Case in point, New York Times opinion columnist Frank Bruni, who is freaking out over the possibility of Trump being impeached and Mike Pence becoming President.

If you look at some of his recent articles, you find a paean to Maryland’s Republican Governor, that the real problem with Trump is that his supporters are excessively partisan, how, the political center is sexy (his term, not mine), and that we should not inconvenience politicians doing unspeakable evil while they dine.

But Mike Pence, Bruni is running around with his hair on fire over that:

There are problems with impeaching Donald Trump. A big one is the holy terror waiting in the wings.

That would be Mike Pence, who mirrors the boss more than you realize. He’s also self-infatuated. Also a bigot. Also a liar. Also cruel.

To that brimming potpourri he adds two ingredients that Trump doesn’t genuinely possess: the conviction that he’s on a mission from God and a determination to mold the entire nation in the shape of his own faith, a regressive, repressive version of Christianity. Trade Trump for Pence and you go from kleptocracy to theocracy.

I agree with Bruni that Pence is an absolute horror show.

He is the Handmaiden’s Tale made flesh.

But this is not what has diverted Bruni from his normal invocations toward bipartisan kumbayas, it is the fact that Mike Pence is a very unique and personal threat to him, because while his bigotries are legion,  Mike Pence hates gays with a particular ferocity, and Frank Bruni is gay.

It’s why Bruni finds Pence scarier than Trump, because it hits him where he lives.

This is a normal human reaction, but as a journalist, Bruni should have known that there was a real possibility that the would end up on the hate hit parade when he was concern trolling over Robert De Niro or the comfort of child snatchers and pathological liars at restaurants.