Chris Christie, that is. He’s running, but he’s going nowhere. Here are excerpts of remarks Christie made at the Reagan Library last night (courtesy of CBS News), which will surely doom him with the MAGA base:
“We need to give our supporters facts that will help them put all those fantasies [about election fraud] to rest so everyone can focus with clear minds on the issues that really matter,” Christie said. “We need to quit wasting our time, our energy, and our credibility on claims that won’t ever convince anyone of anything.”
“All this lying has done harm to our nation, to our party, and to each other,” he said, and he sought to remind the audience of the Republican Party’s values, which he listed as conservatism, faith, decency, integrity, freedom, liberty, competence and truth.
“If the conservative cause depends on the populist appeal of one personality, or on second-rate imitations, then we’re not going anywhere. Voters looking for Republican leaders want to see independence and mettle,” Ryan said, adding, “They will not be impressed by the sight of yes-men and flatterers flocking to Mar-a-Lago.”
Astute observers will note that Christie was one of the yes-men and flatterers who used to flock to Disgraceland. He helped build the monster that ate his party, and now he wants to thrust an arm down the creature’s gullet and pull the party back out?
I think he’d have better luck waiting for it to emerge from the other end.
Open thread.
cain
Perhaps the COVID experience has changed him, eh?
Doc Sardonic
Well, this ought crank up ole Donnie Dollhand’s Twitter…… oh wait…..he can’t tweet. Hahahahahaha
Tim C
“This is where the party ends, I can’t stand here listening to you, and your racist friend….”
One of the best songs to channel my feelings about supposedly “sane” Republicans these days.
Mai Naem mobile
He can sit on the corner with Doug Ducey.
Hunter Gathers
The only ‘running’ that Christie is going to do is running to McDonald’s for TFG.
Urza
Do these guys not know how to read a room? Like who is telling Christie or Pence or any of the other sane (by Republican standards) people that there is some chance in hell that they can win a primary.
frosty
Thanks for the visual at the end*, BC! You definitely have a way with words.
* unintentional pun but I’m keeping it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Urza: Betting that Trump will be out of the picture for 2024. Not an unreasonable bet. Health, death, prison, exile. Those are just some of the options.
germy
Rocks
@Omnes Omnibus: All of the above.
moops
Why not throw your hat in the ring? I’d say there is a 50% chance that Trump is not physically capable of running in 2024. He will suck up all the oxygen from other potential MAGA successors leading up to the primary, since he only cares about himself, and he needs to be a contender to avoid prosecution. Then he will either die, or make an excuse to not run, leaving the GOP scrambling.
karen marie
He still can’t call those “claims” what they are – lies.
I will be righteously pissed if the DNC lets this fucker run in the Democratic primary. Because that’s next – Christie (or another so-called moderate Republican) changes party because he can’t compete with the lunatics and jumps into the Dem primary.
Allowing Sanders to do it was a huge mistake and bodes ill for the future.
randy khan
If the Republican nomination were a single first-past-the-post national primary, the Christie strategy could work. Since it’s not, good luck.
NutmegAgain
Read the headline, and I thought, “running for what? Can’t be NY Gov, he’s a Jersey guy, and it’s early days. National? There’s a national race??” Ah, cheeze whiz. I was enjoying the lack of spectacle.
Ken
Who would you bet on if it were a steel cage death match?
Steve in the ATL
how’s he polling in Fort Lee?
Jeffery
Running is stretching it, more like waddling.
karen marie
Also, too, I’d say Christie is working the political chat show bookers with this “reasonable Republican” ploy so he too can be a regular on the Sunday circuit. CNN might give him his own show! MSNBC is also a possibility.
He’s a nasty fuck, and whatever he’s up to, you know it’s no good for anyone but Christie.
LadySuzy
Christie can make it if Fox News decides to reprogram their audience. We’ll see. Corporate America, the MIC, and the foreign policy establishment will be very tempted to push him to the max. They want Joe Biden out that’s for sure.
Baud
Yeah, but Biden values ice cream. I know who I stand with.
JPL
John Berman on CNN mentioned several times, that Christie was still afraid to say three simple syllables. Say the name Christie..
PJ
As ever, kudos for your imagery and way with words, Betty.
I think you are right that the GOP will be broken down and excreted before an old-fashioned bog-standard toadying conservative like Christie will have a real chance at the Presidency, and even then, someone who didn’t taint themselves with licking Trump’s tiny fingers, like MD Gov. Larry Hogan, would stand a better chance.
