Donald Trump's two-time running mate offers his most forceful repudiation of his ex-boss to date.

As Trump's vice president, Pence offered evangelical ‘balance’ to White House but broke ranks to certify 2020 election.

Pence joins a crowded field of Republican candidates, led by Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

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Mike Pence and Chris Christie are each expected to announce their 2024 presidential candidacy this week. As the Republican primary field continues to grow, so do candidates’ awkward attempts to prove that they’re just regular people. Below, I explore the fraught nature of “dressing for the job you want” on the campaign trail.

First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:

The murder rate is suddenly falling. Get rid of the debt ceiling once and for all. How parking ruined everything Americana Cosplay

One of the most memorable scenes from HBO’s political satire Veep is an unsettlingly realistic campaign spot. Jonah Ryan, a WASPy, weaselly Capitol Hill aide, attempts to rebrand himself as an everyman when he runs for Congress. In lieu of his navy blazer and khakis, Jonah dons a flannel shirt and a puffy vest, and chops wood (poorly). He looks uncomfortable merely holding the axe, let alone swinging it.

I thought of Jonah this past weekend as former Vice President Mike Pence rolled into Des Moines, Iowa, straddling a Harley-Davidson. Pence mugged for the cameras in a black leather vest, jeans, and cowboy boots. To be fair, Pence was the only presidential candidate who actually rode a motorcycle to Senator Joni Ernst’s annual “Roast and Ride” charity glad-handing event, so he deserves a little bit of credit. But the photos were, well, quite funny. Pence has spent years cultivating a distinct personal image—that of a stoic, soft-spoken churchgoer who never has a hair out of place. Picture Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider, then imagine his exact opposite: That’s Pence.

Still … at least he didn’t autograph a Bible! Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida was also in Iowa this past weekend, and he graciously signed someone’s copy of the good book. (His wife, Casey, was photographed in her own motorcycle leather, adorned with an image of Florida, a gator, and the phrase Where Woke Goes to Die. She and her husband took an SUV, not a hog, to the event.)

As his campaign gets under way, DeSantis is also undergoing a Jonah-like evolution. He holds degrees from Harvard and Yale, yet he’s still learning basic retail-politics skills. My colleague Mark Leibovich recently observed DeSantis up close on the trail in New Hampshire. While working the rope line at an American Legion hall, DeSantis “smiled for the camera like the dentist had just asked him to bite down on a blob of putty; like he was trying to make a mold, or to fit one,” Leibovich wrote.

To be sure, the performative “I’m just like you” campaign pitch is by no means a purely Republican phenomenon. Remember in 2015, when Hillary Clinton informed us that she was “just chillin’ in Cedar Rapids”? Or way back in 2003, when John Kerry tried to court Philadelphia voters by visiting the divey cheesesteak mecca Pat’s and doomed his campaign by asking for Swiss cheese instead of Whiz?

In the last presidential election cycle, after being dogged by accusations of hiding from the coronavirus pandemic in his basement, Joe Biden released his own how-do-you-like-me-now campaign ad. As an electric guitar strummed in the background, Biden revved the engine of his convertible Corvette Stingray, then tore off down what looked like a very safe private road, ostensibly in support of an electric-vehicle future. The spot unintentionally called to mind the 2009 Onion headline “Shirtless Biden Washes Trans Am in White House Driveway.”

I asked my colleague Amanda Mull, who spent 10 years in the fashion industry and writes about consumerism, why presidential candidates lean into the same form of über-Americana year after year. “Politics is a strange industry full of fundamentally strange people who mostly don’t quite realize how odd they are,” she said.

She went on, “This working-man Americana cosplay is, on some level, an acknowledgement that politicians exist separately from regular people, and it’s an attempt to bridge a gap on an aesthetic level that they are incapable of bridging interpersonally. But they’re weird guys, so the end result is the exact opposite—they look so uncomfortable, so uncanny in their little jeans and boots, that they might as well have just landed from outer space.”

The current Republican front-runner, Donald Trump, skipped Iowa altogether this past weekend, but rest assured, he’s been busy doing his own pandering. Last week, Trump proposed a yearlong “Salute to America 250” party to be held at the Iowa state fairgrounds in celebration of the country’s coming semiquincentennial in 2026. “Together we will build it, and they will come,” Trump proclaimed. You could virtually smell the rising corn.

Related:

Ron DeSantis’s joyless ride Why won’t Trump’s rivals just say it? Today’s News A sonic boom was heard in the D.C. area after military jets scrambled to respond to a private flight crossing into restricted airspace. The plane was determined not to be a threat. The California attorney general is investigating whether a group of migrants that, on Friday, was flown to California on a private plane was sent by the state of Florida, calling it “state-sanctioned kidnapping.” The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has sued Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, on allegations that the company is mishandling customer funds and lying to regulators and investors. Evening Read Illustration by Jo Imperio

In Defense of Humanity

By Adrienne LaFrance

On July 13, 1833, during a visit to the Cabinet of Natural History at the Jardin des Plantes, in Paris, Ralph Waldo Emerson had an epiphany. Peering at the museum’s specimens—butterflies, hunks of amber and marble, carved seashells—he felt overwhelmed by the interconnectedness of nature, and humankind’s place within it.

The experience inspired him to write “The Uses of Natural History,” and to articulate a philosophy that put naturalism at the center of intellectual life in a technologically chaotic age—guiding him, along with the collective of writers and radical thinkers known as transcendentalists, to a new spiritual belief system. Through empirical observation of the natural world, Emerson believed, anyone could become “a definer and map-maker of the latitudes and longitudes of our condition”—finding agency, individuality, and wonder in a mechanized age.

Read the full article.

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P.S.

The NBA Finals are tied at one game apiece, and if you’re not already watching, you still have time to tune in. The Denver Nuggets are vying for their first title in franchise history. Hardly anybody expected their opponents, the No. 8 seed Miami Heat, to make it this far, but their star, Jimmy Butler, is one of the greatest competitors in all of basketball. He’s going up against the mesmerizing Jamal Murray and the two-time MVP Nikola Jokić, who, despite his 6-foot-11-inch stature, can dribble and pass like a guard. Game 3 is Wednesday, and the series will go to at least five (hopefully more).

— John

Katherine Hu contributed to this newsletter.

Pence will challenge his former boss Donald Trump, who is the clear Republican frontrunner so far.

The lack of charges in the probe removes one headache for Pence before his anticipated presidential campaign launch.