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Former Vice President Mike Pence made headlines during his stop in New Hampshire, as he gave his most extensive comments to date about the Jan. 6. insurrection at the U.S. Capitol while delivering the keynote address Thursday night at the Hillsborough County GOPs annual Lincoln-Reagan awards dinner and fundraiser.

The former vice president considered by pundits to be a likely 2024 Republican White House contender has been in a precarious position among some the GOP base since the storming of the Capitol by right wing extremists and other supporters of then-President Donald Trump aiming to disrupt congressional certification of now-President Joe Bidens Electoral College victory over Trump.

Pence was at the Capitol at the time it was attacked, overseeing the joint session of Congress. By following his Constitution duties instead of bending to Trumps wishes and overturn the results, Pence has endured the wrath of the former president and some of Trumps most devout loyalists and supporters.

In his speech at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Manchester, Pence who along with members of Congress was forced to move to secure rooms while the Capitol was stormed called the attack a dark and tragic day in American history. But he emphasized that same day we reconvened the Congress and did our duty under the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

Pence, Trumps loyal right hand man the past four years, pointed to his now frayed relationship with the former president.

I dont know if well ever see eye to eye about that day, he said.

He quickly added that he remainsproud of the administrations goals and actions.

I will always be proud of what we accomplished for the American people over the last four years, Pence said tothe sold out audience of more than 360 Granite State conservative leaders and activists, who rose to their feet in applause.

Pence alluded to the unsuccessful push by congressional Democrats to pass legislation setting up a Jan. 6 commission to investigation the insurrection which was thwarted by GOP leadership in the U.S. Senate.

I will not allow the Democrats and their allies in the media to use one tragic day to discredit the aspirations of millions of Americans, he said.

Longtime New Hampshire based national GOP strategist David Carney, who attended the dinner, told the Monitor that it was smart for Pence to spotlight his differences with Trump over the insurrection while equally highlighting the Trump-Pence administration achievements.

Everyone I talked to in the crowd after the fact thought it was a great way to do it, added Carney, a veteran of Republican presidential campaigns for more than three decades.

Pence received roughly a dozen standing ovations during his speech, which included biting attacks on Biden and his administration. He blasted the current president for failed leadership and accused the Biden administration of incompetence, saying I dont think the left hand knows what the far left hand is doing.

The former vice president also dove directly in to the nations culture wars by attacking critical race theory, which aims to definesystemic racism as part of American society and takes aim at the beliefs that allow it to exist. Its become the latest cultural flash point, as numerous Republican governors and lawmakers across the country move to prevent it from being taught in schools. At least five GOP-controlled state legislatures have passed bans on critical race theory or related topics in recent months, and conservatives in at least nine other states are pressing for similar measures.

The former vice president charged that one of the most disturbing developments of the past few months has been the Biden Administrations whole-hearted embrace of the radical lefts all-encompassing assault on American culture and values. Under the Biden Administration, patriotic education has been replaced with political indoctrination.

It is time for America to discard the left-wing myth of systemic racism once and for all. America is not a racist nation, Pence declared to thunderous applause.

Pence was introduced by his good friend and fellow Republican Gov. Chris Sununu.

Sununu said that the former vice president is first and foremost my friend.

Hes just a good guy. His heart is absolutely in the right place, Sununu said.

Sununu spoke hours after he sparked a political firestorm by saying he wouldnt veto New Hampshires next two year budget over language that would ban abortions after 24 weeks, with no exceptions for rape or incest. Sununus comments, made during an interview with radio host Chris Ryan on New Hampshire Today, were quickly condemned by Granite State Democrats.

As Pence was meeting with Sununu at the State House in Concord on Thursday afternoon, New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley took aim at both Republicans.

Mike Pence is one of the most anti-choice politicians in America, and his extreme agenda is so toxic in New Hampshire that he and Donald Trump lost the state twice. Its not a coincidence that Governor Sununu came out in favor of an abortion ban in New Hampshire on the same day that hes meeting with Pence. Pence and Sununus anti-choice positions might play well with the most extreme elements of the Republican party, but it is wildly out of step with New Hampshire, Buckley charged.

A couple of hours later, an energized Sununu topped his comments at the Hillsborough County GOP dinner by touting that this state is crushing it. We really are.

After spotlighting the states number one ranking in some COVID safety and economic metrics, the governor emphasized that this is the place to be. It really is.

And Sununu once again made his case for smaller government.

