Outside the Beltway

Him and 51 Percent of America

An anti-Trump Republican endorses Trump.

James Joyner
39

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Aaron Rupar highlights this exchange on ABC’s This Week on Sunday:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Just to sum up. You support Trump for president even if he’s convicted in the classified documents case. You support him for president even though you believe he contributed to an insurrection. You support him for president even though you believe he’s lying about the last election. You support him for president even if he’s convicted in the Manhattan case. I just want to say, the answer to that is yes, correct?

CHRIS SUNUNU: Yeah. Me and 51 percent of America.

GS: Governor, thanks for your time this morning.

This is simultaneously frustrating and entirely understandable.

Sununu is clearly a relative moderate who would much prefer a traditional Republican nominee over Trump. He endorsed and campaigned for Nikki Haley this cycle. Yet, Trump overwhelmingly defeated Haley and all other comers to easily win the nomination for a third straight time.

So, Sununu has a choice: endorse the candidate he undoubtedly prefers and which the citizens of his state will almost certainly choose in November, Joe Biden, or continue to have a plausible future in elected politics. He’s a 49-year-old four-term* Republican governor who’s too conservative to be viable in a Democratic primary. If he wants to run for the Senate or the White House some day, he’ll have to do it as a Republican.

In my ideal world, political leaders would willingly risk their careers for the greater good. That’s the essence of statesmanship. And, certainly, keeping Donald Trump out of the White House is a worthy hill to die on. Realistically, though, Sununu endorsing Biden will do next to nothing to achieve that goal and he knows it. So, fecklessness is more attractive than leadership.

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*He’s only been governor since 2017, as New Hampshire has two-year terms.

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39 responses to “Him and 51 Percent of America”

  1. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    There were Republicans who risked their careers to stand against Trump. They lost. Because Trump IS the Republican Party. I don’t mean he controls it, I mean he is the perfect manifestation of what the Party has become. Most of the loons and losers who control the Republican Party now (as much as we can say it is “controlled”) came out of the Tea Party movement which existed before Trump was more than a blip, and which came directly from Gingrich-ism, which came from Reaganism, all the way back to Goldwater. Once the Eisenhower Republicans died off, and the Rockefeller Republicans gave up, the real face of the party manifested itself.

    16
  2. Scott F. Avatar
    Scott F.

    CHRIS SUNUNU: Yeah. Me and 51 percent of America.

    Where is he getting that 51% from? If you have to lie about the popularity of your position in order to defend your position as “it’s what the people want,” then you really are grasping at straws.

    I really don’t understand why you are giving Sununu a pass here. (Feckless, but understandably so, isn’t much of a scolding.) Sununu doesn’t get to keep his otherwise decent, moderate, traditional Republican card, if he’s going to use it to support Trump.

    So, the NH Governor wants to run for the Senate or the White House someday and he has to do it as a Republican. Sununu endorsing Trump will do next to nothing to achieve that goal either and the Governor knows that as well. If Trump wins, the GOP will not be a home for traditional, moderate Republican Senate or presidential candidates. If Trump loses, the Trumpists are going to blame the RINOs no matter how obviously they bend the knee.

    His political career was over outside New Hampshire the moment he endorsed Haley. (Haley’s career is over as well.) He could have kept his integrity, but he gave it away for less than nothing.

    19
  3. Jen Avatar
    Jen

    Spineless weasel attempts to recapture his fading career, news at 11.

    May he rot in obscurity. This is incredibly gutless.

    26
  4. Joe Avatar
    Joe

    I think (small d) democratic leaders face a constant challenge about when to follow their constituents and when to lead them, when to reflect the position of their constituents and when to suggest or set a position they consider to be in the best interest of their constituent and to advocate that position to their contrary constituents. I don’t take the difficulty of that challenge lightly.

    My own call here would be that Sununu should lead when he is clearly cravenly (albeit transparently) following a position he cannot reasonably view as in the best interest of his constituents. I understand that is a judgment call on my end, James, but the least he could do is shut up and sit on his hands.

