In a perfect world, Chris Christie would be the Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election. Watching the Republican primary debate, I was ready to hear many things that I disagreed with: Donald Trump copycats and candidates that were unqualified to be on stage. And that’s exactly what I saw. That was, until Christie was given a question. No other candidate managed to directly answer any question that was given to them, and I think he is representative of what politics used to be prior to party polarization that occurred during and subsequently after the 2016 election.
Many Independents turned Democrats believed that they could no longer vote Republican after the rise of Trumpism. As an Indian-American, registered Independent, and a relatively new voter, I believe that Christie’s declaration against the oddly beloved former president was a claim that must be valued and considered. To see a Republican candidate convey anger and frustration towards Trump’s actions was beyond refreshing. To uphold the law regardless of what your party wants is a big thing to publicly declare that you are willing to do.
I was in eighth grade when Donald Trump became president. I didn’t understand much about anything, let alone politics. I was born and raised in the U.S. and had traveled out of the country with my American passport but was scared about deportation purely because of the notions that had surrounded this authoritarian diva president. But as I became closer to the legal voting age, I read more about policy, and I realized that party polarization was not the norm. I talked to my father, one of those Independents turned Democrats, and it was shocking to me that in the 2012 election he had actually considered voting for Mitt Romney.
Because I had grown up in an America that demonized one party over another, it was shocking to me that candidates could be equally considered thoughtfully and without biases about party affiliation. I realized that such level-headed consideration is what used to be the standard. I was shocked when I saw Christie willing to publicly take boos from the crowd when he did not support Trump were the former president to run again. It made sense that Christie had won the blue state of New Jersey to a Democratic incumbent, taking 61% of the vote. Because if my home state of Pennsylvania had an open primary, I just might have voted for him.
Let’s do a quick Republican candidate-by-candidate rundown, shall we? We must start with our token brown candidates, Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley. In case you didn’t know, Haley is fully ethnically Indian, but I can’t seem to remember the last time she mentioned that. The only thing I remember is her response to the global climate crisis, which was to tell India to lower their emissions first. I’m sure this was a solid response for world change. As a woman of color, I understand the struggle of alienation from your identity, especially when it comes to receiving white validation. But quite frankly, in the stage of my life where I was seeking that validation, I wasn’t hiding my identity in hopes of ruling the country. I was straightening my naturally curly hair for a boy to have a crush on me.
As for Ramaswamy, he had a strong start by using Obama’s “skinny guy with the funny name” bit. I would’ve called him a bipartisan icon had he recognized who he stole the line from. If Ron DeSantis looked a few years older and wore a blonde wig, I would’ve refuted the fact that Trump wasn’t on stage, especially after his heavy emphasis on the supposedly new dangers of critical race theory. Wait until he figures out that the concept has been in higher education for the past 40 years. As for Mike Pence, Asa Hutchinson, and Tim Scott, had they quoted the Bible one more time I would have turned the TV off.
Now, Chris Christie is far from perfect. It is true he endorsed Trump’s candidacy in 2016. However, it’s not 2016 anymore. The question still remains as to what is to be done with the former president now, and too many candidates on that stage are still willing to support him. By Christie denouncing the actions of Trump, he is rejecting many things, namely populism and polarization. Trump is not currently excluded from running for the election. But the fact that a majority of the people on that stage were willing to get behind a man who is facing federal criminal charges as a former president, is beyond delusional.
I don’t want to be Independent in name only. I want to have viable options when it comes to voting for who gets to govern me and become one of the most powerful people in the world. And by viable, I mean someone who isn’t pushing 80 years old. I say that Chris Christie would be the right Republican candidate in a perfect world because I don’t know that he will be in this one. I don’t know that people are willing to face the facts.
Aleeza Syed is a third-year political science major at Northeastern University. She can be reached at [email protected].
