It’s hard enough to accept that we had someone who, I would argue, is a mob-boss-like madman as president of the United States. And it’s hard to swallow that almost 75 million Americans voted for the guy in 2020. But what I find most shocking and stunning of all is the number of “leaders” in the Republican Party who, in their naked pursuit of power, have been willing to abandon their principles and bend the knee to him.
Donald Trump’s rogues gallery of Klingons is full of characters like South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who once said Trump was “unfit” to be president but is now among his chief lapdogs. It also takes a special breed of groveler–such as Texas senator Ted Cruz–to endorse a man who previously slandered your father (implying he might have been some kind of accomplice in JFK’s assassination) and suggested that your wife was unattractive.
But in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos over the weekend, New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu vaulted ahead of the pack to enter the Shameless Bootlickers Hall of Fame–on the first ballot.
It’s one thing to abandon your honor and embrace “the big lie” (as you must in order to remain in good standing in Trumpworld) that the 2020 election was stolen. But it takes a whole new level of sycophancy, one Sununu reached on camera, to acknowledge the truth that Joe Biden won in a fair election; that Trump was complicit in the January 6 insurrection; and that Trump still faces multiple indictments–and yet still endorse the ex-president.
Sununu apparently thinks he’ll be given an ethical pass by saying the quiet part out loud: It’s politics. “That’s what people are judging this on…. And the ultimate decision will be in November to see where people stand,” he said. His rationale, as he tried to explain it, is not that it’s the right thing to do, but that he’s comfortable backing Trump since 51% of Americans don’t see election denialism or the insurrection as disqualifying.
Okay. I know we’ve become immune to the madness of such magical thinking. But just parse that thought for a moment. What Sununu’s admitting is that he knows the “stolen election” hoo-ha is a lie. And yet, because enough people want to believe the lie, he’s willing to just roll over. In my book, this is the absolute inverse of what leadership is supposed to look like. If enough people believe something, even if it’s a lie (a lie perpetuated by the leader of the party, no less), follow them? Don’t lead, just follow and get out of the way? That’s how lemmings behave. That’s how they roll in the Democratic People’s Republic of (North) Korea.
Surely it’s a sign that Sununu, like so many of his peers, may be fearful of the power and the purse strings that Team Trump, if granted a second term, could wield against non-loyalists in the party. It’s also a sign that all manner of Republican officeholders rightly fear the wrath of the MAGA trolls who, in a Trump II universe, may feel unbridled in settling scores with people (and politicians) whom they themselves fear, hate, and resent–or whose values do not align with theirs.
In my book, Sununu is a decent man–a good guy who has now gone soft. For a while, he himself had toyed with running for the GOP nomination. I interviewed him then for the Showtime program The Circus, and he was clear as day, saying: “[Trump] could not win in November of ’24. Biden would beat him.” What’s more, he was sunny, affable, and my kind of Republican: a compassionate conservative who is pro-choice, supports LGBTQ+ rights, and thinks vaccines are a good idea.
His message could not have been more straightforward: If Republicans were to nominate Trump, they would likely lose in November 2024. Which is, in part, presumably why he gave his full-throated endorsement to none other than Nikki Haley. Just four months ago.
And now he’s been snagged by Trump, like so many of his cohorts.
It’s just so deflating to see Sununu, one of the very few elected Republicans willing to acknowledge the obvious (that Trump is the worst possible nominee for the party), wave the white flag and accept that if the worst is what we’ve got, he’s all in for…the worst.
It makes one wonder: Is Liz Cheney one of the only Republican figures with a spine? (She lost her reelection primary–and House seat–after serving as vice chair of the January 6 committee.)
Sununu once observed–admittedly, at the Gridiron Club’s annual dinner, where the jokes and jibes flow freely–that Trump was “f–king crazy.” He went on to clarify, “I don’t think he’s so crazy that you could put him in a mental institution. But I think if he were in one, he ain’t getting out.”
Well, it appears the lunatics now run the GOP asylum. And it’s not so funny now that the once reasonable, clear-eyed adult in the room, Chris Sununu, is in there with him.