Baud
I’ll give him credit for not going the JD Vance route.
I’m not too unhappy with seeing a Republican bully take on Republican bullies. Leaves us more time to focus on other things.
Obvious Russian Troll
@Urza:
I’m not disagreeing with you, but somebody’s gonna win the Republican primary and a lot can happen between now and 2024. There’s only a very a tiny chance that the GOP implodes in a way that works out for him, but there’s no chance at all if he doesn’t try to run.
I think it’s more likely that he’s going after the New Gingrich permanent campaign grift model, though. Can’t get donations without a campaign!
JPL
@moops: Donald Jr. will he his father propped up as long as possible. How else is going to pad his pockets.
Raoul Paste
So he’s this year’s Jeb Bush
Good luck with that
LadySuzy
Christie could become the new darling of the media. Important to note that Democrats are allowed into the presidency only to clean up the messes of republican presidents. Once the mess is cleaned somewhat, it’s back to pushing the candidate who will cater to corporate America and the MIC.
Wash, Rinse, Repeat.
C Stars
@moops: Interesting that he’s betting on the “rational” wing of the party (whatever that means).
bbleh
@moops: Concur. He will certainly make noises like he’s running, right up until he’s physically unable to make any noise at all, because he can’t stop trying to be the center of attention. And after that his nearest and hungriest will probably keep making them for a while in his name, and all the while the MAGAts will kowtow before his image.
Amir Khalid
I’m not sure if the subject “Chris Christie” and the verb “run” belong together in a sentence. And if memory serves, he’s already failed once as a presidential candidate.
geg6
@Baud:
His bullying side was nowhere in evidence when he ran in 2016. TFG plowed right over him and then made him run for burgers and kiss his ass for four years. He likes to bully women is all.
Hilbertsubspace
Time to spread scurrilous and false rumors about the former governor. Such as….
I saw him reading a book once. (That’ll ruin his chances for sure.)
bbleh
Thing is, I would LIKE to see Christie in a Republican primary, because he’s actually smart and he could make DeSantis, TFG Jr, et al. look like the hapless fools they are.
For all they try to emulate TFG, the current crop of pretenders just don’t have his combination of sociopathic narcissism and carny barker’s instinctive street smarts. And the closer they get to successful emulation, the more they’ll stir up the kind of active negative reaction among Dems that led to TFG losing in 2020.
I don’t know about Congress, but unless some external event goes really wrong for the Dems, I wouldn’t bet on the Republicans for the WH at this point (keeping in mind of course that the election is over three years away).
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Christie closed the bridge to higher office a long time ago – specifically on nine-eleven, 2013.
kindness
Look at all the Republican presidential hopefuls that all really hope Trump will be charged with a crime and convicted before the next presidential run.
jonas
Reminds me of De Blasio somehow thinking there was an untapped following for him out there that he could mobilize for a presidential run. Who are the “Christie Republicans” out there he thinks are going to come rushing to his side? They don’t exist.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: And an accomplished bully! Christie is very good at taking opponents down a peg or five. I’ll never forget that time he brutally stripped the bark off Lil’ Marco in response to the programmatic “let’s dispel with this notion…” speech. Thing o’ beauty, it was!
The Dangerman
If Daddy don’t run in 24, it’s likely one of his spawn will take his place. My money would be on Junior given Kimberly might insist.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid:
As did President Biden.
piratedan
must be a slow news day….
apologies because I could really give a pluperfect fuck about who the GOP trots out as a potential nominee… until we watch some of their ilk start setting their political careers on fire by outing the heinous shit that they support or refuse to engage anyone about they’re a non issue, essentially the same, answering to whatever mob is at hand under the puppetry of their rich semi-anonymous agenda setters.
lots of other exciting stuff though… the Taliban keeping their word on additional flights leaving with additional asylum seekers… the new game plan to combat COVID, the Jan 6th committees slowly grinding away and Biden and the DOJ doing what they can to combat Red State Lunacy and the narratives driven by “impartial observers”.
Ruckus
@karen marie:
it’s no good for anyone
That can be said for any republican politician, or any current day conservative.
JaySinWa
Chrissy’s got a treadmill, Donnie doesn’t sleep at night?
Ruckus
@Obvious Russian Troll:
I think he really does want to run. He obviously doesn’t see himself the way we do or even the way many republicans see him. And he’s all ego, so that helps him to not see what others do.
Steve in the ATL
@JaySinWa: was not expecting that–took me a minute!