    6
  5. DK Avatar
    DK

    If he wants to run for the Senate or the White House some day, he’ll have to do it as a Republican.

    Then he should have been advised to stay silent.

    Instead, he’s made an affirmative choice to endorse a manifesty unqualified pervert, fraudster, and criminal who repeatedly made gross comments about wanting to bang his own daughter — and who incited the Jan 6 terror attack to destroy our democratic republic.

    Then, to justify his amoral and unpatriotic choice, he just lied to everyone’s face. He knows a majority of the American electorate has never supported Trump. Chris Sununu is lying to cover up his cowardice.

    He’s a dishonest fool with no integrity. Unfit for office.

    20
  6. DK Avatar
    DK

    @Scott F.:

    Where is he getting that 51% from?

    Out of his lying rear end. Because Chris Sununu is weak and phony. That’s going to be his political epitaph. He does not have what it takes to be commander-in-chief. Not tough enough. He will not protect the United States.

    Good luck to him running on that in 2028. If he’s calculating that his weakness here won’t dog him in future runs, he’s sorely mistaken and not that smart.

    12
  7. ptfe Avatar
    ptfe

    Flip-flopping like this is like cancelling your insurance then paying someone to wreck your car.

    Like, the only possible positive of saying this is if you want a cabinet post, but Sununu’s got nothing coming in a Trump 2. Now he’s written oppo ads for any future runs in NH: “Sununu’s values are Trump or himself, not New Hampshire’s.” For a guy who’s tried to walk the tightrope of “moderate conservative” in a largely Dem state, this is essentially just hopping off the rope halfway across.

    I guess if Trump wins maybe he figures he won’t be the first against the wall?

    13
  8. DK Avatar
    DK

    @Joe:

    I think (small d) democratic leaders face a constant challenge about when to follow their constituents and when to lead them…I don’t take the difficulty of that challenge lightly.

    This is true. You are right. But this does not apply to Chris Sununu. There is no challenge here, because what does he have to lose by telling the truth and doing what’s right? A future job in Republican politics that he does not need?

    He’s rich — a multimillionaire. Healthy. Educated. White, in America. Male, in America. Seems to have a lovely wife and family. Still relatively young. Athletic. He’s a very accomplished and blessed man. Say he could not run for office as a Republican in the future…and? So what? He’s not going to suffer for that.

    Less privileged people with more at stake have faced tougher decisions — and still done the right thing. That’s leadership. Sununu has exposed himself as unprincipled, timid, and not a leader. This is just cowardice and lack of ethics.

    Another conservative beta male, terrified of the deplorables. Sad.

    17
  9. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    Biden will likely raise corporate and income taxes, maybe even set up a wealth tax. Lardass will further screw the country to cut them.

    Some people would sell their soul for tax cuts.

    Exhibit A. Sununu

    11
  10. Joe Avatar
    Joe

    @DK: Less to lose than say, Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger.

    5
  11. DK Avatar
    DK

    @Joe: I do not agree with the policy views of Cheney and Kinzinger, but at least if they were president I could sleep at night believing they would defend the United States, support our allies, and not actively participating in the wholesale destruction of our democratic republic.

    How many Republicans can we say that about today?

    I have liked to say this Republican Party is far from the one I voted for when John McCain was its standard-bearer, but now I’m not so sure. I will never not be shocked to see grown, adult men and women I once respected licking up behind this disgusting, traitorous pig Trump like desperate, starving street dogs. It’s just mind melting to witness.

    How could I have been so blinkered? Smdh. Oy vey. I guess I just grew up.

    7
  12. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    @DK:

    I have liked to say this Republican Party is fr from the one I voted for when John McCain was its standard-bearer

    it’s odd, but it is always easier to see where things are going from the outside than from inside. To me it was obvious that McCain, despite his flaws, was the last major Republican with integrity. Once he was gone the GOP’s fate was sealed. You need only look at how the current crew treats his memory and accomplishments.