Its not about getting a bigger and better government system, he said.Im the head of government and Im telling you you shouldnt trust government. Trust yourselves. Trust your cities and towns. Trust local control.

Pences trip to New Hampshire is sparking more speculation that hell seek the GOP presidential nomination in 2024. Its the former vice presidents second stop this year in one of the early voting primary states. Pence in April traveled to South Carolina, which holds the first southern contest and votes right after New Hampshire in the Republican nominating calendar, to give his first post-Trump presidency address. It was also the first in-person visit to New Hampshire this year by any of the potential GOP White House hopefuls.

Carney noted that the work that the vice presidents doing here, helping out building local parties, helping candidates across the country. That will really pay off for him if he decides to move forward going into the 2024 cycle.

Whatever candidate wants to be president has to focus their efforts on 22 and making sure we take House back, we pick up the Senate, we hold our governorships. Thats what will make the difference on who will be in the first round of top tier candidates, he said.

And former state House Speaker Bill OBrien, who remains a leader on the right, said the conservative community is a broad community even in New Hampshire, stretching from libertarians to more traditional conservatives. A whole bunch of that community would look at a fellow like Mike Pence and say hes us. Hes somebody that we could clearly come behind.

The Hillsborough GOP told the Monitor that Thursday nights dinner was its largest and most lucrative ever.

The Rockingham GOP announced on Friday that another potential Republican 2024 contender Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas will be in New Hampshire on July 17 to headline a breakfast at the Atkinson Country Club.

Cotton made two in-person campaign swings in New Hampshire last summer and autumn, to stump on behalf of Trump and down ballot Republicans in the 2020 elections. Early this year he gave a virtual speech during the New Hampshire GOPs annual convention, which was held on-line amid the pandemic.

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On the trail: Why Mike Pence's speech mattered - Concord Monitor

With or without Donald J. Trump atop the party, the Republican strategy for the 2022 elections and beyond virtually assures race and racism will be central to political debate for years to come.

Why it matters: In an era when every topic seems to turn quickly to race, Republicans see this most divisive issue as either political necessity or an election-winner including as it relates to voting laws, critical race theory, big-city crime, immigration and political correctness.

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The big picture: These topics pit the mostly white GOP against the very diverse Democratic Party. It's unfolding in local school boards, national politics and on social media.

An Axios-Ipsos poll on race relations last month shows this starkly, Axios managing editor Margaret Talev writes:

There's a massive gulf between how Republicans and Democrats view race a 66-point gap on whether the U.S. must continue making changes to give Black Americans equal rights to white Americans.

There's a 48-point gap on whether the events of the past year led to a realization there's still a lot of racism in the U.S. and a 49-point gap on whether the protests were good for society.

Of all demographic groups, white people were the most resistant to structural reforms to address institutional racism a gap driven by Republican sentiment.

Chris Jackson of Ipsos Public Affairs says the GOP focus on race looks counterproductive at first, since a majority of Americans favor continued efforts to equalize the playing field for Black Americans.

But the pollster said a closer look reveals that the GOP's focus is more strategic around specific ideas that drive culture wars and could potentially move swing voters.

Here's where the GOP sees an opening: In our poll, just one in five white independents supports the "defund the police" movement.

Half of white independents say the media exaggerates stories of police brutality and racism.

Two in five white independents say social policies, including affirmative action, discriminate unfairly against white people.

Those issues prime this slice of the electorate for messaging that paints Democrats as extreme on issues around race.

Between the lines: Republicans have at times played on racial fears for decades. It became more explicit in the Trump era.

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Race central to Republican strategy for 2022 and beyond - Yahoo News

(Al Drago/Reuters)

Americans have historically lacked strong national cohesion, Samuel Goldman argues in After Nationalism, so lets aim for comity among diverse communities living together.

After Nationalism: Being American in an Age of Division, by Samuel Goldman (University of Pennsylvania Press, 208 pages, $24.95)

During World War II, three captured Germans escaped a prison camp in Tennessee and fled into the Appalachian Mountains. They found a cabin with water, but the elderly lady who lived there warned them to leave. They ignored her, so she shot and killed all three. As David Hackett Fischer recounts in Albions Seed, an angry sheriff asked her why she killed them. She bawled and said she wouldnt have done so if she had known they were Nazis. She insisted, I thought they was Yankees!

