Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie briefly caught the media’s attention last week when he indicated that he’ll wage an unusually aggressive and hard-hitting campaign against Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. The media almost universally decried his actual chances of defeating Trump as the GOP nominee, but for a tiny flicker in time, it almost seemed plausible that someone from the political right could impose some type of deserved retribution on the criminal sociopath who has dominated our politics for the past seven years. Some even went so far as to suggest that Christie’s attacks might prompt other Republicans to follow suit.
Judging from the response by the GOP to Trump’s latest indictments, however, that’s never going to happen. Instead, the GOP initially (and with near-unanimity) resolved to deflect Trump’s culpability—not by defending his actions, mind you—but by playing the whataboutism game, which we’ll likely see continue for the remainder of the upcoming election cycle. Republicans intend to bombard the airwaves with fanciful accusations, carefully cultivated in their alternative media universe: charges of a “weaponized” Justice Department, imagined comparable “crimes” of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, and the “tyranny” Trump’s prosecution purportedly represents. In short, Republicans are leaning into anything and everything that could inflame their thoroughly zombified and defiantly ignorant voter base.
This was to be expected. As reported by Shane Goldmacher writing for The New York Times, elected Republicans really had no other option. Their base doesn’t want facts, and they certainly don’t want the truth.
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