Republicans (or anybody), please answer this one simple question

I have a serious question for my Republican friends (yes, I have a few) or anybody else who knows the answer.

Question: Other than the insanity, the stupidity, the narcissism, the misogyny, the xenophobia, the criminal history, the Fascist tendencies, the racism, the total disregard for the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law, the abuse of the government to make money for himself and his family and the utter lack of understanding about how the world actually works, what do you get from Donald Trump that you couldn’t get from, say, Mike Pence?

I’m serious. I really want to know, because it baffles me that this babbling baby, this petulant prevaricator, this tweeting twit, this juvenile jerk-off and this heartless, brainless, spineless, soulless shabby excuse for a human being has stayed in office as long as he has, with no definitive end in sight.

I mean, look. You already got your tax cut and your two Supreme Court justices, raped Obamacare as much as possible, stonewalled the Congressional investigation into Russian election meddling, screwed up immigration policy (while putting babies in cages) and blew up the federal deficit as an excuse to start whacking away at Social Security and Medicare. What else do you need?

Meanwhile, we have sucked up to Russia, China, North Korea, Turkey, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia – some of the most despicable violators of human rights on the planet – and legitimized murder while alienating our allies, disrespecting our military, mocking women and minorities and manufacturing an “alien invasion” to try to frighten people into voting red.

And that’s just off the top of my head. Don’t you think it’s time to pull the plug on this failed authoritarian experiment and turn over the reins to someone who actually knows how to run a government?

Now don’t get me wrong. I’d love to see Mike Pence sharing a cell along with Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Trump Junior, Jared Kushner and Devin Nunes, to name a few. As for Pence, I don’t like that smug, self-righteous religious nut bag weirdo as much as I like a bad case of the flu, but if I were a Republican, I’d see Pence as basically Donald Trump without the crazy.

Think of it this way: Wouldn’t Pence sign the same bills that Trump would sign? Wouldn’t he issue the same executive orders? Wouldn’t he appoint the same conservative judges? Wouldn’t he espouse the same pro-life, pro-business, pro-fossil fuels, anti-climate change agenda that Trump promotes?

I think he would.

Plus, he was governor of Indiana for four years and a member of the House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013, so he should have some idea of how government is supposed to operate. He actually ran a state, for crying out loud. He didn’t do it very well, of course, but he held the office all the same.

What he wouldn’t do, I suspect, is:

* Spend all day during the "work week" watching Fox News to get his foreign and domestic policy advice, then play golf at one of his own properties all weekend;

* Waste the rest of his time tweeting out insults, garbage, incomplete sentences and political nonsense, sometimes starting as early as 3:00 in the morning;

* Assign schoolyard nicknames to people he didn’t like while acting like some teenage girl who didn’t get invited to the dance;

* And threaten the very democratic principles on which this country was founded.

Let me recap: Trump signs bills, issues orders, appoints judges and fights climate change. If Pence were president, he'd sign bills, issue orders, appoint judges and fight climate change. Hell, all the Republicans actually need in the White House is a hand to hold the pen. It’s so easy, a caveman could do it.

So I ask again: What do you get with Trump that you couldn’t get from Pence…and why didn’t you “25th” this dangerous yet pathetic clown of a president and ship him back to his gold-plated penthouse a long, long time ago?   

C’mon, somebody, help me out here. This is a serious question. I really want to know.