Why Chris Christie Finally Crossed The Line From Populism Into Arrogance Gov. Chris Christie’s ability to rise above controversy is at an end. Therein hangs a lesson for all politicians about the difference between populism and arrogance.By Jonathan S. Tobin
July 6, 2017 It’s not an accident that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and President Donald Trump are friends. Both tend to be contemptuous of the conventions that normally govern the behavior of public figures. Christie has never shrunk from berating reporters or citizens alike in ways that most politicians would never dare. As for Trump, we all know he is bound by no constraints in his dealings, whether in public or private.
Trump is still getting away with the sort of behavior that most people label misconduct but his base cheers or tolerates. Indeed, while his offensive tweets about Mika Brzezinski have, like his “Access Hollywood” tape boasts about sexually harassing women, have earned him bipartisan condemnations and media overkill, they don’t appear to have influenced that solid 35-40 percent of the electorate to abandon him.
But Christie’s ability to rise above controversy is at an end. Therein hangs a lesson for all politicians about the difference between populism and arrogance. Voters will often forgive or even cheer high-handedness and abusive behavior from their leaders so long as they feel they are standing up for them. But they will never forgive those who treat the perks of public office as something to which they are entitled.
‘Beachgate’ Is Christie’s Coup de GraceChristie never learned that some rules of politics cannot be transgressed. No one minds much when a billionaire enjoys his own money in even a flamboyant manner. But no one likes it when politicians even of relatively modest means shove their perks in voters’ faces.
If “Bridgegate” fatally wounded Christie’s once promising hopes for the presidency, then “Beachgate” — which broke over the holiday weekend — is the coup de grace for his political career. With only months left in his term as governor, Christie was already at historic lows in the polls. But one shudders to think to what levels they will sink in the wake of the publications of pictures showing him using a state beach that was closed to the public as the result of a government shutdown.
Leaving aside the question of who deserves the blame for the shutdown — which belongs as much to the stubbornness of the Democratic-controlled legislature as to Christie’s unwillingness to compromise — the optics were atrocious. They were compounded when Christie was caught lying about using the beach when the press asked about it. Nor will anyone accept his dismissal of complaints in which he told frustrated citizens who were locked out of the state’s prime recreational attraction on a holiday weekend that if they wanted to enjoy a state park as if it were a private beach, they should run for governor.
Why Do Voters Like It Some Times and Not Others?<..snip..>
http://thefederalist.com/2017/07/06/chris-christie-finally-crossed-line-populism-arrogance/
