Rubin: Chris Christie's despicable endorsement of Trump

Notably, this is not from a liberal but from conservative Post blogger Jennifer Rubin, who calls Christie’s reference to the occupied Palestinian territories as “occupied territories” a gaffe, and wrote, “He may well go down in history as the Republican most responsible for undercutting serious Republican presidential candidates and helping to elect Democrats whose policies endanger U.S. national security.” This last description of Democrats is preposterous. Rubin is quite extreme in her views, except in conservative circles where such caricatures are routine.

Rubin is just another Republican unhappy at the inevitable consequence of the party’s own actions–a demagogue has exploited the xenophobia, racism, know-nothingism, and social intolerance that the GOP deliberately stoked in order to win elections. Now the GOP has lost control of the beast it unleashed. It is the old story of Pandora’s Box.

Rubin says shame on Christie for endorsing a man he knows is unfit for office. But shame on her and her Republican establishment friends. They fomented intolerance in order to divide the country for partisan gain. The strategy worked well for them. But now the know-nothing bigots they so cynically encouraged have turned on them. It was inevitable and richly deserved. Unfortunately, it imperils the country.

Rubin and her ilk are now trapped between the evil they stoked and their own caricature of Democrats as endangering the national security. You may think Obama and Clinton are relatively hawkish, and you would be right. But they are pikers compared to Republicans, who never saw a war they didn’t like, and who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions that destabilized the Mideast. Republicans reflexively back Netanyahu’s reckless policies, and collaborated treasonously with him to sabotage the Iran nuclear accord. Happily they failed. Now their hope of electing a Republican to trash the accord and start more wars is endangered by the buffoonish, bragging bully Trump. It couldn’t happen to a lovelier bunch.

But let us not be overconfident about this election. Democrats face their own populist insurgency. It appears that its leader, Senator Sanders, will lose to Secretary Clinton. But the bitterness of the primary fight could cause his disappointed supporters to stay home for the general election. Some of them, having bought into the Hillary hatred that Republicans have stoked for a quarter century, might even vote for Trump. Sounds crazy, right? Fasten your seat belts. Do not take this election for granted. Our country is at stake.