Opinion: Chris Christie comes back to reality - Matt Bai WaP
No leading Republican did more to legitimize Donald Trump, as he was battling to secure the party’s nomination in 2016, than Chris Christie. And yet this week, the former New Jersey governor took dead aim at both Trump and his more ardent followers. Speaking at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Christie compared Trump’s conspiracy-minded supporters to the John Birch Society in the 1960s, likened the former president himself to an authoritarian and flatly rejected the myth of a stolen election. So what do we do with this? Should we mockingly remind Christie that he failed to speak out during his years of cringey servitude to Trump, when taking a stand might actually have done some good? Or should we welcome him back to the rational universe? I’d suggest the answer is both.
Christie can never be fully exonerated for his role in bringing the hateful margins of our politics into the mainstream. But if all those Never-Trumpers can’t do a thing to loosen Trump’s hold on the party, then maybe only a pro-Trumper can. It’s worth watching Christie’s talk, given how tepid leading Republicans have been in publicly breaking with Trump. “All this lying has done harm to our nation, to our party and to ourselves,” Christie said in his speech, calling out “the white supremacists and the wild extremists” in the Republican ranks. “If timid acceptance is the price of admission, we’re not the party we have always been.”
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It always seemed to me, though, that Christie was driven by sheer calculation. There were no paths left at home, where Christie was now wildly unpopular. By going all in for Trump, he was keeping his options open for the vice presidency and perhaps another campaign. And Christie kept selling out for years — right up through the reelection campaign, when he helped with Trump’s debate prep. Had Christie not contracted covid-19 in the process, it’s fair to wonder whether he would now be trafficking in the same conspiracies he denounces.
All of which leaves me conflicted about this latest turn, in which Christie seems to be positioning himself for another presidential run. Has Christie rediscovered his conscience? Or is he a sheer opportunist looking for his next act? I’d like to hear him reckon with that question publicly. But there are two things we do know.
One is that there’s basically no one at the highest echelon of Republican politics who seems willing to take a stand against Trump or his minions in 2024. The conventional wisdom is that if Trump runs again, he wins without a fight. There are plenty of powerful conservatives who mourn the loss of rational Republicanism, but I can’t point to a single one who seems inclined to tear the party apart in order to save it. The other thing we know is that, if someone is going to finally shake Republicans from this Trumpian nightmare, it’s probably not going to be anyone who stood on principle from the start and is mostly popular with Democrats — Mitt Romney or John Kasich or Liz Cheney.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/11/chris-christie-comes-back-reality/
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