Leaders
It’s tough being a “reasonable” Republican politician today. They watched the insurrection of January 6th. They see the current onslaught of Trump posts on “Truth Social”, and the MAGA rallies where he says one outrageous thing after another. And they shudder at the vision of the Steve’s, Bannon and Miller, “back in the saddle” again, this time without the calming influences of more “mainstream” Republicans or even Generals.
Alexandre Auguste Ledru Rollin said it best in the French Revolution of 1848:
“There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them.”
Republican leaders have a choice. They can support their political party, and their leader and Presidential candidate, Donald Trump. Or they can follow their conscience, knowing full well that choice means exile to the Siberia of Liz Cheney and Jeff Flake (remember him?) – in short, political suicide.
Never Say Never
New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu is a prime example. He spent 2023 looking for a Republican candidate to defeat Trump (after he realized he wasn’t the ONE). Sununu started with his “buddy”, Chris Christie of New Jersey, an avowed opponent of Trump who made it clear he was a “Never-Trumper”. But Christie failed to gain political traction pretty much anywhere, and became the “skunk at the picnic” in the Republican Presidential debates (that Trump disrespected so much that he refused to attend).
Those debates should have told us something. Other than Christie, not one other candidate would dare to criticize the twice-impeached, four times indicted ex-President of the United States. And Christie called them out – if they refused to criticize the absent front-runner, how could any of them expect to beat him for the nomination. By the way, Christie was right; no one else called Trump out, and he won.
That made Christie radioactive in the Republican Party, and Sununu abandoned him to seek a more winnable choice. Nikki Haley was his next standard-bearer, and Sununu literally crisscrossed New Hampshire championing her candidacy. As part of that campaign, Sununu said that Trump should be disqualified because of his actions on January 6th, and also his theft and mishandling of classified documents.
But Trump’s ironfisted control of the MAGA-Republican Party was unshakeable, and Haley’s campaign petered out with an overwhelming loss in her own home state of South Carolina. This left Sununu with a choice: support Trump or political Siberia.
In from the Cold
Sunday morning Governor Chris Sununu of the “Live Free or Die” state of New Hampshire appeared on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. In that interview, he spun around so fast, I swear he could see the back of his own head. He’s now all-in for Donald Trump. The Governor said that it’s more important to change “culture”, then to elect a President that Sununu still acknowledges shouldn’t be allowed to have the job.
Really, it’s hard to imagine flipping that fast. But Sununu was honest about why he was doing it. He erroneously claimed that 51% of Americans support Donald Trump for President. While that’s not true (Marquette), what is true is that near 90% of Republicans will support Trump. Sununu made the simple political calculation: no matter what he personally believed (and acknowledges he still does); his party is going another way. As an old friend of mine used to say: “You’re either on the bus, or off the bus”. Chris Sununu is now on the MAGA-Trump bus, even if he wasn’t a MAGA-Trumper.
It was a difficult interview. Sununu refused to contradict any of his earlier statements about Trump’s “unfitness” for office. But he stuck by his “guns”. Since his Party wanted Trump, he wanted Trump. Since his Party thought Trump was better than Biden; despite January 6th, despite the classified documents, despite the election interference, despite the four indictments; then Sununu was a “good soldier”. He supported Trump.
Expediency
When Stephanopoulos “walked” Sununu through all of the questions, he finally just shook his head. In this MAGA world, “2+2+2+2” does not equal eight. It equals zero; zero responsibility for all of those disqualifying actions, actions that Sununu and others, see as a threat to democracy.
John Bolton, former Ambassador to the United Nations and one of Trump’s National Security Advisors at least was a bit more logical. He knows Trump, he worked for Trump, he resigned from the Trump Administration. He is warning the United States that Trump is unfit for office. But, in the binary choice of the 2024 election, Bolton refuses to choose. He declares that Biden is “unfit” as well. So Bolton will “wash his hands” of the whole matter. He’ll likely write in Dick Cheney, again.
All because “…there go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them”.
Sununu, Bolton, and the rest all know where the MAGA-Republican Party is going. And they’re willing to go straight to “Hell in a handbasket” with them. I guess, at least they’ll know someone there when they arrive.
