Vice President Mike Pence calls election a choice on whether 'America remains America'

Speaking at the historic fort that inspired the national anthem, Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday said the election will define the country for generations to come.

“It's not so much whether America will be more conservative or more liberal, more Republican or more Democrat,” Pence said in his remarks during the Republican National Convention. “The choice in this election is whether America remains America.”

Pence made his convention appearance from Baltimore’s Fort McHenry, the site of an 1814 battle against the British that moved Francis Scott Key to write what became the national anthem.

A replica of the 15-star, 15-stripe “Star-Spangled Banner” that Key wrote about waved above the national monument as Pence spoke in front of an audience that included veterans.

"President Trump set our nation on a path to freedom and opportunity from the very first day of this administration," Pence said. "But Joe Biden would set America on a path of socialism and decline."

Read USA TODAY's live RNC coverage: 'The violence must stop,' Mike Pence says about on-going protests during RNC speech

Pence called the Democratic nominee “nothing more than a Trojan horse for a radical left.”

He said Biden would double down on the "very policies that are leading to unsafe streets and violence in America’s cities."

And he said if voters want a president who “falls silent when our heritage is demeaned or insulted,” Pence said, then Trump is “not your man.”

Trump has taken a tough stance on the football players who have knelt during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial injustice.

Even after the National Football League said in June that such “peaceful protests” should be allowed, Trump has said he’d rather the NFL not play if players choose to kneel in protest.

In 2017, Pence walked out of an Indianapolis Colts game after some of the San Francisco 49ers knelt during the anthem.

Takeaways from Night 3 of the RNC: Pence calls Biden a 'Trojan horse' for the radical left, Kellyanne Conway touts Trump's record

`The violence must stop'

On Wednesday, Pence called for an end to rioting and looting in his convention speech that continued a “law and order” theme set earlier in the night.

“Let me be clear: The violence must stop – whether in Minneapolis, Portland or Kenosha,” Pence said, addressing without specifics the cause of the recent turmoil in Wisconsin after the shooting of Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man shot multiple times in the back by a police officer.

"We will have law and order on the streets of this country for every American of every race and creed and color," he said.

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Pence accused Biden of not saying “one word about the violence and chaos engulfing cities across this country” when addressing the Democrats' convention last week.

Hours before Pence spoke, Biden released a video addressing the shooting of Blake . Biden said protests over police brutality are "a right and absolutely necessary” but “burning down communities is not protest. It's needless violence.”

Joel Goldstein, a vice presidential scholar, said Pence gave a classic speech of a vice president running for re-election. He attacked the opposition, praised the president and sounded themes of the campaign.

"But Vice President Pence does it on steroids with the overly-effusive praise of Trump, the embrace of the attack dog role against Biden, the exaggerated claims of the record," Goldstein said.

At one point, Pence joked that sometimes he thinks he's his mother's second-favorite candidate on the Trump/Pence ticket.

`Unprecedented' action on COVID-19

Pence's praise included lauding the "unprecedented" steps he said the president took to combat the coronavirus. And he criticized Biden for saying "no miracle is coming" to make the virus disappear.

"What Joe doesn’t seem to understand is that America is a nation of miracles," Pence said. I'm proud to report that we’re on track to have the world’s first safe, effective coronavirus vaccine by the end of this year."

Speaking to reporters earlier in the day, Democratic leaders preemptively attacked Trump's handling of the pandemic.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the “chaos presidency” of Trump has failed to contain COVID-19.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Pence’s own role as head of the administration's coronavirus task force “will be a stain on his record forever, no matter what he does afterwards.”

But Marjorie Dannenfelser, head of the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List, said Pence always comes across as a “trustworthy father.”

“He projects that sense of it's going to be okay. And here's what we're going to do. Here's the game plan, and let's move forward,” she said. “The conservative base knows them as a team.”

Pence offered plenty in his speech for the base, calling Trump "the most pro-life president in American history" and lauding his appointment of more than 200 conservative judges to federal courts.

David Axelrod, a former senior advisor to President Obama, tweeted that Pence did a good job appealing to the core of the GOP.

“He was playing from the base song sheet and I bet a bunch of them were singing along,” he said.

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`A little bit different'

Pence’s relationship with Trump has long been the subject of fascination, speculation – and some criticism.

“Hypocrisy, thy name is Mike Pence,” is the title of an ad dropped Wednesday night by the Lincoln Project, a campaign run by Republicans opposed to Trump.

Pence, who describes himself as a “Christian, conservative and Republican – in that order,” is junior partner to a twice-divorced man who has ribbed Pence over his devoutness.

"He’s certainly kept things interesting," Pence said in his speech when acknowledging that "some people think we’re a little bit different."

A biographical video that introduced Pence included a clip of Trump calling his No. 2 "as solid as a rock."

Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and a longtime friend of Pence’s, said the only thing that has surprised him about the Trump-Pence relationship is how “incredibly deep and strong” their bond is.

“I didn’t really see that coming,” Reed said.

Still, Pence has had to endure endless speculation about whether Trump would swap out running mates.

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton wrote in a memoir published this summer that Trump asked if he should replace Pence with Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador who addressed the convention on Monday.

Bolton called it a bad idea to jettison someone so loyal without a guarantee that it would pay off at the ballot box.

“That seemed to be Trump’s thinking as well,” he wrote.

John Bolton: Pence was a 'consistent ally' and equally 'stunned' by some Trump actions

Pence's more than 36-minute speech was twice as long as last week's vice presidential acceptance speech by Democrat Kamala Harris, according to C-SPAN. The disparity was one of the greatest in decades.

Pence’s negative ratings have steadily risen since Trump selected him for the ticket in 2016. About half of registered voters had an unfavorable view of him in a poll by Fox News in mid-August, compared with 41% who viewed him positively. Four years ago, more voters viewed him positively than negatively, according to the Fox polls.

Vice presidents’ favorability ratings tend to track closely with their bosses.

“In Pence’s case," Goldstein said, "he’s gone so all-in in terms of his enthusiastic defenses that it’s hard for him to be much higher than Trump."

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mike Pence says election to decide whether 'America remains America'