Chris Christie: Pompous white knight or genuine chivalry?
Tiana Lowe Doescher
Video Embed
At this point in the Republican presidential primary, Vivek Ramaswamy hasn’t just insulted every single person while on the debate stage, but also the moderators (“corrupt media establishment” that pushed “Hillary Clinton, made-up disinformation”), the RNC chairwoman (who he correctly noted turned the GOP into “a party of losers”), the donors, and seemingly the booing audience itself (“puppet masters”). The self-made billionaire has called himself “the only one on this stage who isn’t bought and paid for,” and resorted to attacking “pudding fingers” Ron DeSantis’s “three-inch heels” and Chris Christie’s weight.
But only one candidate has earned so much ire that Ramaswamy attacked her baseline intelligence: Nikki Haley. During the fourth primary debate, Ramaswamy blasted the former ambassador to the United Nations as a “fascist neocon in lipstick.”
HOUSE VOTES TO REPEAL BIDEN’S INCOME-DRIVEN REPAYMENT REGULATION
“One thing Joe Biden and Nikki Haley have in common is that neither of them could even state for you three provinces in eastern Ukraine that they want to send our troops to actually fight for,” Ramaswamy said of the former South Carolina governor. “She has no idea what the hell the names of those provinces are, but she wants to send our sons and daughters in our trimmings and our military equipment to go fight it. Look at the blank expression. She doesn’t know the names of the provinces.”
At this point, Christie stepped in with a diatribe lobbed at Ramaswamy:
This is the fourth debate that you will be voted in the first 20 minutes as the most obnoxious blowhard in America. We’re now 25 minutes into this debate, and he has insulted Nikki Haley’s basic intelligence — not her positions, her basic intelligence. Look, if you want to disagree on issues, that’s fine. And Nikki and I disagree on some issues, but I’ll tell you this: I’ve known her for 12 years, which is longer than he’s even started to vote in the Republican primary. And while we disagree about some issues and we disagree about who should be president … well, we don’t disagree on this. This is a smart, accomplished woman. You should stop insulting her.
Some saw the stoic expression on Haley’s face and her silence and interpreted the former New Jersey governor’s tirade as a pompous attempt to be a white knight on Haley’s behalf. After all, Haley represented a state for eight years and the entire nation on the world stage for two. If she wants to become the leader of the free world, wouldn’t Haley be more than capable of standing up for herself?
Well, she obviously could. But would it have been wise? If Haley were a Democrat, she’d score widespread plaudits for defending herself, but Haley has repeatedly been accused of playing identity politics for the most innocuous of jokes about kicking back at bullies in high heels. Ramaswamy attacked Haley on those grounds, accusing her of sounding “like a woke Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light ad.”
“This is a woman who would send your kids to die so she can buy a bigger house,” Ramaswamy said of Haley, whose husband has been deployed in Djibouti for half a year now. “This is the problem: Using identity politics more effectively than Kamala Harris is a form of intellectual fraud.”
I can pretty confidently say that Ramaswamy is not a sexist. He was raised by a highly educated mother practicing geriatric psychiatry and is married to a renowned surgeon and cancer researcher. His team is staffed by exceptional young women, and unlike too many on the Right, Ramaswamy doesn’t peddle the ridiculous notion that we need more women to stay barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
However, Ramaswamy’s attack on Haley’s intelligence was indeed the sort of dog whistle that codes as sexism to specific sexists in the audience, and Haley would have only been feeding into a narrative — that she did not want, start, or amplify — that she is a victim.
Christie recognized this, and took a moment to do the chivalrous thing: defend a woman who could not defend herself without being accused of playing identity politics. Yes, it was the politically self-serving thing to do, but it was also the right one, at least in a world where manners are not yet dead.