Looks like Mike Pence wants to salvage his reputation for 2024: Hell to the nope

One of the most enduring Trump-era internet memes is "I hope you find someone who looks at you the way Mike Pence looks at Donald Trump." Trevor Noah's "Daily Show" has had a lot of fun with it:

And it's not just the adoring gaze. When Pence speaks, it is invariably in the most servile tones, always suggesting that he has never had a thought in his head that "this president" didn't "direct" him to have. He is the most loyal of all the Trump loyalists, a man who was saved from an ignominious failure as Indiana governor in 2016 and turned into the president's personal political manservant.

Up until this year, Pence had managed to be nothing more than a cipher in the Trump administration, performing the patented furrowed-brow, look-of-love act at public appearances and not much else. The speculation was that his empty-suit role may have saved him. By doing nothing except standing next to Trump and smiling benevolently, he might be a rare survivor of the Trump White House and might still have a political career after it's over.

I never thought that was possible. Pence's close association with Trump has destroyed him, and if he runs for president he will be the Trump administration's sin-eater. The base will have to make someone suffer for Trump's failure, and Pence was always top of the list. Unfortunately for him, his role as the "pandemic czar" has probably sealed that fate.

Had Pence been left to his regular houseboy routine he might have slipped into obscurity if Trump loses the election in November. But because he was assigned the thankless role of supposedly heading the coronavirus task force he's now the face of the administration's failure, right alongside the man he stares at so dreamily.