Ruckus
@geg6:
He likes to bully those who can’t bully him back. Which is why trump ran all over him. Because he could.
RaflW
I’m sure Christie’s clear-eyed review of how bonkers his own party is has sent a thrill up the legs of hundreds of Centrist℠ pundits.
No one else will care.
Amir Khalid
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
A lot of Biden’s name recognition and credibility in 2020 came from having been Obama’s VP. If Christie runs in 2024, he won’t have that.
Anoniminous
@Omnes Omnibus:
Trump has a big reason to enter: money.
He can grift “campaign contributions” out of the ignorant hick bigots for 2 or 3 years.
Baud
Isn’t Christie nominally pro-choice? No way GOP primary voters give up their likely upcoming wins on that issue.
lowtechcyclist
Christie’s running for President? As a ‘reasonable Republican’? Hahahahaha. He’s got a good chance to capture the votes of all the 137 or so Republicans who are interested in voting for someone who hasn’t gone over the edge, but as Adlai Stevenson once said, he needs a majority.
I’m with karen marie, he’s trying to raise his profile enough to get on TV regularly. He’s a horrible person, but he can’t be dumb enough to fool himself that he can win the nomination by running against TFG and his legacy.
Oh, and this:
I’ll skip conservatism and faith for the moment, but decency and integrity? When has the GQP not been about dirty tricks and smear campaigns? Jeez, even the ‘good’ Bush, Bush the Elder, hired Lee Atwater to do a hatchet job on Dukakis, rather than running on any issues deeper than saying the Pledge of Allegiance. And he finished up his short Presidency by pardoning the entire Iran-Contra gang.
I’m not sure what the difference between freedom and liberty is, but again, this is a party that wants it for some but not for others, whether it’s voting (which they were throwing up barriers to, well before Trump took over the party) or control over one’s own body (yes if you’re a white male, no if you’re a woman or a person of color). And they definitely don’t want many people to have the freedom to tell an employer to, in the words of the country song, “take this job and shove it.”
Competence? Yeah, look at Dubya’s administration. Lots of competence there. And truth? Same example. If they’d told the truth about anything, there’s no way they could have persuaded this country to go to war in Iraq.
Faith? In money, maybe. It certainly isn’t a party that believes in lending a helping hand to those less fortunate. They’re the goats of Matthew 25 that Jesus says are headed to damnation. Their Christianity is a tribal identity, devoid of any other meaning.
Nice words, bub, but your party has nothing to do with any of them except conservatism, which I guess means whatever people who call themselves conservatives are about. No way to polish that turd.
Jeffro
“second-rate [trumpov] imitations”
OUCH!
also
LOLOLOLOLOL
DeSantis, tell me how ya gonna recover from hearing that debate after debate, hmm?
LOLOLOL
Immanentize
@JaySinWa: Squeeeze mee….
NotMax
Why the bloody h-e-double hockey sticks is anyone talking about 2024 now?
RaflW
@The Dangerman: He’s gonna vacuum up the campaign cash (with rolled 100s). Not sure his heart can handle that much chemical excitement, tho.
Immanentize
Song for Chris Chistopher Christie:
Players win and winners play,
Have a Lucky Day!
(With bonus Atlantic City alignment)
MCA1
I love how, at best, one could make a reasonable argument for the GOP actually standing for no more than two of that long litany of things he claims to be the values of the party. And only an infantilized, maximalist, anarchist version of them (freedumb and libertaaaay! I got me a snake flag!). He would get guffaws from a neutral audience hearing him make those claims.
narya
@Steve in the ATL: Let’s check in w/ Mr. Richard Feder.
Ken
Some of them could probably help with that, though they might have to enter the witness protection program afterward.
laura
Looking forward to Hal Spark’s report from the Mike Pompeo v Chris Christie mud wrassle for the “heart” of the party.
Immanentize
@Jeffro: I saw a picture of DeSantis the other day. That man is downright simian. Is this country really ready for Planet of the Apes? Senate, yes (Florida already has a serpent). But President? He should run against Rubio. A smaller and lesser ape man.
Immanentize
@laura: naked mud wrestling, one presumes. A la Stripes?
Baud
@NotMax:
[[Quietly deletes Baud! 2024! post]]
.
.
.
I don’t really care about their primary. It would be nice to see more disarray on their side between the old school assholes and the neveaux fascist assholes.
Lacuna Synecdoche
Betty Cracker @ Top:
No surprise that in “the Republican Party’s values” competence and truth are listed last.
