Mike Pence.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images)

Concede nothing — that strategy informed the speech of Vice President Mike Pence at the RNC Wednesday night from beginning to end. In this respect at least, the speech showed that Pence has learned something important, and something potentially quite politically potent, from the man with whom he serves. Trump appealed to hardcore members of the Republican base in 2016 because those voters liked that he was a vicious fighter. Pence's delivery of his remarks was smooth and polished, his tone one of sorrow instead of anger. But the speech itself was rabid — a relentless (and often thoroughly mendacious) assault on Democratic nominee Joe Biden and the entire worldview of liberals and progressives.

Just days following what appears to be another unjustified shooting of a Black man by a police officer, this time in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Pence said nothing to acknowledge the injustice felt by so many Black Americans at the hands of armed agents of the state. Instead he praised the police in general and singled out only the riots that have followed the event and vowed that "the violence must stop," with his voice rising in crescendo to declare, "We will have law and order on the streets of this country."

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.