Christie: Best of the Worse?

 

image source: Bob Jagendorf from Manalapan, NJ, USA [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I see in news reports that Chris Christie is actively running for president. Or, rather, he’s made no secret of his wish to be the GOP’s standard bearer in 2024. To that end, he has apparently started saying harsh things about those of his fellow Republicans who cling to Trump’s coattails, and worse, to Trumpian fictions of the election of 2020 being “stolen.”

Honestly, I’m not certain how I feel about Christie’s candidacy. On the one hand, it is terrific to hear someone in the Republican Party actually criticizing Trump and his “Big Steal” delusions. On the other, well, Christie is not an easy man to like.

Besides, at least what I’ve been told is that Democratic Party strategists are rather hoping that Trump will run again (and if he did, apparently, he would almost certainly be nominated. His control of the Republican Party is too great). But, the Democratic strategists are hoping that Trump will decide to run because, they say, it would be very difficult for him to win. He can command the Republican Party faithful, but not independents, and certainly not Democrats. Indeed, Trump’s power to unify and animate Democratic voters is almost magical. They would, the strategists say, step up to vote Blue if only out of terror.

The strategists are probably right. But, I do worry. There is always that dreadful chance that Trump could get re-elected. If Democrats are not sufficiently motivated to go to the polls in 2024, or even if they are and gerrymandering, voter suppression, and so on negate their votes, then we could all too easily have a Trump Administration Part II. 

That’s an extraordinarily good reason for Democrats to vote, and to be prepared to go to the courts (or the streets) if the worst occurs. But it also puts a Christie candidacy into perspective. Personally, I think he would be a very poor president and believe we should all work extremely hard to make certain he doesn’t get into the Oval Office.

But, if his would be a dreadful presidency, it would probably be a presidency that we could endure. That might not be true for Trump Take Two. Let’s face it, a second Trump administration would be an existential threat to American democracy, and even to America itself. 

So, let us hope that we do not have a Republican president after 2024. But, if we absolutely must…if there is no other choice…then let us hope it is Christie, or someone much like him, and not Trump. 

Still, that does pose a rather interesting question, doesn’t it? To wit, what does it say about the modern Republican Party in the United States that we must judge its candidates on a criteria of survivability? That is to say, which of them is the most attractive because they are the least likely…

To get us all killed?

~mjt