After the disastrous election on Tuesday that broke the hearts of the majority of Americans and brought genuine fear to minorities, many of the Americans that hoped that Hillary Clinton would win are now hoping that after the midterm election of 2018 when the Democrats will hopefully win Congress, Donald Trump will be impeached for a number of reasons (if not for the numerous court cases against him, then for something more recent after he takes office, knowing him).
However, that would spell out a bigger nightmare: Mike Pence. To most, this is an unfamiliar name but he should be feared, especially by the LGBT community, women, immigrants, minorities and the working class. Trump is all talk, Pence is action.
His name should be familiar because, as governor of Indiana, he signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which allowed business to turn away customers for their sexuality. Digging deeper, you could find his terrifying stance on conversation therapy, suggesting to drain HIV prevention funding to direct those funds to the horrifying "therapy" meant to convert homosexuals to heterosexuals that is banned in five states because of the common results: depression, anxiety, drug use, homelessness and suicide. He voted against any act that suggested a step towards equality for LGBT people and completely opposes the Supreme Court's ruling on same-sex marriage, by outright saying their decision was "disappointing" and by signing a bill in 2013 that would jail same-sex couples hoping to get married.
If his stances on LGBT issues are not enough for you, let's take a look on his stance on women's rights. We've already seen Trump's treatment of women but Pence is even worse, ten times worse because he has actually signed eight anti-abortion bills in his four years of being governor of Indiana (every single anti-abortion bill that has reached his desk), even one that is called "the most extreme anti-abortion bill yet" and is opposed by Republican women as well as Democratic. He wanted to redefine rape as "forcible rape" to limit chances for abortion (as if all rape wasn't forcible), he has stated working mothers stunt their children's emotional growth, he has said that women shouldn't be in the military and he wants to "see Roe v. Wade consigned to the ash heap of history where it belongs." He has even gone as far as supporting the Ultrasound Informed Consent Act, a bill that urged to require doctors to perform an ultrasound on a woman seeking abortion to describe the embryo to her, and the Indiana Omnibus Abortion Bill, a bill which (among many traumatizing things) would require doctors to "offer the remains of the abortion" to the woman after the process has been done, which would have obviously had a psychological effect. And he has voted against Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, an act that urges for equal pay for men and women, three times.
If all that is not enough for you, trust me, there's more.
Because of his war against Planned Parenthood in Indiana, his cuts to their funding led to the closure of five clinics because of "some of their abortion services" (although those clinics did not offer abortions) and ultimately resulted in a devastating HIV outbreak in 2015 because the clinics could no longer provide testing for the disease thanks to his legislation. (Remember his plan for draining HIV prevention funding?)
There's also his stance on immigration, including his advocating for the "Immigration Compromise," support for the wall and ban on Muslims while fighting Syrian refugee settlement in Indiana, but that's not very surprising.
What strikes me as odd is that America's working class states that Trump is thinking about the "forgotten Americans" yet, Mike Pence has screwed over the working class of Indiana multiple times. He is strongly against raising the minimum wage to livable levels by opposing a bill that would raise it from $7.25 to $8.25 and supported a law that repealed Indiana's common construction wage. Alongside Trump, he supports right-to-work laws, although they "severely weaken unions, lower wages and decrease the standard of living for all workers."
Let's all hope that Trump, someone extremely under-qualified for office, isn't impeached because it would allow Mike Pence to go against what it means to be American ("Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness") -- in a higher position of power. At least Trump is willing to work with Democrats (and Bernie Sanders) and Democrats are willing to work with him, so perhaps his presidency won't be as terrifying as we believe it will be.
Let's just make sure the Devil doesn't take the Oval Office.








