A Force against Narcissism, Chris Christie exits the US 2024 Presidential Race
Another Nail in the Coffin on Sanity
Chris Christie’s announcement to drop out of the 2024 presidential race indicates the mercury level is spiking with crimson red on America's narcissism thermometer.
Without Christie, an assertive if not aggressive Trump critic, there now lacks any substantive Republican dam against the narcissistic floodwaters that is Trump.
Chris Christie is a mostly sensible moderate Republican, who shares many views in common with moderate Democrats from his blue state of New Jersey. The tragedy of Christie’s campaign is that he committed a cardinal sin in politics — telling the truth about Donald J. Trump, namely, that he is only interested in narcissistically serving himself and not the American people.
In June 2023, Christie blasted narcissist, Donald Trump:
A lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog is not a leader. The person I am talking about, who is obsessed with the mirror, who never admits a mistake, who never admits a fault, and who always finds someone else and something else to blame for whatever goes wrong, but finds every reason to take credit for anything that goes right, is Donald Trump. It's not amusing anymore. It's not entertaining anymore. It is the last throes of a bitter, angry man who wants power back for himself, not for you.
He’s a petulant child when someone disagrees with him. If you disagree with Donald Trump, the petulant child comes out, and he calls you names,” Christie added.
With his 2024 campaign, Christie endeavored to redeem himself and walk back from the dark side of once having been closely affiliated with Trump, even having helped him prepare for his debates. Christie’s would-be friend selfishly failed to share with him that he had Covid (amongst other toxicity issues), which landed Christie in the ICU for seven days, and still, Christie was evenhanded relating this news in what could've been raging contempt for Trump’s nearly robbing him of his life over his potentially deadly lie of omission.
After eight months, Christie's campaign drew to a close today with his announcement, “I’ve always said that if there came a point in time in this race where I couldn’t see a path to accomplishing that goal that I would get out. It’s clear to me tonight that there isn’t a path for me to win the nomination, which is why I’m suspending my campaign tonight for President of the United States.”
Christie has said that anyone who is unwilling to say that Donald Trump is unfit to be president is “unfit themselves.”
“Imagine just for a moment if 9/11 had happened with Donald Trump behind the desk,” Christie said. “The first thing he would have done was run to the bunker to protect himself. He would have put himself first before this country, and anyone who is unwilling to say that he is unfit to be president of the United States is unfit themselves to be president of the United States.”
Christie aimed at the heart of the Trumpism he once supported. “The phrase Make America Great Again has always offended me, because it implies that America wasn’t great,” he said.
Christie quoted Benjamin Franklin’s warning that Americans had been given “a republic, if you can keep it. Benjamin Franklin’s words were never more relevant in America than they are right now,” Christie said. “The last time they were this relevant was the Civil War.”
Christie refreshingly has admitted it was a mistake to endorse Trump in 2016. Christie has grappled with his own role in Trump’s rise, acknowledging that he had capitulated to ambition when he ended his 2016 presidential bid and surprised much of the political establishment at the time by backing Trump. Christie described his second campaign as something of a redemption tour.
Christie was the only candidate during the debates who indicated that he would not support the former president if Trump were convicted of one of the 91 felony charges he is facing. “Someone has got to stop normalizing this conduct,” he said, which drew applause and boos from the audience. The booing, Christie said, “doesn’t change the truth.”
“I want you to imagine for a second that Jefferson and Hamilton and Adams and Washington and Franklin were sitting here tonight,” Christie said. “Do you think they could imagine that the country they risked their lives to create would actually be having a conversation about whether a convicted criminal should be president of the United States?”
“I would rather lose by telling the truth than lie in order to win,” Christie said. “And I feel no differently today because this is a fight for the soul of our party and the soul of our country.”
Christie criticized “the hate and the division and the selfishness of what our party has become under Donald Trump.”
In keeping with the strictures of our narcissistic age, it's clear that Americans prefer the fantasy and balderdash promoted by Trump over the reality, truth, and earnestness of Chris Christie and his 2024 campaign. As long as narcissism is incentivized and considered a positive adaptation to get ahead, we can expect Trump and mini-Trumps to proliferate. It's as though we are speeding headlong into a brick wall of narcissism, just hoping we will wake up from a thrilling dream in the nick of time.