Trump toadyism gets you temporary power, and perhaps a Fox News gig, but at the cost of everlasting ignominy. Trump’s lackeys know this and fear its repercussions. Rudy Giuliani is worried that his tombstone will say, “He lied for Trump.” This would make a suitable epitaph for everyone in Trump’s orbit.

Pence’s political future is bleak. Unless Trump resigns, dies, or is impeached in the next year, he is never going to be president. Trump selected him in 2016 to shore up support among religious conservatives. Mission accomplished. Three years into his presidency, evangelicals are smitten with the twice-divorced serial adulterer who occupies the Oval Office.

No one is smitten with Pence. Liberals deplore his anti-gay agenda. Anti-Trump conservatives abhor his obsequiousness and hypocrisy. Trump supporters view him as a holdover from the pre-Trump era, a token of the GOP establishment, and also a very boring guy. Pence has described himself as “Rush Limbaugh on decaf.” Nothing could be more accurate or less inspiring.