Pence presents his vision of post-Trump Republican roadmap

Ever since the Capitol unrest of Jan. 6, 2021 -- and perhaps even before that -- the relationship between former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence has been complicated and fraught with bitterness.

Pence, for his part, seems to have taken the rancor with Trump to a new level last week by omitting the GOP presidential nominee's name altogether in his new articulation of a Republican platform he hopes will propel the party into the future, as the Daily Mail reports.

Pence's manifesto

Writing about his vision for the GOP in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Pence makes clear his hopes for a post-Trump Republican Party rooted in traditional conservative positions and free from what he called “protectionist tariffs” and “isolationism.”

Pence's foray into the opinion section has prompted speculation that he is eyeing a return to politics after withdrawing his own failed bid for the White House early in the 2024 campaign season.

According to the former VP, “From both an ideological and a pragmatic perspective, the wise choice for Republican candidates would be to stay on the course we began in 2017,” something from which he has previously suggested that Trump strayed.

Offering advice to fellow conservatives seeking office this fall, Pence wrote, “As down-ballot Republicans approach the homestretch of this election, they should promise to deliver peace through strength, not isolationism and the abandonment of American leadership.”

Seeming to take aim at a key part of Trump's declared economic agenda, Pence added, “Republicans should pledge to deliver better trade deals that increase prosperity, not protectionist tariffs that make products more expensive.”

Animosity lingers

Pence's most recent digs -- even if by omission -- at Trump himself should come as no surprise, given the former VP's announcement last month that he would not endorse the Republican nominee's run for the White House, as The Hill noted at the time.

While he also declined to endorse Kamala Harris, Pence said that his own advocacy group would instead invest $20 million to help influence the conservative agenda and steer it away from the type of populism he declared “unmoored to conservative principles.”

He went on to say that he could not “endorse this growing abandonment of our allies on the world stage that's taken hold in parts of our party. I cannot endorse ignoring our national debt that reached $35 trillion just in the last week. I cannot support marginalizing the right to life in our party as we saw in our national platform.”

Addressing his sustained bitterness about Trump and Jan. 6, Pence said back in March, “I believe anyone that puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States and anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again.”

Whether Pence has anywhere near the political capital or goodwill remaining within his party to produce the sort of paradigm shift he believes is necessary, however, remains an open question, particularly if Trump prevails at the polls in a few weeks' time.