Chris Christie and 'Macbeth'
There’s a famous line from Macbeth that comes to mind in connection with Chris Christie’s recent suspension of his presidential campaign.
It’s not that the former candidate got involved in bloody plots to seal a royal future, or encountered three New Jersey witches who influenced him with their predictions. It’s rather that the termination of his latest presidential adventure displayed class and courage to an extent not always associated with the one-time Garden State governor.
In Act I, Scene IV of Macbeth, Malcolm, the king’s son, describes the noble death of a traitorous but repentant character we never even see on stage, the Thane of Cawdor. “Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it,” declaims the future monarch, with admiration.
Chris Christie also merits admiration for an eloquent, persuasive and powerfully delivered speech that announced the end of his campaign and, perhaps, the last hurrah for his career as a candidate for high office. Though he endorsed none of the remaining contenders for the Republican nomination as an alternative to Trump, he made clear his heartfelt dedication to continuing the fight to keep the MAGA man from returning to the White House.
In one of the most striking passages from his address, repeated the next day in a CNN interview with Jake Tapper, Christie invoked the founding fathers. “George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin are rolling in their graves,” he said. “If they knew that anyone would have had the audacity, as a felon—which Donald Trump will be, come this spring—to run for president, and that other people running for the office would be willing to support someone like that, they would have added, ‘You can’t be a convicted felon,’ to ‘age 35’ and ‘natural-born American citizen,’ as requirements for the presidency.”
The address he delivered to a friendly crowd in New Hampshire differed dramatically in both tone and substance from the conclusion, eight years ago, of his last campaign for the presidency. In what some media sources in 2016 described as a “shock announcement”, Christie appeared with Trump in a lavishly publicized press conference in Houston. "He is rewriting the playbook of American politics because he's providing strong leadership that is not dependent upon the status quo," Mr. Christie enthused after Trump had won three consecutive early primaries. "I will lend my support between now and November in every way that I can for Donald, to help to make this campaign an even better campaign than it's already been."
He thereby became the first major figure of the so-called GOP establishment to hop aboard the Trump Train, and the move carried an unmistakable odor of opportunism that seemed totally absent from his big announcement this year. Instead of endorsing the frontrunner as he did in 2016, Christie this time declared his implacable opposition to that same candidate who’s once again the undeniable frontrunner. It is hard to imagine some political benefit from the former governor’s current move, though it should soothe his conscience and win some appreciation from that enduring minority in Republican ranks that still find the thought of a second Trump term an appalling prospect.
In that context, the Christie withdrawal unfolded in a mournful, regretful mood from a slightly chastened candidate—an atmosphere that brings us back to the Shakespearean passage about the Thane of Cawdor. Describing his fearlessness and courage as he faced execution, Malcolm says of the doomed nobleman “that very frankly he confessed his treasons/ Implored your Highness’ pardon and set forth/A deep repentance.”
In Christie’s case, his eloquent, elegant and selfless departure from the race should earn respect from any of those who are still indignant over his earlier, ill-fated Trumpian collaborations.