07-20-2016, 05:18 PM
This is really shocking, the Republican Convention descending into McCarthyism
Chris Christie delivered easily the most chilling speech of the evening, referring back to his time as US attorney for New Jersey and leading the crowd in a mock prosecution of Hillary Clinton.
His charges were numerous, and went beyond even the most extreme of Trump’s talking points in some places. They included:
There were two genuinely unusual and somewhat shocking dimensions to Christie’s speech. One was the sheer severity of the charges he leveled against Clinton. He didn’t merely accuse her of mishandling Boko Haram. He directly accused her of responsibility for Boko Haram’s schoolgirl kidnappings, calling her an "apologist" for one of the most brutal terrorist groups on the planet. He didn’t merely accuse her of mishandling Syria but implied she was responsible for every death in the Syrian civil war.
These are truly grave charges for which there is no evidence, yet Christie leveled them casually, like they were any other campaign talking point. That’s a remarkable escalation of rhetoric even for this bananas election.
The second shocking element of the speech was the ease with which Christie essentially called for the criminalization of political disagreement. You can like or dislike the Iranian nuclear deal. But helping negotiate it, and supporting it, is not a crime. Doing that is participating in statecraft. Christie suggested that bad policy should put you before a jury ready and eager to condemn you for anything they deem mistakes.
The whole feel of the speech — a prosecutor inviting a mob to condemn the accused on count after count — resembled a show trial more than anything else, free of any and all protections for the defendant. Obviously it wasn’t a real trial of any kind. But the implication was nonetheless clear: Clinton deserves to be dragged to court for what she’s done when what she’s done is pursue policy options that Chris Christie doesn’t like.
It was a performative case for criminalizing disagreement, a perverse and authoritarian pageant that preyed on the worst, darkest tendencies of the Trump movement.
Chris Christie delivered easily the most chilling speech of the evening, referring back to his time as US attorney for New Jersey and leading the crowd in a mock prosecution of Hillary Clinton.
His charges were numerous, and went beyond even the most extreme of Trump’s talking points in some places. They included:
- "Ruining Libya and creating a nest for terrorist activity"
- "An apologist for an al-Qaeda affiliate in Nigeria resulting in the capture of innocent young women"
- "Putting big government spending financed by the Chinese ahead of good-paying jobs for middle-class Americans"
- "She called Assad a different kind of leader. There are now 400,000 dead. Think about that: 400,000 dead. At the hands of the man that Hillary defended."
- "An inept negotiator of the worst nuclear arms deal in American history"
- "A failed strategist who has permitted Russia back in as a major player in the Middle East"
- "A coddler of the brutal Castro brothers and betrayer of the family of fallen Trooper Werner Foerster"
- "Lying to the American people about her selfish, awful judgment"
There were two genuinely unusual and somewhat shocking dimensions to Christie’s speech. One was the sheer severity of the charges he leveled against Clinton. He didn’t merely accuse her of mishandling Boko Haram. He directly accused her of responsibility for Boko Haram’s schoolgirl kidnappings, calling her an "apologist" for one of the most brutal terrorist groups on the planet. He didn’t merely accuse her of mishandling Syria but implied she was responsible for every death in the Syrian civil war.
These are truly grave charges for which there is no evidence, yet Christie leveled them casually, like they were any other campaign talking point. That’s a remarkable escalation of rhetoric even for this bananas election.
The second shocking element of the speech was the ease with which Christie essentially called for the criminalization of political disagreement. You can like or dislike the Iranian nuclear deal. But helping negotiate it, and supporting it, is not a crime. Doing that is participating in statecraft. Christie suggested that bad policy should put you before a jury ready and eager to condemn you for anything they deem mistakes.
The whole feel of the speech — a prosecutor inviting a mob to condemn the accused on count after count — resembled a show trial more than anything else, free of any and all protections for the defendant. Obviously it wasn’t a real trial of any kind. But the implication was nonetheless clear: Clinton deserves to be dragged to court for what she’s done when what she’s done is pursue policy options that Chris Christie doesn’t like.
It was a performative case for criminalizing disagreement, a perverse and authoritarian pageant that preyed on the worst, darkest tendencies of the Trump movement.