    5
  13. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    @MarkedMan:

    I see your point, but Romney, Ryan, Cheney, and Kinzinger all took strong stances against Trump.

    4
  14. just nutha Avatar
    just nutha

    @DK: To set a counterpoint to your thought, I just yesterday finished reading McCay Coppins’s excerpt from his hagiography of Mitt Romney published in The Atlantic. In it, Coppins details the heart-rending struggle Romney–richer and a decade and more older, but equally white and healthy–wrestles with in deciding not to seek one more term as Senator from Utah (at 77 years old). It comes down to “what will I do with all that time?”

    Sununu has the same basic problem/issue: “what’s to become of ME in a world where I’M no longer important?” So sad.

    7
  15. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    @CSK: I could point out that all of them have been driven from office and any position of power by the MAGA’s. But it’s also true that while they all took stances against Trump, I think only Kinzinger and Romney were strongly motivated by integrity. I suspect Cheney and Ryan just couldn’t stand being made Trump’s bitch. Ryan, an admirer of Ayn Rand which says all you need to know about his integrity, just slunk away. Cheney elected to go down in flames, so kudos for that. Knowing how Romney made his fortune, I would never think of him as having integrity, so perhaps he is also motivated by not wanting to be Trump’s bitch. So that leaves Kinzinger, who I don’t know much about.

    Don’t get me wrong. Very few people’s motives are pure sunshine and light, so no matter the reason they are with us I’m glad they are. But out of the four you mentioned, I would only put Kinzinger in the same category as McCain. And there is no place in the party for him.

    2
  16. just nutha Avatar
    just nutha

    @DK: This Republican Party isn’t different from the one I stopped voting for after Ford under Reagan’s leadership to any degree that I can see, but I’m probably more cynical than others.

    Growing up’s a beeyotch.

    3
  17. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    @MarkedMan:

    Yes, but the larger point may be that there’s no room in the part for any of those four.

    1
  18. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    There was one honest Republican, and now there are none.

    Trump sure brings out the pussy in all these alpha males. Easier for him to grab ’em.

    4
  19. al Ameda Avatar
    al Ameda

    A truly sad and pathetic performance by Chris.

    It’s two things:
    (1) A desire to have power, to be on the winning team, at any cost.
    (2) Fear. A fear that if they do not obediently fall into Trump’s line, that they will be politically irrelevant from a career planning standpoint.

    Republicans do not deserve to govern.

    6
  20. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    @CSK: Oh, then I misunderstood your point. I was making the claim that McCain was the last of the Republicans with integrity to hold power. I don’t think there is anyone today that falls into that category. (Calling Trump an asshole to reporters off the record does not count)

    1
  21. Assad K Avatar
    Assad K

    Gotta love that he’s fine with throwing the book at all the clowns, but will fully support the ringmaster.

  22. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    @MarkedMan:

    You should hear the MAGAs on the subject of Cheney, Kinzinger, Romney, and Ryan. You’d think they were The Four Horsemen of the Communist Globalist Deep State Apocalypse.

    The irony is that Romney was pretty well-liked as governor of Massachusetts, the bluest of the blue states.

    3
  23. wr Avatar
    wr

    @CSK: “The irony is that Romney was pretty well-liked as governor of Massachusetts, the bluest of the blue states.”

    And then disavowed everything he’d done as governor when he ran for president.

    Mr. Integrity.

    7
  24. SenyorDave Avatar
    SenyorDave

    This seems like a truly outstanding example of political cowardice, even for a modern-day Republican politician.
    He’s a Sniveling:
    Coward
    Yellow-belly
    Candy-ass
    Chicken
    Namby-pamby
    poltroon (my favorite, obsolete)

    2
  25. SenyorDave Avatar
    SenyorDave

    @MarkedMan: Granted he was only a Cabinet member, but I’ll give Rex Tillerson some credit for going on the record and telling everyone that Trump is a fucking moron.

    2
  26. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    @SenyorDave: To be clear, I’m not saying that there are no people who identify Republican who have integrity, I’m simply saying there is no one with power in the Republican Party who has it.

