No contradiction between 2 positions above: people deserve what they elected, and then Hashem gives us what we deserve through the officials we elected, R’L.
As Presidents/Governors deserve respect and possibly a brocha due to their control of human lives, what is the story with VPs? Do we respect them according to their potential of becoming a President, or according to their current (lack of) responsibilities, like a Crown Prince? To put this in the halakhic context, were Joe Liberman elected as VP (and his claim is about as strong as Trump’s) – could we count him among ten batlanim for DC to be considered a city for the purpose of reading megilah?