Facts About the Guy Who Can’t Eat Alone with Women, Mike Pence

For a big portion of America, Vice President Mike Pence is a big, silver-haired question mark. The man who sits at Donald Trump’s right hand side is mostly quiet, for now. We say for now, because recently, Professor Allan Lichtman made a dire prediction. Lichtman, a professor at American University rose to fame last year when he successfully predicted that Trump would win the presidency long before anyone else had the nerve to believe it. On April 13, however, Lichtman made another scary forecast. He said that the current squirm-inducing President of the United States would likely be impeached, and possibly before the mid-term elections in two years. If that were to happen, and Trump were to lose his job as a result of impeachment, Mike Pence would be the vacant-looking evangelical at the top of the United States’ political food chain. And that might be pretty scary, indeed.

1. About that ‘No Dining with Women Other than the Wife’ Rule

Of late, Pence has incurred a lot of negative skepticism in the wake of the discovery that the VP will not have dinner with a woman who isn’t his wife. Conservatives don’t seem to have a problem with that, while Dems jumped down Pence’s throat, pointing out that the rule is crazy sexist, because it implicitly allows more opportunities to men. Beyond that, it’s incredibly ridiculously stupid.

2. Above Everything Else, Mike Pence Is a Christian

One thing about Pence hasn’t changed since he’s become the Vice President, and that’s his commitment to being Jesus-riffic. While speaking at a conservative (obviously) event in 2010, Pence proudly said, “I’m a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order.” To be more specific, the VP is an evangelical Christian, which means, among other things, he believes that being his kind of Christian is the only way to get into heaven, that preaching the word of Jesus is for the good of humanity at large, and that the Bible should be taken literally. It’s a fine set of beliefs for the average person (who lives far away from me), but it’s a scary thing to be passionate about when your daily dealings involves dealing with people of different faiths who are equally passionate.

3. While Governor of Indiana, He Legitimized Prejudice

A few years back, Gov. Pence got on the hate-train and signed into law a bill that would give business owners the right to deny service to anyone they chose. The bill immediately drew the ire of everyone on the left side of the aisle, drawing such scrutiny that he decided to change the wording of the bill to explicitly state that business owners couldn’t use the bill as a means to discriminate against a client or customer based on sexual orientation. Of course, that flip-flop subsequently ticked off his religious conservative base.

4. He’s Vowed to Keep His Campaigns Positive

Since the mid-eighties, Pence has been a fiercely ambitious man. Unfortunately, he’s just not that likable. As a result, his first two attempts in the late eighties and early nineties ended in defeat. In 1991, while licking his wounds, Pence wrote an essay entitled “Confessions of a Negative Campaigner” in which the future VP vowed to never use negative language against any of his opponents. I guess Pence thinks that he wasn’t technically a part of Trump’s presidential campaign, which ran a series of blistering attack ads aimed squarely at their Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

5. Pence Was Raised in a Catholic, Democratic Household

For what it’s worth, Pence didn’t actually become an evangelical Christian until college, when he fell in love with a frat brother’s jewelry. Before that time, Pence was raised in a devoutly Catholic household (alongside five other still-practicing siblings). The Pences were also devoutly liberal. As a kid, Pence was the youth coordinator for the Bartholomew County Democrats. In 1980, Pence voted for Carter, not Reagan.

6. He Is Exactly as Xenophobic as Trump

In his time as governor, Pence ordered state agencies to refuse to accept any Syrian refugees because he was worried they were importing terrorists. In his time on Capitol Hill, he voted to financially support a border wall and he supported a bill that would compel hospitals to report any suspected illegal aliens who came in for treatment.

7. He Really, Really Hates Weed

Hey, you know how the world’s most trusted polling site, Gallup, says that 60 percent of United States citizens support the legalization of marijuana? Yeah, in his time as governor, Mike Pence actively influenced the creation of a bill that would increase the felony and misdemeanor punishment for marijuana possession.

8. He’s Pro-Life and He Doesn’t Care Who Knows It

If you had a slim hope that Pence’s position as one of the highest-ranking government officials in the world would have inclined him to adhere to the law of the land and support equal access to healthy abortion for the United States’ women, then you’re going to be disappointed. In January of 2017, a week after taking office, Pence spot at a March for Life demonstration, saying that he was humbled to help contradict a Supreme Court Ruling — er, he’s humbled to have the opportunity to follow his conscience.

9. He Tried to Start a State-run News Outlet

Before it crashed and burned under the weight of millions of laughs from around the world, Pence was hoping to launch “Just IN,” a news outlet that wanted to focused entirely on Indiana. Obviously something like that would be slanted hilariously toward any administration, so the idea was scrapped before Pence was able to institute his own propaganda network.