Much as Albions Seed describes diversity and divisions in America that began long before the Civil War and continued long after, Samuel Goldman in his book After Nationalism makes the historical case that Americans normally have not had a single national identity. By the time of the Revolution, for example, divisions among various groups were just as deep as todays, or deeper. Since independence, citizens have bickered over who we are the essential question of nationalism, which focuses on a people with a strong common identity yet every attempt to maintain a cohesive identity has failed. Today in this concise book, Goldman responds to commentators who believe that citizens must return to some overarching identity and purpose. He argues that this task is difficult when the conditions that allowed previous unity no longer exist. Moreover, nationalists do not reasonably explain programs that could reignite a meaningful shared identity. In contrast, he favors the opposite course accepting increased localism with smaller communities for a diverse citizenry.

While demonstrating how a cohesive identity is difficult to establish, Goldman describes three nationalisms that tried but failed to unify Americans: covenantal, crucible, and creedal. First, covenantal nationalism drew upon Calvinist theology and insisted that the American nation descended from the Puritans and the Mayflower, not Jamestown or elsewhere. Most influential in New England and nearby areas, it compared America to biblical Israel and said that the new righteous republic had a providential purpose. Despite their relatively small numbers, proponents of this Anglo-Protestant nationalism wrote profusely and long influenced academia and the WASP establishment. But it asked non-Yankees to abandon too much of their history and culture to be considered truly American, and few beyond New Englands sphere of influence believed this national story. For instance, Southerners rejected its national holiday, Thanksgiving, until the mid 20th century, when it no longer conveyed a Yankee message. By 1815, immigration from non-Anglos and non-Protestants, combined with American expansion westward, ensured that covenantal nationalism could never become the countrys dominant vision. Some on the right today argue that Americans should return to this Anglo-Protestant outlook, but Goldman offers minimum hope for their ambitions.

As Americans settled the Western frontier, crucible nationalism suggested that the endeavor would turn diverse people into a cohesive group. Unlike covenantal nationalism, which looked to an idealized past, crucible nationalism looked hopefully toward Americas future. While it was open to a Christian interpretation, the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson offered non-Christian variations. But Goldman explains how this nationalism, too, failed. The Civil War exposed Americans deep divisions, and the abandonment of Reconstruction allowed Southern whites to reestablish racist governance. Meanwhile, 12 million immigrants, many of whom retained their culture, joined the roughly 35 million already in the U.S. As diverse ethnic groups concentrated in cities and competed against one another, Americans realized that a melting pot would not turn the multitudes into a single nation.

Goldman then describes creedal nationalism, which Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln embodied, though postbellum America rejected it. In this interpretation, a diverse citizenry united around an American creed that embraced the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and other documents. Though academics discussed the notion previously, Americans did not embrace it until they waged a world war against fascism and a Cold War against communism. Rallying around liberal democracy, Americans fought totalitarianism abroad and pursued racial equality at home, and they viewed various injustices as deviations from the American ideal that reform would eliminate. But maintaining this nationalism required coercion and sustained effort, as Goldman documents, and cracks appeared by the time of the Vietnam War and the resurgence of group identities. Observers may conclude that events of the 1960s and later caused the deterioration of American unity. But the decline appears to have occurred mostly because national cohesion, abnormally high in the 1940s and 1950s, has been reverting to its historical mean.

Despite his sympathy toward nationalists, Goldman offers them little hope. The brief peak of creedal nationalism required significant maintenance during two global ideological conflicts, and Goldman doubts that Americans have the will or ability to establish similar unity again. Given the realities of U.S. history and culture, he concludes that Americans are living after nationalism. In this environment, citizens argue over their shared identity and have contradictory ideas about the nation. They fight ferociously in an intractable culture war over their history, which, according to Goldman, cannot define a homogenized American identity. Many believe that unity would reemerge if only they, or others, better understood America. But the book says that this hope is unrealistic, and that the most likely outcome is the opposite of a coherent nationalism diverse communities living together.

While modern societies may think they can choose national cohesion, in practice most probably cannot in absence of coercion or without undesirable consequences. Events beyond their control often drive the plot. After all, creedal nationalism surged not because academics argued persuasively but because foreign actors forced America into ideological conflicts. So Goldmans recommendation of increased localism is worth considering. He admits that this vision is a gamble that could fail, but the other options have worse prospects.

Those who dislike Goldmans conclusion should nonetheless understand his skepticism and explain programs that might revive nationalism when all other attempts have failed. For instance, he says that the military draft helped to solidify creedal nationalism. Would nationalists consider a draft for the sake of national unity? Or would Americans vote out anyone who tried?

