"No middle ground on overthrowing the government."

We may be in a point of transition for the GOP.

Chris Christie may be making his move. 

Former NJ Governor Chris Christie spoke at the Ronald Reagan Library on Friday. He said "our party itself is in peril." He said no one, regardless of political office or wealth, "are worthy of blind faith or obedience."

“As Republicans, we need to face the realities of the 2020 election and learn, not hide from them. We need to renounce the conspiracy theorists and the truth deniers, the ones who know better and the ones who are just plain nuts. . .. If the requirement in today’s politics for getting your support is to say a bunch of things that aren’t true, no thank you."     

Christie never mentioned Donald Trump by name--which omission is the biggest signal that Trump remains the fearsome leader in the center of GOP politics. Trump calls out traitors. He kicks ass and takes names. There is no middle ground with Trump.

Christie, 2015, New Hampshire

The Reagan Library is the home base of old-style Republicanism. Back in January Christie condemned the January 6 insurrection and blamed it on Trump. "If inciting to insurrection isn't impeachable, then I don't really know what is." 

But Trump is still central to the Republican brand and Christie is trying to find a path that gets the support of Republicans who have tired of Trump--but maybe not completely. Trump-adjacent people. Trump has not mellowed with time out of office. He continues to insist he won the 2020 election by a landslide, that he is the rightful president, and that "patriots" stormed the Capitol. Yesterday, at a 9-11 memorial event at a New York police precinct, he repeated that the 2020 election was "rigged" against him.

Trump is beginning to give off a desperate un-hinged scent of the Japanese dead-enders who remained in the jungle for decades after WW2. Other politicians were using 9-11 to speak a message of national unity. Trump made a campaign speech and then provided color commentary for a prize fight. Trump is trivializing himself. 

New Hampshire, 2015

Political space may be opening up for him. Yesterday at a 9-11 memorial event, former president George W. Bush condemned the actions of the people Trump riled up on January 6.  Again, notice the careful parsing. He did not condemn Trump's role in riling up the crowd, only the crowd itself. He called them "violent extremists." He likened them to the 9-11 hijackers. 

There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols they are children of the same foul spirit, and it is our continuing duty to confront them.

Bush, like Christie, is making a distinction between the good Republicans and the fringe, and not calling out Trump personally. 

Kevin D. Williamson writes for the National Review.  A columnist can lead the way for politicians at turning points. He urged Republicans disassociate themselves not just from zealotry but from Trump personally. He said that Republicans need to face reality that Trump sought a "risible legal pretext" of a fraudulent election validated by false claims of election irregularities. An angry mob would presume to represent the genuine will of the people, justifying Congress or Pence voiding the election. It was a one-two punch. Williamson wrote that Trump could supply the mob but was stopped by "Republican officials at the state and local levels who had the grit to resist intense pressure from the president and do their jobs." Call it was it was, he said, a "failed coup d'état." 

Does a rivulet become a river? Sometimes. It takes a leader to give a movement voice and direction. Maybe Chris Christie.

I watched Chris Christie speak to crowds in New Hampshire. He moves them. His 2016 effort was ruined by "Bridgegate." His closest aides created a traffic jam to send a brutal horse-head-in-the-bed message to a recalcitrant mayor. That memory has faded. Moreover, heavy GOP hardball has been normalized, and it may not seem as transgressive as it did in 2016.

Chris Christie has a future, if there is a body of GOP voters ready to ditch Trump. January 6 could be the disqualifying act, Trump's version of "Bridgegate," just too much to ignore.  January 6 was an assault on our government. As Williamson put it, GOP voters need to choose. "There is no middle ground on overthrowing the government."