike Pence, of all robot-stuck-in-a-human-suit people, was named the head of the task force?! Had people forgotten about Indiana? There’s only so many times since he was appointed as the corona czar that I could beat my hands against the wall so people would fucking remember that in his tenure as governor he did everything humanly possible to let an HIV outbreak in Indiana run rampant. I was reminded how feeble and evil Pence’s actions were when I saw a tweet alluding to Mike Pence fucking off to Florida this week for a vacation, he would later cancel it after an immense backlash, and opted to “stay in D.C.” so Trump could piss and moan about losing both the popular vote and the electoral college.
The thing you have to remember about Mike Pence is that he’s a far more capable politician than Trump who just so happens to have a horrific soft spot for letting viruses cleave off portions of the human population. HIV first began showing itself in Indiana in November 2014, with a diagnosis in Scott County. By January of 2015, that number had exploded to 17. Indiana didn’t bother contacting the county until February.
One of the big reasons the crisis went full tilt was because Mike Pence was vehemently opposed to a needle exchange program. It wasn’t until March of 2015 (when cases reached 81) that Pence would allow needle exchanges to be established, but of course Pence did the Pence thing that Pence does which was giving permission to open one, but not funding it.
On the same day, however, Pence also undermined the effects of the new law, signing another bill that toughened the punishment for people found carrying needles. It upgraded possession of a syringe with intent to commit an offense with a controlled substance from a misdemeanor to a felony charge, subject to imprisonment for up to 2.5 years.
Politico
Every step forward in tackling the HIV crisis in their midst was met with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire to the face. Mike Pence did so little in tackling the problem it exploded to 215 cases by 2017. He was criticized by both the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the CDC criticized Pence, saying the crisis was preventable. Hence my brick-shitting anger crystalizing.
The coronavirus task force went from meeting several times a week, to once a week, and even excluded Fauci at one point. Trump stopped attending the meetings. They declared they beat coronavirus, but had to walk it back.
You would think if Pence had an ounce of amperage running through the particles in his brain he would have remembered the glaring response from his time as Governor, but the fact is he doesn’t care. If he truly thought it mattered he would have stood defiant in front of Trump and the nation, or at least caused a ruckus behind the scenes, vowing to do everything in his power to cut the virus down. He didn’t. He let it thrive. And listen, he’s the Vice President of the United States, which largely is considered a powerless, back-seat, Big Head cushy job that lets one spring-board to the next position of leader of the free world. But since Cheney, VP’s have grown more powerful.
He could have said he was doing it to preserve Christianity or something for fuck’s sake. But again, he didn’t. Because despite all his blow-hard knuckle tapping on the table talking about morality, abortion and Christianity, Mike Pence failed his way up to the top like so many white men in the world. He doesn’t have to do shit, because he IS THE SHIT. He’s in the most comfortable spot on planet Earth, and if he fails, he doesn’t have to truly take the fall for it.
The United States has started suffering staggering numbers of new diagnoses totally over 100,000 almost every day for the last week. Was all of this preventable? Probably not, but there’s definitely zero reason it should be totaling the sum number of entire cities day after day. The US, left to its own devices, unfortunately isn’t taking up the position to nurture itself, only piecemealing a response together that’s being offset by ripping its own stitches out repeatedly. A real statesman would take charge. It’s only because of Mike Pence’s failed leadership have we gotten to where we are.
Mike Pence won’t ride out into the sunset after he leaves office, because he’ll ride out in the dead of winter under a veil of darkness stacked with human bodies a mile high. He doesn’t deserve another day in office, and his failures will leave a permanent crack in the lives of Americans who will suffer long after he’s gone.
Coleman can be found on Twitter yelling about Mike Pence.