IT WOULD BE FINE IF CHRIS CHRISTIE ENDORSED BIDEN, BUT HE PROBABLY WON'T

The Bulwark's Jonathan Last thinks Chris Christie should endorse Joe Biden at the Democratic convention. He's even drafted a speech for Christie:

... for the first time in my life, I’m voting for a Democrat for president. I’m voting for Joe Biden. And it’s not because I agree with him about everything. Or even most things. But because he’s a good man and I trust him to defend our Constitution.

I’m still a Republican. I’m still going to vote for Republicans in the other races when I go to the polls in November. But the truth is, I’m not here to speak to you guys tonight. I’m here to speak to the millions of Republicans across the country who feel exactly the way I do. I’m here to tell them that they’re not alone. That they don’t have to be afraid of a Biden presidency. That in the long run they’ll actually be helping both the Republican party and America by helping to excise the cancer that is Donald Trump.

I’m here to tell my fellow Republicans that the only way to make our party something we don’t have to be ashamed of is to get rid of the lying conman who came in and took it over. As weird as it is to say this, it’s the truth: Joe Biden is the best friend the Republican party ever had, because he’s the guy who will help us Make Republicans Good Again.

This speech is either naive or dishonest -- I'll be generous and say naive. Another Trump loss will not "Make Republicans Good Again" -- if Trump loses, Republican voters will believe once again that the election was rigged against them, and even the ones who don't believe that will want an even nastier candidate to run in 2028. And if Last is right and Paul Ryan-style Republicans achieve dominance once again, that just replaces the proto-fascism and flagrant self-dealing of Trump with the same Reaganomic brutality that was ruining our country for the 35 years prior to Trump's 2015 escalator ride. Also, as long as Elon Musk, Chris Rufo, Chaya Raichik, Leonard Leo, and Lachlan Murdoch draw breath, the Republican Party will be a party of merciless scapegoating and demonization, Trump or no Trump. But Trump's ignorance, corruption, amorality, and fascist instincts make the party even worse. He is terrible in ways that even other Republicans aren't. He should never hold power again.

Yet I don't see what harm it would do to Biden to have a Christie endorsement, given the possibility that his endorsement -- or an endorsement from Liz Cheney or Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski or Mitt Romney -- might win over a few voters without alienating others. I understand why many people want to take a "burn the lifeboats" approach to Republican anti-Trumpers, but what we're talking about is allying with these people temporarily, in a circumscribed way, without forgetting any of the ways they've infuriated us in the past. It's cooperation under a certain set of circumstances. It's not marriage.

On the other hand, I don't think it's all that important. This Jonathan Martin piece was absurd:

It has been well over two months since Christie dropped out of the Republican presidential primary. How has Biden not called Christie, whom he’s known since the former governor was in student government as a University of Delaware undergraduate, to ask for his support? Or, if he thought that too soon or too direct, he could at least have asked Christie to get together. But that ask has not been made....

It’s political malpractice....

You, dear reader, may be screaming at your phone or computer by now (or before now). I can hear it: these politicians should grasp the stakes in this election and not require any personal touch from the otherwise busy leader of the free world....

If you don’t think the personal matters in politics, well, you ought to talk to more politicians. Or pick up the published memoirs, letters or diaries of them. They tend to record slights. And solids. Both shape their actions.

So Biden should reach out to Christie, even though he might be rebuffed, and the rebuff might be leaked? Nahhh. The critic in Jonathan Martin head is saying the right thing: Anti-Trumpers should grasp the stakes in this election and not require any personal touch from Biden.

But they probably don't. I think it's quite possible that none of the people named above -- Christie, Cheney, Collins, Murkowski, Romney -- will actually endorse Biden. Two are sitting senators who probably plan to run for reelection in the next cycle. Christie and Cheney probably hold out hope that their careers as elected officials aren't over. And so they want to seem like Republicans in good standing. That means putting strict limits on their outreach to non-Republicans. I think it's quite possible that none of these people will endorse Biden, even though they all should, for the good of the country.

Biden shouldn't go begging. But if these people endorse him, that's a plus, even though, later on, they'll undoubtedly stab him in the back, or try to, if he wins a second term.