NEW JERSEY, January 29 — There’s more than meets the eye in the public exposé and slapdown of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie over his closing lanes on the George Washington Bridge to create chaos as payback to local politicians who opposed his re-election. And the “more” is not just the continuing revelations of withholding Sandy aid funds and other dirty tricks.
It would be easy for workers and students who have been on the receiving end of Christie’s budget hatchet, or his disgusting thuggery towards anyone who seriously challenges him, to simply be thankful that “what goes around comes around” or even to be gleeful over his troubles. But communists and others who fight the capitalist system that Christie and all other politicians serve owe the working class more than this superficial response.
First, the media, including the liberals who are denouncing him now, has built up Christie big time. He has been portrayed as a voice of sanity in a party heavily influenced by Tea Party extremists. The Star-Ledger, biggest Democratic newspaper in the state, endorsed him in the 2013 election. After Hurricane Sandy, and Christie’s appearance with Obama during the clean-up, national TV gave Christie a major platform, and helped promote his presidential candidacy.
Until now, this has assured his reputation as a (sometimes over-the-top but) tough negotiator, who ultimately “gets things done” by working with the Democrats. But what has he “gotten done?” The Democrats have given Christie 90 percent of the cuts he demanded. Christie himself has especially lauded his ability to “reach across the aisle,” getting the Democrats to join his vicious attacks on teachers and other unionized workers in 2010 and 2011.
Second, although he may be more “in your face,”, Christie certainly didn’t invent retaliatory and vindictive politics in New Jersey or anywhere else. Democratic leaders such as Steve Adubato, Donald Norcross, Steve Sweeney and Sheila Oliver are masters of it. Most recently, these power-brokers stabbed their own 2013 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Barbara Buono in the back after she portrayed herself as independent of them.
Of course, Buono would not have been “bueno” for the working class. Although portrayed as “left-wing” or “progressive,” even her own platform proposed very little for workers, including a measly $1-an-hour increase in the minimum wage. Under capitalism, any NJ politician elected has to answer to Prudential Insurance Co. and the other big New Jersey bosses.
But the real significance is not local. The most powerful section of the U.S. ruling class is trying to ensure that the key candidates in the next presidential election will work in a “bi-partisan” way. The dysfunctional state of Congress and the presidency hurts their reputation as the “world’s only superpower” while they can’t get on with the massive repair and upgrading of infrastructure that they need to prepare for the next big war. Their plans to project U.S. military power to counteract China’s growing economic and political influence in South Asia and the Pacific are stalled.
The last thing they need is a major presidential candidate who doesn’t go along with the program, or whose dirty tricks go too far. A major slap-down of Christie’s well-known arrogance and egotism was also in order. Not necessarily to push him out, but to keep him “within limits.” Christie’s public “apology” is his attempt to reassure the rulers behind the “Bridgegate” media frenzy that he can still be a team player for capitalist class interests. Whether they take him at his word, or decide to drive him from the national scene is not for us to predict.
Workers can be sure that the Progressive Labor Party will not be fooled by “lesser evil” politicians or bosses who portray themselves as friends of the working class. The lesson of Bridgegate is this: workers need to keep our eye on the bigger picture of imperialist rivalry, war preparation, growing fascism and the fear of rebellion and revolution that drive the rulers’ political moves. No politicians, but only communist revolution can change that.