Nia-Malika Henderson: Pence is trying to teach MAGA about conservatism. Good luck

There’s a paragraph that comes early in Mike Pence’s new book, “What Conservatives Believe: Rediscovering the Conservative Conscience,” that hangs over most of what follows.

“Although things did not end well between us, I will always be proud of the record of the Trump-Pence administration and believe Goldwater and Reagan would be, too,” the former vice president writes. “Trump’s first-term achievement fueled his incredible comeback in 2024. This time, I watched from the sidelines, amazed at Trump’s resilience and eager to see what he might accomplish with another four years.”

That things did not “end well” between Trump and Pence is, of course, putting it mildly. Pence, who became a Republican because of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, was driven from his own party by Trump, who on Jan. 6, 2021, directed rioters to the Capitol to overturn the 2020 election, which was free and fair. The mob chanted “Hang Mike Pence,” a phrase that Trump reportedly has no issue with.

That pretty much sums up Trump’s tectonic transformation of the conservative movement and the Republican Party over the last decade. It’s now a cult-of-personality party of people who believe in whatever Trump believes, leaving one to wonder what was there to begin with and what’s left now.

Pence doesn’t dwell on any of this. Instead, Pence tries to write a treatise on bedrock conservative principles that he believes are still relevant to the GOP and that – in a post-Trump party – can find purchase again. The book, out today, is a kind of refresher course on GOP ideas from days gone by: restrictions on abortion, “peace through strength,” free trade, law and order, school choice, parents’ rights, the traditional family, federalism, civility and character, all with Christianity and the Constitution as guiding lights.

Books by political figures are always less about the content and much more about what they signal for the author’s ambitions. In the final chapter, Pence, whose previous White House campaign lasted just four months, says he isn’t sure whether he will run for office again. But he wants to be a conservative thought leader who successfully steers the GOP away from the president’s brand of tribalism and populism. That is no easy task, particularly for Pence, a mild, pastoral figure in an era that demands main-character energy.

In a sign that Pence’s resurrection project has become increasingly steep, a January 2026 Gallup poll showed that 35% of Americans described their views as “very conservative” or “conservative” compared to 28% who describe their views as “very liberal” or “liberal.” The seven-point gap is the smallest dating back to 1992.

The book’s title is a callback to another conservative, Barry Goldwater, who wrote the 1960 classic “The Conscience of a Conservative.” Goldwater’s tome revived the conservative movement. Pence, who now leads a think tank called Advancing American Freedom, hopes his book and his record of governing in Indiana and by Trump’s side will do the same.

In the book, Pence argues that “Americans are confused about what it means to be a conservative” because of Trump’s second term, and admits that he is disillusioned and disappointed by Trump’s embrace of right-wing populism and big-government Republicanism. But landing that argument is a challenge given Pence’s attempt to burnish Trump’s first term, which now feels like a distant memory.

And indeed, Pence himself comes across as a man from another time.

A few months ago I chatted with Pence at the Bloomberg office in Washington, D.C. I asked him what he thought about Vice President JD Vance’s seeming head of steam as the front runner for 2028. He downplayed such early polling, in what seemed to be a veiled dig at Vance, whose path to the nomination is increasingly no sure thing.

Pence also told me that 2028 will be figuring out what the party is for, before settling on who the party is for. But that ideas-first fantasy doesn’t fit the personality-first reality of today’s politics.

With his book and his growing think tank, Pence imagines himself as a Reagan-style kingmaker in the post-Trump era. But Trump is still the king. The president wields a tight, emotional grip on the Republican party. Pence, while well-intentioned, is anathema to the party’s Trumpist base. He isn’t the figure who can drag the party back to its foundational roots.

As former House Speaker John Boehner often said, a leader without followers is just a man out for a walk.

Nia-Malika Henderson is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former senior political reporter for CNN and the Washington Post, she has covered politics and campaigns for almost two decades.