What the heck was Chris Sununu thinking? Has he lost his moral compass? Has he forgotten why he is one of the nation’s most popular governors according to his own constituents?
Last Sunday, on This Week, George Stephanopoulos all but begged Sununu to take the high ground. Sununu, who for months had opposed Donald Trump and endorsed former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley in the New Hampshire primary, has now come out in favor of Trump.
Why? Sununu wants a Republican administration. “Yeah,” he admitted, “it’s all about politics.”
Stephanopoulos was incredulous. He summarized all that Trump has done: mishandled classified documents and withstood official efforts to reclaim them; contributed to an insurrection rather than quelling it and accept his defeat; lying over and over about outcome of the last election; paying hush money to silence a woman with whom he had an affair. “Would you support him for president, even if he is convicted. . . . I just want to say the answer is ‘Yes.’ Correct?” Sununu did not disagree.
Where is the moral high ground? Does Sununu want a job in a Trump administration that badly? And does he not realize that Trump holds a grudge? Sununu can endorse him all he wants, but Trump will not forget when the New Hampshire governor endorsed Haley.
In jumping on the Trump bandwagon Sununu differentiates himself from seventeen former Cabinet-level officials appointed by Trump who the New York Times reports remain openly critical of him. The list of former Trump appointees who no longer believe he should be President includes a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two National Security Advisors, two White House Chiefs of Staff, two Secretaries of Defense, two Secretaries of State, a UN Ambassador, a Director of National Intelligence, and the list goes on.
The Republicans who will not support Trump’s reelection include former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his vice presidential running mate and former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan; former Vice President, White House Chief of Staff, Secretary of Defense, and GOP House Whip Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Representative and GOP House Conference Chair Liz Cheney, Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, heirs of legendary Republican families in their home states.
Collins has always held Maine’s iconic Senator Margaret Chase Smith as her role model as she has pursued her own Senate career. Smith, of course, is best remember for her “Declaration of Conscience” speech, in June 1950, when she denounced an earlier Republican demagogue, Senator Joseph McCarthy (WI), who, like Trump, was dividing the country and instilling hatred and fear where none need to have been. None of these Republicans shunning Trump has yet to reach Smith’s profile in courage, with the possible exception of Liz Cheney.
Many of these men and women have been leaders of the GOP for years, in some cases decades; others had distinguished military careers before joining the Trump administration. But they understand the dangers of a second Trump term, not in terms of policy for they agree with him on many policy issues—but in terms of our democracy, stability in the world, and our standing as a nation that understands and lives by certain moral precepts.
Above all, they are patriots. And they put country above party. But not Chris Sununu. He wants a Republican administration and “Yeah, it’s all about politics.”
Seriously? And this is what leadership looks like? This is the vision he holds for our nation. Is this the vision his father had when he served as White House Chief of Staff for President George H.W. Bush? Does he remember President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill arguing bitterly over policy but coming together to find solutions good for the whole nation? Does he remember when his party’s leader in the Senate, Bob Dole of Kansas, Mr. Republican for a generation of GOP followers, sat down with Democratic leader George Mitchell of Maine to find answers to the pressing issues of the day? Does he not recognize that Reagan and the two Bushes—and scores of conservative House and Senate leaders have led his party without stooping to the divisive tactics Trump uses, without disparaging the institutions that have served our nation since its inception?
What the heck is he thinking? What values is he espousing? My party, right or wrong? My party’s candidate even if most of those who worked closely with him fear a second term?
Sununu is not alone is this blind devotion to Trump. Look at those who opposed him in the GOP primary and those quickly endorsed him—some hoping for a vice presidential nod.
While many Republicans have come out against Trump, few have endorsed President Biden. Last week Jonathan Rauch, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Peter Wehner, senior fellow at the Trinity Forum, wrote an op-ed for the New York Times, arguing that the anti-MAGA Republicans should form a party in exile, admitting that they cannot win over his supporters but demonstrating what a traditional conservative party should stand for and setting up the apparatus for a traditional, conservative Republican Party.
Except . . .Except if Trump wins, the MAGA wing of the GOP will dominate for the foreseeable future—and a party that is not devoted to basic American values, the basic tenets of democracy is disasterous for the nation.
The Rauch and Wehner answer is a good one only if Trump loses. And if traditional GOP leaders really want to see the rebirth of a conservative party, they have only one course. To endorse Joe Biden. To say clearly that they disagree with Biden on basic issues, that they reserve the right to oppose his initiatives when he is re-elected, but that they believe in American democracy, as does he.
They must state (and lead those whom they influence to see) that the difference between one candidate who embraces American democracy and another who opposes its basic tenets should be enough to determine how one votes in November’s election. They can resume the battles over issues once our democracy is safe. And if they act as a group, united as conservatives dedicated to preserving our nation, they may well help determine who will sit in the Oval Office for the next four years.