A New Jersey tale
The incomparable Maureen Dowd sat down with former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, to talk about Trump, who remains incomprehensibly misunderstood. Chris Christie understands him. For instance:
I don’t think he’s ever gone up against somebody who knows how to do what he does. He’s never run against somebody from New Jersey who understands what the New York thing is and what he’s all about. For people like me, who’ve grown up here and lived my whole life in this atmosphere, he’s just one of a lot of people I know who have that personality. He knows I know what his game is.
No truer words have ever been spoken.
New Jersey is a tougher place than New York. Watching a New Jersey governor crumple in front of a New York asshole, and kiss his small and feral hands was an abomination in the long story of indignities visited on the Garden State by the Empire State.
Every true blue New Jerseyan had the same reaction, which was some version of “what the f@#k?”
When it comes to New York, the indignities never end. Below is a case from Polifact. The story represents one of Chris Christie’s finest hours, while showcasing the terribleness of his latter submission to New York assholery. Chris Christie vetoed the “Snooki subsidy” for the production of “The Jersey Shore,” which was really a show about New York dregs living down the shore. Christie didn’t like it, and called it out. Everyone in New Jersey from “The Boss” on down was misty-eyed. Think about it. The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and the Jets and Giants are all from New Jersey. New York stole them, and in return, they sent these people, who are all clearly New Yorkers, to further break the spirit of New Jersey:
Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino was born in Staten Island but grew up in Manalapan. His publicist said Sorrentino still lives in New Jersey, but he also conducts business in Miami. Jenni “JWoww” Farley also grew up in New York, but now lives within Jersey’s borders, according to an MTV spokesperson.
Vinny Guadagnino, Ronnie Magro and Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi are from New York. Rhode Island-native Paul DelVecchio is the only cast member from outside the tri-state area.
An MTV spokesperson declined to comment on Christie’s remarks. But Polizzi spoke with The Star-Ledger in August.
“It’s the 'Jersey Shore.' We’re not trying to represent Jersey,” she said then. “Even if you’re from Africa, you’re gonna come here.”
Indeed. And so it was.
New Jersey’s many indignities didn’t just happen. It took a lot of compromising along the way.
Margaret Kemble was a Jersey girl, who broke bad. She married up to get out. Every Jersey guy knows the type — just as every Jersey girl knows her Chris Christie.
Anyway, Margaret Kemble returned to the Colonies as Mrs. Gage, whose husband was up to no good, to say the least. He had a plan in April of 1775. It was a good one, except for one thing. Every detail was known to the rebelling patriots of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The king and General Gage were going to bring the “Massholes” into line.
Tensions were exceedingly high. The Sons of Liberty had thrown 90,000 pounds of Chinese tea leaves owned by the British East India Company into Boston Harbor. The British were enraged, and refused all consideration of accepting recompense for the tea.
Punishment, not compromise, was the prevailing wind of the day. A heavily-armed British fleet set sail to restore the affection of his majesty’s subjects for their king.
Gage’s plan involved sending a British force of 700 light infantry and grenadiers to Concord, Massachusetts, where they were to seize gun powder, guns and arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock.
The colonists were ready. It seems General Gage’s most intimate spaces, conversations and plans were compromised. The mystery endures through this very day. Who was the American spy who determined the Battles of Lexington and Concord?
It is almost certainly Margaret Gage. In the end, the Jersey girl sided with America. Perhaps she sensed that she would be judged one day, like “The Boss” is righteously judging Chris Christie. Dowd described Christie’s relationship with Springsteen, “his idol,” as “shattered over his stint as a Trump sycophant,” while Christie said that it was “a work in progress.”
Let’s just say that, even if “The Boss” was the most beneficent of men in the most magnanimous of moods, Chris Christie has a lot of penance ahead, but there is hope. In the end, Margaret Kemble turned good — and so can Chris Christie.
She turned good like a pork roll can make a summer morning good. She turned good when America needed her most.
