GOP longshot candidate for President Chris Christie has made his entire campaign about challenging Donald Trump‘s hold on the Republican Party and its presidential nomination. Christie contends publicly — like many, but few in his party — that Trump is unfit for office, both because of his conduct and because of his authoritarian tendencies.
Christie also routinely calls Trump a liar, which in MAGA circles — that is, in the new Republican Party — is anathema. None of the other remaining GOP contenders — Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and Vivek Ramaswamy — criticize Trump with any real heat, somehow hoping to supplant him as frontrunner by agreeing with him, in order not to trigger Trump’s base, the new foundation of the Grand Old Party.
But catering to that base can lead a candidate not named Trump into uncomfortable contortions, as happened to Haley when she was asked about the cause of the American Civil War. Haley equivocated, said it was about how government worked, and loudly failed in her answer to mention slavery as a cause.
Castigated for this intentional oversight, Haley swiftly chose the Trumpian strategy of blaming the questioner, whom she referred to as a “Democratic plant.” In other words, Haley asked: how dare someone from the other side ask me a challenging question? “Unfair!” to use another common Trump exclamation.
[NOTE: Haley, under fire, later admitted slavery was part of the cause for the Civil War, if not the exclusive one.]
In Haley’s contortionist response, Christie found a fresh target not named Trump and an opportunity.
The former New Jersey Governor used Haley’s gaffe to emphasize his own transparency and readiness, saying: “I say to everybody in New Hampshire, whoever wants to come in this room, come in this room and whatever question you want to ask me. Ask me, and if I can’t deal with a question from a voter in New Hampshire, I have no damn business being in the Oval Office.”
Chris Christie: "When Nikki said last night, 'that was a Democrat plant, in my town hall' — well, first of all, I say to everybody in New Hampshire, whoever wants to come in this room, come in this room and whatever question you want to ask me. Ask me, and if I can't deal with a…
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 29, 2023
Haley’s oddly recalcitrant answer resembled for some commenters the recent, much excoriated inability of elite college presidents to answer plainly during questioning by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) about whether antisemitic calls for genocide were permissible on campus. Stefanik said after the reluctance to answer became apparent: “This is the easiest question in the world.”
As many saw it, Haley’s “Democratic plant” gave her a question that was equally easy. Her reluctance to say the word slavery was attributed by pundits to her concern about angering Trump’s base.
That Trump voter base, which is declaratively “anti-woke,” has worked to upend affirmative action and other measures designed to level a playing field that has been historically distorted by systemic racism.
That racism is not in question or imaginary — it goes back to its ultimate manifestation, which was slavery, abolished by President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation — with American slavery’s permanent removal ensured only by the Union’s victory in the Civil War.
