Send Chris Christie $5.
Get him on the debate stage.
Chris Christie isn't selling what a majority of GOP primary voters want to hear. Not yet. Too many of them are still in love with Trump.
That might change. Christie might change them.
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| https://chrischristie.com/ |
In some ways Chris Christie and Trump are alike. Both are Republicans. As president, both would happily sign legislation that a Republican House and Senate would send for signature. Both want lower taxes for top earners. Both want more Federalist-type judges on the Supreme Court.
Stylistically, both are known for having big, booming assertive personalities. People formerly thought that Christie was the big bully in politics, but Trump took over that designation. Both Trump and Christie have political courage to say bold, maybe-unpopular things. They aren't weathervanes or hedgers. That distinguishes Christie from all the other Republican aspirants to displace Trump. They hedge. They partly defend Trump or carefully tip-toe around Trump. (Did he win in 2020? Well, a lot of people think so, and those people are sincere, and there are reasons to be concerned about election security, but we are against violent invasion of the Capitol. . . .)
Chris Christie is entirely different. He is saying aloud what 60% of Americans think, and something that -- maybe -- some portion of Republicans are ready to hear, that Donald Trump is dangerous and should not be president. That Trump is morally wrong. That he does criminal things, proudly. That he is unworthy of being our leader -- even if he does fight people we don't like and says some things we like to hear.
Christie positions himself as the frank truth-teller. I don't expect many Democrats to vote for him in a general election. He is a Republican who generally supports the Republican suite of policies. But he represents a version of a post-Trump Republican party, a GOP that cleansed itself of Trump.
The actionable thing people can do is send him a token campaign contribution. To be on the GOP presidential debate stage a candidate must have at a minimum of 40,000 unique donors to their campaign, with at least 200 unique donors per state or territory, in 20 states and territories. They must also poll at least 1% in some national polls recognized as legitimate by the RNC. Christie will get the poll results. He needs the contributions.
In my own view, the great tragedy for American democracy is not Trump. It is that Trump has been tolerated by the GOP electorate. Trump is a predictable pathogen. The Constitution-writers anticipated Trump. In a federal system the Constitutional system of checks and balances in a federal system should have created antibodies to isolate and discard the pathogen. Ambition among Republicans, combined with civic virtue, should have blocked Trump. It didn't. There were multiple opportunities for ambitious GOP leaders to have displaced Trump: the 2016 nomination, the Access Hollywood tape, the 2020 election, January 6, the criminal indictments. But GOP leaders followed opinion. They didn't lead and shape it. The republican principle of people electing wiser leaders failed.
Chris Christie is a reform agent for the GOP.
11 comments:
I already gave $5 to Biden. I like to back winners.
There is a mistaken notion by some that the Republican party can be reformed. But to what...to where? It doesn't represent American values, is hell bent on destroying democracy, and as Liz Cheney so eloquently stated: "Is electing idiots".
Six months from now Trump will likely be the nominee, and Christie will be right behind him in a brand new MAGA hat.
Save your money.
If 60% of Americans think “ Trump is dangerous and should not be president.” I don’t think Republican leaders followed public opinion. But they should have.
Too many Republicans have become hopelessly addicted to Trump’s anti-democratic nastiness. Chris Christie is like the rehab that’s only effective if the addict wants to change. It’s hard to imagine many of them trading what they want to hear for what they need to hear, but more power to him.
Your proposal makes sense, Peter. I'm sending $5 to the Jersey Whale this morning.
I tend to disagree about a "Republican" Party cleansed of Trump. He could be dead tomorrow and the wannabes looking to replace will not change their tune by so much as one note; imho, there is no more Party of Lincoln, it will always be Trumps Party until its buried en toto. Certainly nit in my lifetime, and who knows what will replace it. The Republic is in for a very rocky, bumpy ride.
Whether you would like his policies or not, Chris Christie would be a competent president. He would not, for instance, abandon Ukraine and thereby destroy NATO, unlike the narcissistic and negligently incompetent Donald Trump.
There is no other Republican with Christie’s potential to wreck Donald Trump at the upcoming debate in August. My wife and I have each donated $5 to Christie’s campaign. I have encouraged all of our friends to do the same. If you don’t want Donald Trump to be president again, it’s a cheap and easy way to try to prevent that from happening. All it takes is a couple of clicks and a credit card number.
Chris Christie would be a less suicidal choice than Trump, but a) Republicans are too crazy to make a choice that rational and b) I shudder at the thought of any Republican once again occupying the White House.
With or without Trump, it’s a party in thrall to its White nationalist base. Lies, fear, anger and hatred are its stock-in-trade. Noisesmax and Disinfowars are its mouthpieces now – Fox Noise no longer seems committed enough to the crackpot conspiracy theories that cost it so much in their Dominion lawsuit.
They may eventually lose Trump, but they can’t afford to lose his base.
The point is to get Chris Christie into the Republican debate in August and give him a shot at wrecking Trump. Anyone who doesn’t want Trump to become president again should be able to support that endeavor regardless of whether you want a Republican to win the presidency in 2024.
Chris Christie needs 40,000 independent donations to qualify for the debate. A couple of clicks and $5 on your credit card, and you can help him get there.
Even those who never miss an opportunity to denounce Trump and his supporters might possibly see the usefulness of participating.
The Republican Party has outlived its usefulness. It does not uphold the rule of law and has become the modern day equivalent of the slave owning confederacy. It's so-called base is just a dressed-up version of the old dixiecrats. Why would any American who truly values our democracy vote for a man whose only hope of winning is compromising with the most racist, sexist and authoritarian segment of our society?
Christie was my choice before Trump pulled ahead of the primaries in 2016.
The reason is simple: his executive record. I want a congress that is bound up and useless, one which can't seem to get any bills passed except purely conservative ones. When I looked up Christie's record, it said:
* Veto
* Veto
* Veto
* Veto
* Veto
* Veto
I bet you Christie wouldn't pay one red cent to clean up China's garbage patch like Trump did. Christie wouldn't give two sniffs over animal rights nonsense like Trump did. Christie would gladly go back to Brutalist architecture because government should be intimidating, unlike Trump and his contemporary/modern order for new U.S. buildings.
Bonus, Christie isn't afraid to redirect funding from things like the environment and infrastructure to balance the budget, something blue Oregon, Washington, and California love doing.
Vote Christie, tie up congress for four more years!
I gave him $1 just like I did for Ramaswami, Hutchinson and Suarez. Serves the same purpose; anything more he’d just spend it on food.
Christie has a spine like the wind. He can't be trusted.
Profiles in Cowardice.
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