How Not to Attack Trump, Part 11,037

Image by Office of U.S. Health Secretary, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Chris Christie, possibly to goose book sales or to run against Trump in 2024, is apparently attacking Donald Trump for failing to deliver on his campaign promises.

Paul Mirengoff of the conservative Power Line blog considers the criticism more or less as a Trump supporter and makes some good points along the way, but I want to add a couple of things.

If we assume that Christie is interested in running against Trump, though, his attack just caused me to lose his vote: Trump is not a pro-capitalist and I actively oppose major parts of his platform, such as the anti-immigration, the protectionism, and the wildly extravagant and inappropriate government spending he championed during the early part of the pandemic.

I do not want someone who can wall our country in, violate the right to trade freely, and take my money even more effectively than Trump did. I want -- and America needs -- an advocate for individual rights who will do what he can to protect those rights, including explaining any situation in which his hands are tied and what would need to change to move forward.

(Regarding that last bit: We have a President, not a dictator. It is a good thing that no one man can just do whatever he wants. In fact, I seem to recall that a country somewhere -- get this -- designed an entire government around the idea of preventing that from happening.)

The attack is weak -- just like Republicans who currently whine about Biden being senile or incompetent (as if they want Biden to succeed at his agenda), or opponents of sitting Presidents who complain when they have the temerity to play golf -- and is a lazy attempt to escape the responsibility of offering voters a positive alternative they can vote for.

To laud effectiveness -- but to duck the question effective at what? -- is a confession of ideological bankruptcy and weakness; and it raises the question of how well the attacker understands American government in general and the job of the President in particular.

-- CAV