Hank, you are pretty much always reasoned, eloquent, and correct in your assessments, but not in this case.

If we were dealing with the presidential equivalent of chicken pox, then yes, your warning and advice would make sense- hunker down, ride it out and in the end it will pass and we will have the assurance that it will not bother us again in our lifetime.

That is reasonable advice that almost always works out fine when dealing with chicken pox, but really bad advice if you have cancer. When dealing with cancer you mount an aggressive response, you mobilize and do everything you can, short of killing the patient, to stop it from spreading.

Trump is clearly willing to violate the rule of law, to attack and subvert the institutions that serve as our last defense against fascism... Trump has declared the judiciary and the press to be enemies of the people. He is bringing people in to destroy the institutions they are put in charge of. He is working to spread the cancer to all the organs of the state.

He has expressed an eagerness to have war, to commit war crimes, to torture, to use nuclear weapons, to throw away constitutional protections, to oppress science and fact... and his views have metastasized to a large minority of our population- as we have seen with the mindless carriers we have seen here.

To gamble that the country-or the world- will survive 4 years under this malignancy and that it will all be rectified by the next election- to even bet that we will be given a choice to rectify it in 4 years- is a fool's wager...

Is Pence dangerous? Yes, he would be a disaster, especially domestically- economic and social inequality would worsen dramatically, rights would be curtailed- perhaps he would be crippled by the stain of Trump's removal, lessening the damage he can do- perhaps not... but I do not think that Pence is certifiably insane- that he would launch nukes at the drop of a hat, that he would intentionally work to cause the collapse of all the institutions that protect us against dictatorship and fascism.

Pence would work within the institutions to do as much harm as he can- I don't think he would blow up the institutions and loot the corpses. Perhaps I am wrong- but for now Trump is the the immediate clear and present danger, he is what we must address NOW.

Only by aggressively resisting this cancer can the patient possibly be saved, or at least die with some dignity.