Creedal nationalism is a reasonable vision, and Goldman explains its historical context. But his skepticism about it reaffirms my preference for using patriotism instead of nationalism to describe my loyalty to America, as nation raises tricky questions about group identity. Unless referencing identity or purpose, I dont see convincing reasons to use the word nationalism when patriotism suffices. Goldman likewise calls himself a patriot, a term common in America long before nationalism, which wasnt widespread until after the Civil War. With a distinction between patriotism and nationalism today, patriots could seek their countrys peace and prosperity and care for fellow citizens without worrying much about identity. In contrast, a nationalist push to create a homogenized unity or understanding of America, whether from the left or from the right, could result in persecution, intolerance, or increased disunity. Or nationalist logic could justify dissolving the United States if Americans realize that, as Goldman argues, they cannot share a strong, meaningful identity.

In demonstrating how American national identities have morphed over generations, After Nationalism does offer the hope at least that the country can endure. Divisions have always existed whether culture wars in recent decades, differences among the colonies, or animosity between the North and the South or between the Eastern seaboard and the rural interior. Despite such difficulties, the United States and its democracy have survived, even when we have disagreed on who we were.

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Sympathy for Nationalists, but Little Hope - National Review

In his recent letter, Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., itemized many concerns I share about American culture today. But what impressed me most about Cramers piece was how eagerly he missed his own point: at the heart of cancel culture is coercion, an anti-American impulse to bend others to our will. And coercion comes in all shapes and sizes, sometimes wrapping itself in bills like the senators own Fair Access to Banking Act, a shortsighted attempt to force banks to invest in oil and gas.

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We call coercion cancel culture when its a Twitter mob trying to unseat a CEO. We call it authoritarianism when its the government forcing businesses to bake a wedding cake, shut their doors for nine months, ordare I say itlend to industries they don't want to lend to. Praising freedom of speech in one breath, the senator attacks freedom of association in the next, arguing that banks are too caught up in the culture wars to know a good investment when they see one.

Its fair to point out that banks are uniquely positioned in the American economy, relying heavily on the feds promise to catch them if they fall. If you squint your eyes, you can even imagine why someone would think financial institutions should be treated like public utilities. But if the senator falls into this camp, he should use a few asterisks the next time he gushes about the beauty of supply and demand. For all his talk of creditworthiness and lawfulness being the purest standards of lending, I don't imagine he'd object to a bank refusing to lend to a (lawful) adult entertainment company or a (creditworthy) abortion clinic. Banks should be allowed to discriminate as they see fit, whether because of moral objections or because their investment has become a political football. Its our industrys job, not the governments, to tell them why they shouldnt.

But perhaps oil and gas deserves special treatment. Is it because were so critical to America's standard of living? If were criticaland we arethe pendulum will swing back to us. That's how capitalism works. Its the iterative, messy process of businesses falling down and picking themselves back up again until the consumer figures out what it wants. Capitalism will bruise our knees, but we must resist the temptation to use a government-sponsored crutch. Those crutches always come with strings attached.

Americans love our abundant energy, but not the men who provide it, Russell Gold observed in his book "The Boom." Hes right; our industry is not well-liked. Can we force the public to like us? No, but we can work harder to tell our story and communicate our value to the American public. Thats how freedom works.

Alma Cook is an R&B singer and the owner of Cook Compliance Solutions in Williston, N.D.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Forum's editorial board nor Forum ownership.

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Letter: Sen. Cramer's finance bill is its own form of cancel culture - INFORUM

President Joe Biden's call to expand public support of child care in his joint address to Congress puts a spotlight on an issue that has been a subject of growing bipartisan cooperation. In recent decades, Republicans have increasingly embraced the idea that government can play a greater role in providing quality child care for working families, responding to the reality that nearly two-thirds of U.S. households have no stay-at-home parent. As Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Parson put it in his January State of the State address, "Our children are the workforce of tomorrow if we are to truly make a difference in their lives, it starts with early childhood development." Two of the first states to adopt broad public preschool for 4-year-olds were Georgia and Oklahoma, in the 1990s, and the state with the highest-rated system, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research, is Alabama.

But the country now faces a realignment of the politics of child care. Two paths await: On one, the economic and educational imperative of child care integrates itself into the American psyche, expanding gender equity and ensuring that public funding of the early years becomes just as expected as public funding of the schooling years. On the other, child care becomes another front in the culture wars, as one camp bucks against perceived government intrusion into the private realm and onetime allies retreat into their respective corners.