Now it is Chris Christie’s time to make his turn from bad to good. He broke bad, did bad, was bad, but has taken the exit, is rounding the jughandle, picking up speed, with the steely confidence that says he’s making the light no matter f@#king what because he’s headed to a fight — albeit seven years late — but who’s counting? Traffic can be slow on the Turnpike and “fugetabout” the bridges.
Each American state is unique, and each makes a vital contribution to the Union. The hour has come for Chris Christie to measure up. His destiny is at hand because it’s going to take a New Jersey asshole to beat one from New York.
The hour is long past when someone needs to tell something directly in a language that he understands. A great mystery of this age is why so very few have attempted the feat. The simple truth is that Trump has only been directly confronted with reality on a handful of occasions by real journalists, like Savannah Guthrie and Jonathan Swann.
Trump thrives on weakness. He devours it. His opponents have been soft and non-aggressive. Each one has been a bigger patsy than the next. For whatever reason Christie didn’t brawl. He flattened Marco Rubio, and almost made him cry on national television, but that was low hanging fruit. He gets no respect for that in New Jersey. It’s always reminded me of the “Seinfeld” episode when Kramer is doing karate with the children. Now Christie is ready, and he is just in time because the only thing between Donald Trump and the MAGA nomination is Christie.
Importantly, Christie provides the only real drama and entertainment value in the whole dreadful spectacle ahead. The nation is being threatened by a fascist faction of cynics, grifters, performance artists, sociopaths, seditionists, weirdos and opportunists who are stultifying, tedious and mendacious. They deserve constant confrontation and belittlement. Otherwise, we all become hostages who are yoked to their delusions, musings and lies.
Chris Christie is the disruption that is as obvious as it is overdue. Someone is finally going to explain how full of shit all of these people are on a presidential debate stage. The messenger — like all messengers — will be hugely imperfect, but he’s capable of generating a couple of perfect moments of humiliation served up deliciously cold to the most loathsome president in American history. That’s a good thing because it is a necessary thing. Ineffectual doesn’t begin to describe the pathetic state of affairs when it comes to calling out the shameless absurdity of Donald Trump and his vicious cause. Let’s hope Chris Christie is ready to fight like Chuck Wepner, the Bayonne Bleeder.
Wepner was the real-life inspiration for ‘Rocky Balboa,’ who famously went 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali in a demonstration of unbelievable toughness and grit. He was known as “The Brawler,” and never became champ, but without him there wouldn’t be a ‘Rocky’ statue in Philadelphia. The hand of New Jersey and her sons and daughters — both seen and unseen — are at work everywhere, every day in America. It’s a good thing. A very good thing.
Finally someone standing up to the biggest liar on the planet! Go Chris Christie! I'll never get over the loss of my friends and family that jumped down the maga rabbit hole.
I am a former New Yorker Jersey girl now for 32 years. I will tell you from experience that Jersey politicians are tough, they take no prisoners when in a tight race. The Republicans will turn on each other like rabid dogs in primary races.
I was new to Jersey when Christie first became governor. I went to a few of his “Townhall” rallies, like Trumps.
He was against the teacher’s union in the state, I watched him have teachers who stood up to speak to him removed by troopers, tell people who disagreed with him to shut up and call them stupid. Tell reporters to go to hell if the asked him a tough question.
At the end of his 8 years his ratings where 15% approval in a state of 9 million people. He like Trump ruined the economy of the state, lost seats in the state legislature and Assembly, the credit rating of the state was downgraded 4 times while he was governor. And of course, had his very own campaign investigation “Bridgegate” he attempted to bully large city mayors to vote indorse him with threats of cutting off state aid, and I Bergen County next to the GWB, he upheld traffic in the morning rush for two days. It was a disaster traffic was backed up onto local streets for 4 hours.
If he is allowed to debate Trump he will annihilate him, they are both bullies, but Christie is much smarter than Trump.