The only real surprise is that they’re listed at all.
NotMax
@Immanentize
One that won’t be his campaign signature song.
;)
taumaturgo
Of topic but if this doesn’t spell corruption, I don’t know what does. From the WP comments section commenting on corporate democrats sabotaging the drug price reduction legislation:
gvg
I think someone has to go first if the republican party can be reassembled into the business party some of them still want to be. I think the first 10 who try it will bomb out while the crazies will win primaries and then screw up enough to drive more voters away. they will either win the general and do crazy stuff or lose the general because they are crazy. There are still rich people who want to old GOP back. they might be funding Christie and probably several others as backups. They may even know Christie can’t win because the republican voters are still mostly in love with delusions, but it will take time to swing the pendulum back and I think they have to keep the idea of the business wing if the party alive for it to stay in contention. Christies pretty vain. He could be flattered into thinking he could do it. Just my opinion. Possibly wishful thinking but that can be because I would prefer the old style business GOP (even if they were racist politely hidden) compared to crazy anthrax and tire rim GOP.
Immanentize
@NotMax: perfect!
Omnes Omnibus
@Anoniminous: I understand that Trump intends to run. I am talking about reasons that he either may not be able to run or may not succeed if he does.
Arclite
Speaking of changing, glad to see that young Conor has not:
https://twitter.com/MaxKennerly/status/1436116460288585736
Matt McIrvin
@bbleh:
If people are still feeling bad, the Republicans can win outright. And that depends to some degree on stuff that is not entirely within our control, like whether we manage to get a handle on COVID, or if it and its associated economic dislocations have still got our whole society under siege.
Just like with the Great Recession, Republicans can do a lot of damage to a Democratic administration just by hurting their own constituents so everyone stays dissatisfied. Especially if they control Congress again after ’22.
Omnes Omnibus
@taumaturgo: Just burn everything down, right?
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin: It is true. Everything can always get worse.
feebog
I’ll take 2024 Republican candidates who will never get out of single digits for $600 Alex.
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus:
Blah blah blah, democrats bad, blah blah blah.
Kent
My bet?
I actually don’t think Trump really meant to win in 2016 and sort of accidentally won while engaged in the most epic grift in history.
I’m guessing he pulls the same stunt in 2024. He runs, sucks up however many hundreds of millions or even $1 billion plus in campaign dollars and other grifts through the primaries, does his MAGA nostalgia tour once again, and then when the MAGA carcass is sucked completely dry (and the polls likely look tilted against him winning) he comes up with some reason to pull a Palin and walk away at the last moment with his pockets stuffed completely full of MAGA cash, and the party in shambles.
When has he ever given the slightest fuck about the party?
And it will be the total fault of the GOP to enable the dumpster fire yet to come. They should have pulled off the band-aid and moved on back on November 6th, 2020, or whenever it was that the race was called. Now they are stuck with him because they chose not to.
Roger Moore
@JPL:
I don’t think any of the Trump spawn have a real shot. They’re no more than weak echos of their dad. Someone else will come along who gives them the dopamine rush they desire much more effectively.
Kent
If we are going to lose one house of Congress in 2022, which is the worst to lose? House or Senate? I vote Senate because of all the confirmations of judges and executive branch appointments and the assumption that a mixed Congress won’t get the slightest shit done anyway. But I’m wondering if there are arguments in the other direction as well.
CaseyL
The only thing I want for the GQP is for it to burn to the ground and salt the earth around it.
Whoever can make that happen, that’s who I hope gets the nom.
Otherwise, I am no more interested in following any particular one of them than I am in watching mud wrestling.
Patricia Kayden
?
Baud
@Kent: Losing the house means dealing with the theatrics of impeachment. But your thinking is sound. Best not to find out either way.
Kent
@Roger Moore: I think the only way that Trump could push one of his spawn forward is if he sucks up all the oxygen in the primary and gains the nomination himself (which he can probably easily do) and then pulls out at the last moment and uses his considerable influence and leverage with the GOP party bureaucracy (where he has inserted his loyalists top to bottom) to push one of his spawn forward as the replacement nominee voted on by party loyalists not voters. I don’t see any of them being able to navigate the normal primary process.
Kent
@Baud: Impeachment actually made Bill Clinton more popular. Same thing could happen with Biden if they go off half cocked with a bunch of tired Hunter Biden retread nonsense. Or some other patently fake scandal like Covid-related abuse of powers or some such. Biden has actually proven surprisingly teflon. People tend not to believe the smears thrown against him.
randy khan
@Ken:
I don’t know, but I’d be rooting for them all to lose. And it’s at least as likely as a nationwide primary.