    4
  27. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    @MarkedMan:

    Yep.

    1
  28. OzarkHillbilly Avatar
    OzarkHillbilly

    “Gov Sununnu, do you believe in America enough to get a real job or would you rather continue sucking off the govt tit even tho you have more than enough money to never need another job?”

    Gov S: “Really? Are you seriously asking me this question???”

    Fuck him.

    3
  29. OzarkHillbilly Avatar
    OzarkHillbilly

    @MarkedMan:

    To be clear, I’m not saying that there are no people who identify Republican who have integrity, I’m simply saying there is no one with power in the Republican Party who has it.

    If they have integrity, they aren’t in the Republican party. They may be hoping that some day it will recreate itself but as of right now it is dead, dead, dead.

    I have no faith in zombies.

    3
  30. JohnMc Avatar
    JohnMc

    @CSK: in regards to Paul Ryan, you should search among the bulwark’s youtubes for Tim Miller’s scorching description of his interview with the former speaker. Didja know he’s on the board of FNC?

  31. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    @JohnMc:

    I’ll look for those.

    I still give him credit for openly despising Trump.

  32. Matt Bernius Avatar
    Matt Bernius

    @TheRyGuy:

    More people died of COVID with a vaccine under Biden than died without a vaccine under Trump.

    This one is a bit weird. I’m not sure why this would be a surprise given Biden has been with us for four years and Covid-19 is on its way to becoming an endmic. And part of that reason, and in fact the VAST majority of people who died during his time in office from COVID-19, is been people who specifically chose to be unvaccinated (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status). And that has largely been the results of people who are going to be voting for Trump. And Trump has made the idea of enabling people to opt out of many, if not all, vaccinations a campaign issue.

    Not sure why Biden gets blamed here.

    2
  33. DK Avatar
    DK

    @Matt Bernius:

    Not sure why Biden gets blamed here.

    He doesn’t, except by dumb, dishonest wingnuts like the one to whom you’re responding.

    3
  34. DK Avatar
    DK

    @TheRyGuy: The withdrawal from Afghanistan was long overdue. Trump Republicans prefer endless war.

    There are no US troops in Ukraine or Gaza. It is not Biden’s fault that Putin attacked Kyiv or that Iran used Hamas to attack Israel. Americans are right to reject the vile Trump Republican preference here: that America abandon allies being attacked by the Russian-Iranian-Chinese alliance.

    The southern border was a fiasco under Trump, who spent all four years of his presidency crying about migrant caravans. Yet Trump was too busy rage tweeting and cutting taxes for billionaires to pass an I’m ogre bill. Biden and Democrats agreed to pass the bipartisan border bill negotiated by a conservative Oklahoma senator. The Border Patrol endorsed this legislation, but Trump Republicans killed it for the saw reasons they passed nothing under Trump: conservatives do want to fix immigration. They just want to use xenophobia as a campaign issue, to manipulate racists.

    Inflation has been battering pocketbooks in every country, thanks to COVID disruptions. Inflation is lower in the US than in any other developed nation, thanks to Biden’s policies. Which have also led to:

    – record stocks and record growth, millions above pre-COVID levels
    – longest sub-4% unemployment streak in decades
    – violent crime matching 50-year lows
    – record infrastructure projects
    – record American energy production

    3
  35. Matt Bernius Avatar
    Matt Bernius

    @DK:

    @TheRyGuy: The withdrawal from Afghanistan was long overdue. Trump Republicans prefer endless war.

    Not to mention it was Trump who initiated the withdrawal. So in terms of removing troops, Biden was following a policy set by Trump.

    That said, the Biden administration handled the particular logistics of the withdrawal, and they do have to take responsibility for some of the initial issues. People thumping their chests about that should also note, as James has, that many of the issues were quickly corrected. And I’m not sure things would have gone any smoother under Trump–it seems pretty clear the government would have still collapsed.

    2
  36. DK Avatar
    DK

    @TheRyGuy:

    Biden’s Defense Secretary went AWOL and his Transportation Secretary took TWO MONTHS paternity leave in the midst of a supply chain crisis.

