Doug DeVos had a conversation on his podcast about leadership with Mike Pence, Mike F**king Pence

On the October 25th episode of Doug DeVos’ podcast Believe, he discussed the topic of what it means to be a leader, with former Vice President, Mike Pence. 

For the next 48 minutes, DeVos and Pence talked about what they thought leadership was all about, even though I had a hard time identifying what they hell they were really talking about. I would not recommend listening to the show yourself, but if you have 48 minutes to waste, then by all means. What follows are a few observations that I took away from their conversation.

For the first two and a half minutes Pence talked about the fact that he has been an admirer of Doug and the DeVos family for years. Then, DeVos return the admiration, which quickly turned into a love-fest. 

The first thing that Mike Pence said about leadership, was that it was a gift “we get from God.” Pence then went in to talk about his foundation of leadership, which is knowing who one is. For Pence, he is first a Christian, then a Conservative and lastly a Republican.

Pence then said that he aspired to embrace a servant leadership model. DeVos then chimed in saying that leadership is having a sense of humility. Ok, how it it that these two rich, white, deeply privileged people can say shit like this with a straight face. Are they just saying it because this is what those who look up to them want to hear, or do they really believe this crap?.

Doug DeVos then asked Pence, “how do you avoid bad judgment or pitfalls?” Pence responded by saying it all has to do with how you begin your day. Pence said, he began his day with prayer and reading the Bible. 

DeVos then asked Pence how he puts principles into action. Pence said he was involved in the group Advancing American Freedom, which is essentially a group of mostly former Trump Administration people, along with other far right Republicans. Their principles and goals are just more of the same. 

Finally about two thirds into the conversation, Pence said this about Donald Trump, “Trump was a great leader and great personality.” So much for distancing himself from the former President and now Presidential candidate. It is incredulous that Pence could say this about a man who engaged in so much hateful rhetoric, on top of the loathsome policies that oppressed so many and rewarded so few.

Doug DeVos then asked about the pandemic and leadership from the Trump Administration. The response from Pence had me listening in disbelief. Pence said that Trump did something that was historic, which was to suspend travel from China. The former Vice President then said they need a broad range of counsel on the pandemic, so they listened to experts, like people from the CDC. Pence then went on to say the following about the Trump Administration. “We saved thousands, if not millions of lives in those early days.” I don’t know what is worse, the fact that Pence was literally creating a fictional history of how the Trump administration responded to the pandemic, or the fact that Doug DeVos said nothing to question or challenge this assertion. On the conservative side of the numbers, there was an Associated Press article with the headline, Shameful’: US virus deaths top 400K as Trump leaves office.

The conversation on leadership ended with DeVos and Pence talking about how the US leads the world. DeVos asked the question, “How does American leadership impact the world?” Pence responded by saying that America is the indispensable leader of the world, and that the world looks to America and counts on America for leadership. Again, are they saying this to satisfy their listeners or because they really believe this shit?

At the very end of the conversation, Pence makes a plug for his new book, which is an autobiography, entitled, So Help Me God! All I could think about was, this is the phrase my mother would use when she was anger with us kids. “So help me God, wait til your father gets home.“

In the end, I do believe that what Pence and DeVos were saying throughout the conversation was not just for listeners, they both really believed every word they were saying. This is one of the things about people who embrace religious ideology. Of course they believe what they said, because they think that God talks to them and justifies all the horrible shit they do in the world. I’m rich because God wants me to be. I hate gays because God told me so, Women are murderers if they have an abortion, because….yeah, God. 

People like Doug DeVos and Mike Pence live lives that are so insulated from the real world, that they have no idea about the harm they cause, nor the pain and suffering that countless people experience because of their ideological bullshit.