NotMax
@Kent
“The charge is gross competence.”
//
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: Let’s not find out.
NotMax
@Ken
Electrified?
:)
debbie
At least he’s saying the quiet shit out loud.
natem
@Arclite: This is like “the Marshal of the Supreme Court coming to arrest Trump” but for Big-Brained Centrism
debbie
@Patricia Kayden:
I belong to a FB community page. It is shocking how many lost/loose dogs there have been this year. I see it in other FB friends’ communities too. ?
Baud
@Patricia Kayden: I was afraid that might happen.
Cacti
Wouldn’t Chris Christie running register on the richter scale?
Yes, that was a fat joke.
No, I’m not sorry for mocking the weight of fat pig Christie.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
Are circular firing squads too much to ask? That’s figurative language, for those who are worried about calls for violence.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
Even if Trump somehow managed to get one of his spawn installed as the Republican candidate, I think they would fail miserably in the election. None of them is going to spark the same kind of excitement their dad does, but they’ll managed to spark at least as much revulsion in the people who hate him, and I’d expect them to do really poorly with fence sitters.
Princess
Christie was one of the very first not entirely crazy not actually indicted Republicans to endorse Trump. He is the guy who made Trump a serious contender and palatable to the Very Serious Media Pundit crowd. He can go fornicate himself.
Another Scott
@Steve in the ATL: +1
The press should never, ever, let him memory-hole what he did on the GW Bridge.
Ever.
There’s a stronger case for him going to prison than even TFG. And that case is a slam-dunk.
Of course, the GQP SCOTUS would say that since CC didn’t – on tape – demand a suitcase full of unmarked bills it wasn’t illegal…
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Shakti
I don’t see Chris Christie winning the primaries, but I’m sure he’s attempting to set up a grift. Didn’t he have a heap of legal troubles?
Anyways, King Baby is going to run until he is incapacitated and all of these other fellows are setting up a grift or trying to get noticed by the Murdoch/NewsMax/RW wurlitzer to be the anointed one.
Perhaps a lot of them are trying to set themselves up as members of a future junta, not “dude who wins the popular vote.”
mrmoshpotato
Running to go suck Dump’s fat, orange, Kremlin-humping, fascist ass?
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
“Do you want fries with that?”
//
Tony Gerace
t@Hunter Gathers: As governor of New Jersey Christie was essentially a more thuggish version of Tony Soprano. Yet, he is insufficiently psychopathic to succeed in the present day Republican Party. By all means, let’s see him try and fail at this endeavor.
Geminid
Christie may do well among blue state Republicans, especially in the northeast. Virginia could be a good state for Christie because we have open primaries and he would attract independents.
A lot of Republicans want to move on from trump, and a lot of their politicians do too even if they don’t say it. But I think the radical, “populist” wing of the party has the upper hand now in red states, and someone like Pompeo or DeSantis (if he wins reelection) would beat Christie in the nomination race.
But if Christie does jump in he will at least affect the dynamic among other candidates including trump. Right now trump is teasing a reelection bid. This is a way to raise money. trump also wants to freeze the field if only to show he can. After the midterms ambitious Republicans will be reluctant to sit and watch Christie get a head start.
A lot will depend on the results of those elections next year. Republicans desperately hope to win back both houses of Congress. If they can do that and hang on to state offices in states like Texas, Georgia, Florida and Ohio, trumpism will still dominate the party, with or without trump.
But Republicans could just as easily get thrashed nationally. In that case current intra-party tensions may become an “irrepressible conlict” that could make the 2024 nomination relatively worthless to whoever wins it.
Geminid
@Cacti: Morphologically, Chis Christie does make a good RINO.
cmorenc
Chistie is running…with scissors.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh yeah–look at REM post 1980’s
Geminid
@Another Scott: I believe the Supreme Court decision voiding the convictions of Christie’s minions was a 9-0 decision. Justice Sotomayor wrote the opinion.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Trump is in for the grift, the power, and above all his ego. He won’t care if he is physically and/or mentally capable of even walking across the lawn or reciting the oath of office. He will crawl over broken glass to be president again so that he isn’t a loser. Nothing else matters.
As for Christie.. I want him in the race too. I want him to sound reasonable, provide a contrast to the insanity of the others, and lose so badly that the people who are still deluded about what the GOP is get a clue-by-four.
