Donald Trump’s cast-off wingman made his second public speech since leaving office, speaking in New Hampshire on Thursday. Mike Pence, still trying to figure out his place in the Republican Party after that whole “hang Mike Pence” chant from Trump supporters during their Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, tried to walk the line between member in good standing of Trump’s party and principled guy who supported the peaceful transition of power and would do it again if he had the chance. The two don’t sit well together, safe to say. But don’t cry for Pence, because he can always turn to culture war and racism to try to improve his standing with Republicans, and that’s just what he did.

“I know the governor said he didn’t come here to bash the current administration. Well, I did,” Pence said, laughing (because, like most top Republicans, he only laughs when on the attack). “So buckle up.” Pence even took his attacks on Democrats into his discussion of the attack on the Capitol.

Here’s what he had to say about Trump’s role in that day: “You know, President Trump and I have spoken many times since we left office. And I don’t know if we’ll ever see eye to eye on that day. But I will always be proud of what we accomplished for the American people over the last four years.”

He’s literally hugging Trump tight in the very same moment he acknowledges that Trump will not repudiate insurrection.

Here’s what he had to say about Democrats: “And I will not allow Democrats or their allies in the media to use one tragic day to discredit the aspirations of millions of Americans, or allow Democrats or their allies in the media to distract our attention from a new administration intent on dividing our country to advance their radical agenda.” 

A deadly insurrection intended to disrupt the peaceful transition of power was “one tragic day” that we should just move on from. Getting to the bottom of who broke into the Capitol and chanted “Hang Mike Pence,” and who encouraged them to do it, is a distraction. 

But Pence knows he needs another angle to win over Trump-era Republicans—not that he’s going to be able to do that successfully, but he’s hoping. And so he went for current Republican obsessions like critical race theory. Young children are being taught in school “to be ashamed of their skin color,” Pence claimed, which he has a problem with because he’s suggesting the children in question are white. Isn’t it interesting how Republicans think that learning that white people have done anything bad ever translates to “being ashamed of their skin color”? Like, shame about skin color is the mental framework Republicans come in with, and all they can do is swap the frame from the people who have actually been taught shame about their skin color for generations to the people who never have been and still are not being taught shame.

”It is past time for America to discard the left-wing myth of systemic racism,” which is fast, considering that systemic racism as a widely discussed concept has been around for a fraction of the time that systemic racism has been a reality in the U.S. 

Here’s the thing about systemic racism. If you insist, as Pence did, that systemic racism is a “left-wing myth,” then what are you saying about the outcomes of systemic racism? What are you saying about racial inequities in our society? You are, in effect, saying—Mike Pence is saying—that racial disparities are the fault of the people who suffer from them.

Pence is saying that a racial wealth gap in which Black households have a median wealth of $24,100 while white households have a median wealth of $189,100 is because Black people did something wrong, or were something wrong, not because of slavery and segregation, or redlining and continuing racist lending practices that left Black households with less wealth from homeownership over generations, or pay discrimination, or racist law enforcement practices leading to massive disparities in who’s stopped by police and arrested and imprisoned. For that matter, he’s saying those racist law enforcement practices are not in fact racist and that Black men deserve to be incarcerated at a rate of 2,272 per 100,000 while white men are incarcerated at a rate of 392 per 100,000. That’s the only translation of “systemic racism is a left-wing myth” that I can come up with, and … wow, it’s super racist. Shocking, right? Who would have expected that from a lifelong member of the far right and Donald Trump’s most assiduous ass-kisser?

Pence’s speech in New Hampshire was his second public appearance since leaving office, and his choice of states sure suggests he thinks he’s running in 2024. Which is an interesting delusion from a guy who was not that long ago hiding in fear of his life from the most enthusiastic core of his party’s base. Pence seems like he’s betting that there will be a market, in 2024, for “rabid Trumpist opposed to insurrection,” which is a tight needle to thread even without whatever animosity Trump would be likely to direct at him. But what else has he got? Like everyone else who devotes their life to sucking up to Trump, Pence got used up and discarded.