To the editor:

Only once has Mike Pence stood up to Donald Trump and that was a political calculation rather than a courageous response.

Pence’s silence during the Trump presidency, and even after Trump’s outrageous, and dangerous decisions,and utterances,  really demonstrates a strategic “playing it both ways.”

Pence watched, and stood smilingly by, as Trump incrementally destroyed one Democratic institution after another. Always in the photo ops fawning,and with body language signifying approval,  he should not be honored as a true patriot and hero.

Denying Trump the continuation in office would give Pence the opportunity to run for President or another Federal Office in the future.  A Trumpian  imperial reign would hasten Pence’s retirement from public life and he knew this by the last months of 2020.

Too many Republicans who have made one decent remark, or vote on occasion with Democrats, are deemed heroic.  One out of character gesture does not compensate for all the other democracy eroding votes.

A legislator should be judged by the adherence to the true spirit of equality and fairness as exemplified in the majority of their votes and public pronouncements.

And from the opposite perspective the Republicans repudiate and vilify anyone who dares deviate, even once, from  their established positions.  Both of these reactions are patently wrong and are symptomatic of the corrosive atmosphere in present American politics.

Pence is not a hero, nor an apostate!

Betty Ussach

Dartmouth