Look, I've been a Republican for 30 years and voted for Trump twice. January 6 was horrifying to watch unfold. Not because of one moment or one person, but because the entire ecosystem - the rhetoric, the conspiracy theories, the deliberate spread of false election claims - created conditions where political violence became thinkable. Trump's Manhattan conviction on 34 felony counts, the fake electors scheme, the Raffensperger call asking him to 'find' votes, the classified documents situation - these aren't partisan witch hunts. They're documented facts with serious legal consequences. What troubles me most is that large segments of the party have chosen to excuse or minimize all of this rather than reckon with it. If Pence had been killed, would some supporters finally break ranks? Maybe a few more. But I suspect we'd see the same pattern we've already seen: immediate denial, followed by 'he deserved it,' followed by 'it was actually Antifa.' The human capacity for rationalization when your political identity is bound up in one person is frightening to witness from the inside.

I think you're asking the wrong question. The real issue is whether Trump would've finally faced real consequences from his own party instead of just talk. And the answer's probably no - they'd still find a way to justify it or blame Pelosi.

The premise of this question is flawed because it assumes Trump supporters operate from a shared reality with the rest of us. They wouldn't admit something was wrong because they've already constructed an entire epistemic bubble where January 6 either didn't happen the way it's being portrayed, was justified, or was a false flag operation. No hypothetical changes that. What matters is structural - campaign finance reform, addressing algorithmic radicalization, actual accountability through courts (which is happening to some degree), and rebuilding shared media ecosystems. Pence dying wouldn't create a sudden moral awakening. It would just generate more conspiracy theories. The question itself participates in the fantasy that there's some magic threshold of evidence that would cause a model shift, when really we're looking at entrenched tribal politics, decades of partisan sorting, and genuine epistemic breakdown.

You're assuming facts not in evidence. The 'mob' narrative conveniently ignores that Capitol Police opened barriers and let people in. And Pence wasn't 'found' - he was secured immediately. This whole hypothetical is designed to make Trump look bad no matter what.