The arch-villain in Donald Trump’s storybook account of American politics is the Republican party. The malign forces of progressivism may have been on the march for the past several years. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have been hovering like Nazgûls over the bucolic expanses of middle America. Barack Obama has wielded vengefully the One Pen to Rule Them All. But it’s Republicans who are the real problem. The Grand Old Party has aided and abetted the country’s leftward lurch, proving themselves quislings and cowards all the way down, from John Boehner to John McCain. Breitbart.com hath surveyed the nation, and, lo, there was not a conservative to be found among them!
It turns out that Trump fans were right all along — just not in the way they thought.
On Friday, New Jersey governor Chris Christie endorsed Donald Trump in what was surely the most transparent display of affection since Judas Iscariot’s Gethsemane smooch. Not only had Christie spent the last several months blasting his tri-state opponent on the campaign trail — for, among other things, his absurd promise to make Mexico pay for a wall on the United States’ southern border, his proposed ban on Muslims entering the country, and his refusal to address entitlement reform — he reportedly told the New Hampshire Union Leader’s publisher, Joe McQuaid, that he would “never” endorse Trump. Christie says McQuaid is misremembering.
Presumably, Christie thinks an endorsement will increase the likelihood of his securing a position in a Trump administration (and given Trump’s financial history, that is a likelier prospect than his receiving 30 pieces of silver). But he has agreed to be, for the next several months, willingly at the end of Trump’s leash, evidence of which was Trump and Christie’s brief exchange after Christie’s speech in Arkansas: “Get on the plane and go home,” Trump said, caught on a hot mic. “It’s over. Go home.” There are pimps and prostitutes with more equitable relationships.