    And our President repeatedly looks and acts in public like he has no idea where he is or what he’s doing.

    But everything will go to hell if Trump is re-elected?

    Things already went to hell under Trump.

    Trump’s COVID dishonesty and incompetence caused the US to have the worst COVID outcomes in the developed world. Trump’s depraved negligence left America with worsened mass death and record job loss.

    Trump, a rapist and chaos agent who tweeted a White Power vid on 28 June 2020 and who repeatedly made gross comments about wanting his daughter, had MORE turnover among cabinet members and officials than ANY president, with members fleeing his deranged legacy of failure.

    Trump’s OWN vice-president is REFUSING to endorse him, because Trump is so incompetent and unqualified.

    Unlike Biden, Trump failed to pass
    the infrastucture bill he promised. Economic growth was slower in Trump’s first three years than in Obama’s last three and Biden’s first three. Trump ignored climate change and rising gun violence, and his hate rhetoric fueled civil unrest and a record rise in white supremacist and antiay hate crime.

    Trump’s extreme MAGA judges have caused abortion chaos, with women and girls suffering from extreme forced birth policies.

    Trump incited the deadly and unprecedented Jan 6 terror attack based on his sore loser election lies — as part of an illegal coup against our democratic republic. He is facing trial for that, as well as for illegal hush money payments, nuclear secrets and US documents and illegal hush money payments.

    Trump’s cognitive decline, pointed out by prominent Republicans like Nikki Haley, is such that he fell asleep in court this week. Trump regularly appears freakish in caked-on orange makeup. Trump’s speeches are full of nonsensical word salad, unlike Biden whose 2024 State of the Union was masterful and well-received.

    Of course more Americans will end up preferring Biden’s historic legislation, low crime, economic growth and support of US allies to Drama Queen Donnie’s hatred of democracy and nonstop chaos.

    1
  37. DK Avatar
    DK

    @Matt Bernius:

    That said, the Biden administration handled the particular logistics of the withdrawal, and they do have to take responsibility for some of the initial issues.

    I supposed, yes. They are always lessons to be learned.

    Monday Morning Quarterbacks and Hindsight Hilda’s always swear they could have done better at the painful decisions they didn’t have the courage to actually make. Those who don’t do, criticize.

    To my mind, there’s no neat, clean, painless way to end a messy war that should have been ended a decade ago or more. Good enough is good enough.

    1
  38. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    If you’re a self-professed “moderate” Republican but driven by self-interest, deciding to reluctantly endorse Trump because you’ve got no electoral future otherwise is frankly dumb.

    If you think (correctly) that the GOP have been captured by MAGA, a sect who think Pence should have hanged and that Trump is a deity, then how can you ever win a primary in this party ever? You endorsed Haley, that’s treason in their eyes. The party’s over, even when Trump is history, they’re gone. You’re toast, you’ve got anti-Trump heretical statements in your ledger, you’ll lose any contested future primary to some MTG/Gaetz/Kari Lake maniac. Also, frankly, if your eyes are on 2028 or later then (God willing) demographics are against anyone running as an R, “moderate” or otherwise.

    You either go over to the Ds, or pray that something else is going to rise from the ashes to speak to politically homeless people on the center-right (even though it won’t, because of 200 years of the two party system), because the Republican party has been cannibalised and it isn’t coming back.

  39. DrDaveT Avatar
    DrDaveT

    @TheRyGuy:

    The withdrawal from Afghanistan was a greater foreign policy debacle than ANYTHING under Trump.

    I am amazed at how quickly everyone seems to have forgotten that Trump attempted to extort made-up dirt on Joe Biden from Ukraine, in exchange for military aid to defend them from Russian unprovoked aggression. You know… the thing he was impeached for? And would have been removed from office if the GOP weren’t a RICO poster child?

    Sorry, no. The botched withdrawal from Afghanistan doesn’t come anywhere close to that as a “foreign policy debacle”.

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