J R in WV
Christy listed the Republican values as:
Shame he has so many synonyms on that short list. Freedom and liberty, what’s the difference between those two? Decency and integrity are pretty close also too. There’s quite a bit more overlap on others on that short list, maybe not quite synonyms like freedumb and liberty, but still.
What a Republican dumbass, but I repeat myself.
Another Scott
@Geminid: I haven’t checked.
I like this BrennanCenter opinion piece (before the ruling), myself.
tl;dr – The public has a right to know what the government does in its name and why, and courts should not let officials hide behind figleafs or overly deferential laws that don’t cover every possible action.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Another Scott: There is merit in expanding the scope of corruption laws. But the decisions in the cases of Virginia Governor McDonnell and of the Bridgegate defendents indicate that if we want stricter criminal corruption standards for public officials Congress must past stricter statutes.
I never read Justice Sotomayor’s opinion. But I figured that with her years of experience trying criminal cases as a federal prosecutor and a District Court Judge, Sotomayor knew what she was talking about.
Another Scott
@Geminid: Lower courts didn’t have any trouble convicting McDonnell and Christie’s cronies. I haven’t read the opinion either, and Sotomayor is a smart cookie. But sometimes bigger principles get ignored in ways that hurt the administration of good governance and justice.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the trials for McDonnell and Christie turned out one way while Don Siegelman‘s turned out differently.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Lee Hartmann
I can visualize (though I really don’t want to) Christie jogging or trotting.
Running, not so much.
Lacuna Synecdoche
Ken:
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again:
Given conservative fetishization of guns, the best GOP primary would be to give all the candidates at the first primary debate a gun, and let them shoot it out.
Last one standing is the nominee.
And if no one is left standing – Hip Hip Hooray!
Uncle Cosmo
@germy
/rimshot
:
Plain Dave
@Baud:
Though I always suspected it I was glad to see a prominent Republican finally admit that truth is their lowest priority.
Geminid
@Another Scott: Well, the trials of McDonnell, the Bridgegate defendents and Alabama Governor Don Siegelman all resulted in convictions. The Supreme Court never heard Siegelman’s appeal. He definitely had credible assertions of prosecutorial misconduct, and the standard the Supreme Court applied in the McDonnell case might have saved Sigelman had it been applied in his case.
artem1s
man, something is going down. with Christie and Yang announcing their grifting schemes on the same day, ya gotta wonder if word is out that it’s finally over for TFG and his ability to milk the rubes for more $$$$$. The panic to scoop up the low lying fruit will start if either one gains any traction. By January we’ll have a dozen of them trying to elbow their way into the spotlight.
brantl
Any party that Chris Christie’s leading came out of somebody’s back end.
Mike in Pasadena
“Faith, decency, and integrity”
Yeah, those are Rethuglican values as personified by Trump and Chris Crispie. The hypocrisy is almost stunning if it weren’t so common among Rethugs. Trump voters have little or no respect for the rest of us in the country, hold everyone not a Trump voter in contempt much like the gray-haired Trump supporters wearing T-shirts bearing Trump’s name and the words “Fuck your feelings” in big bold letters. That smug, selfish, self-satisfied couple respresent the average Trumpist. Even those who voted for him in 2016 must have known he is a braggart, liar, bankrupt, chisler, adulterer, etc. A man so sarcastic, sneering, and selfish cannot be good for the country, yet that’s what Trumpists willingly and knowingly foisted on the rest of us just to show the full extent of their hatred. Republicans hate America.
brantl
@bbleh: If you think Christie’s smart, you need to meet some actually smart people.
James E Powell
@Steve in the ATL:
Out of Time and Automatic for the People are both great albums. Had you said, “after Bill Berry left,” I’d agree with you.
Mike G
“We need to give our supporters facts that will help them put all those fantasies [about election fraud] to rest so everyone can focus with clear minds on the issues that really matter,”
Does he know anything about the Republican Party?
navigator
Must be cold out there in lobbyist-land.
No other candidate on those GOP debate stages in 2016 will ever be more than they were then.
Trump ran the table because they were all charlatans, and all perfectly representative of the party elites.
Just Chuck
The fact that Christie is capable of forming full sentences is enough to disqualify him. This is just icing on the cake.
Just Chuck
@Baud:
So was Trump. It’s not they actually hold it as a principle, it’s something they’ll throw away the first opportunity they get. Shake the etch-a-sketch and done.
Just Chuck
@Geminid: Rhinos are fast and thickly muscled. I’m thinking more manatee or walrus.