I’m post-surgical, so not really up to a proper post, but did want to point to my latest column at The Week, which is kind of a follow-up or counterpoint to my last post here about the VP debate and just what Mike Pence was up to.

As a highly orthodox and thoroughly boring VP nominee, the sort of person who one can imagine being president but have a hard time picturing getting elected under his own power, his selection bares some resemblance to Ronald Reagan’s choice of George H. W. Bush in 1980. He represents almost perfectly the party that existed prior to Trump’s triumph. By accepting a spot on the ticket, then, Pence has positioned himself uniquely as someone who could attempt to bridge the gap between the conqueror and the conquered.

Tuesday’s VP debate was our first glimpse at how that gap might be bridged. But to see it clearly, we have to see past the smoke screen that Pence emitted for much of debate.

That smoke screen was a consistent effort to pretend that there was a clear thread of continuity between Trump and prior Republican history. Pence simply refused to acknowledge that Trump represented anything particularly new, except in personality terms. This has been described variously as a gaslighting of the American public, as a form of political performance art, and as possible further evidence of the strength of conservative epistemic closure.

But if you set aside the fact that Pence egregiously misrepresented Trump, and consider merely how he represented him, you can see the outlines of Pence’s bridge between Trumpism and the GOP. Here’s what it looks like.

Go there and read the rest to find out.