The threat of a breakdown became clear soon after Biden's address, when author and rumored Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance tweeted that "'universal day care' is class war against normal people" the "normal people" being those who prefer a care arrangement involving a parent. Vance was then on Tucker Carlson's show repeating these claims to a wide audience.

This is not fringe posturing. In the GOP response to Biden's address, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina warned that the president's plan would "put Washington even more in the middle of your life from the cradle to college." Scott's Senate colleague Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., was less coy when she tweeted an old article about the Soviet Union's child care system with the comment "You know who else liked universal day care." In March, Idaho rejected a $6 million federal child care grant over the objections of business groups partially because state lawmakers expressed concern over children being indoctrinated by the government.

This view is a throwback to the so-called "traditional values" loudly espoused by conservatives decades ago. In 1971, President Richard Nixon vetoed the Comprehensive Child Development Act, which would have created a national day care system, saying that it "would commit the vast moral authority of the National Government to the side of communal approaches to child rearing [and] against the family-centered approach."

Since the turn of the millennium, however, two threads pulled the parties closer together on the issue. The first was acceptance of the fact that, like it or not, mothers of young children had entered the workforce in large numbers and were not going anywhere. While certain populations of American women have always worked, less than 40% of mothers with children under age 5 were in the labor force around the time of Nixon's veto; since the late 1990s, that figure has hovered around two-thirds.

The second thread was emerging brain science showing that early childhood experiences, including child care, are foundational to later academic and life outcomes. Republicans were therefore able to back increased child care funding on economic grounds: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been a vocal supporter, and the Trump White House held a high-profile child care summit in December 2019.

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While Republicans face a question of whether to abandon these positions now that a Democratic president has embraced the issue, Democrats must reckon with the question of choice when it comes to stay-at-home parents.

Americans do, in fact, want a dizzying variety of care setups: secular child care centers, faith-based options, home-based day cares, public prekindergarten, minding by relatives, care from a parent. These preferences can shift with children's ages and family circumstances, and vary among demographics. While Biden's child care proposals are optional and inclusive of all types of external care, they are silent on stay-at-home parents.

The significant share of families that want a degree of parental care and the fact that many families struggle financially because they have traded child care costs for reduced income has led some on both sides of the aisle to call for a home-care allowance (on top of the recently expanded child tax credit, which is untethered to care). Paying stay-at-home parents is a concept with left-wing roots, although it has been a source of controversy in feminist circles because so much of the pressure to stay home is likely to fall on women. Nordic nations such as Finland and Sweden have used home-care payments for parents who opt out of publicly supported child care. If Democrats incorporated such an option into their plans, it would probably deflect some of their opponents' criticism.

The reality for the Republican Party, however, is that it is already badly underwater with women. The coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated the pain borne particularly by mothers of the lack of affordable child care. Expanded public support of child care is massively popular: An April Yahoo News/YouGov survey found 58% of Americans in favor of providing universal pre-K for all children. And 60% including 64% of women and 41% of Republicans supported increasing subsidies to reduce the cost of child care. While those numbers would surely drop under a sustained messaging assault, the support for child care appears both broad and deep.

Some conservatives, like Vance and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., have endorsed direct financial support for parents as an alternative to child care spending. While such payments could help with general child-rearing costs, Hawley's proposal of $12,000 annually for married couples (and $6,000 for single parents) is not enough to address many parents' struggles. Group care is necessarily expensive because the child-to-adult ratios must be low; experts calculate that the cost of quality care averages $15,000 to $30,000 annually per child, depending on age and location. The lack of money flowing into the child care sector explains parents' difficulty in finding slots, even before the pandemic, as well as the workforce's persistently low wages and high turnover. These schemes could carry political risk for conservative Republicans who oppose expanding social services by nudging parents to stay home.

For the past two decades, the child care debate has largely lingered below the surface as American politics became more polarized. While presidents mentioned the issue, it was not a centerpiece of any agenda, and the plans on offer were limited. The ground has now shifted, and how policymakers react will determine the politics of child care for the 2020s and beyond.

Elliot Haspel is the program officer for education policy and research at the Robins Foundation in Richmond. He is the author of "Crawling Behind: America's Childcare Crisis and How to Fix It." This piece was written for The Washington Post.

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Child care has bipartisan support. But the culture war could wreck that. - Newsday