I have written before on here about New Jersey’s fourth Congressional district’s Republican “representative”, Chris Smith, one of the longest-serving members of the House.
Smith, who has “served” as “representative” since 1981, has not held a town hall meeting for about 30 years, apparently because he finds them a “waste of time”. (More to the point, he seems not to like to answer tough questions.) He is rarely seen in his home district, except for photo ops, spending most of his time either in Washington, or in Virginia, where he actually lives. (He maintains an apartment in Hamilton, NJ, solely for the purpose of claiming residence.)
For Smith, who has been pushing a “Pro Life” agenda for decades, the election of Trump was a dream come true. Nonetheless, anxious, I suppose, to maintain his image as a moderate, when the Mueller investigation started, Smith sent a letter to his constituents (dated May 24, 2017) that said:
Foreign interference meant to undermine our nation’s democratic processes and institutions threaten our national security and require thorough investigation and comprehensive solutions to defend that which we hold dear. As I stated previously, we must follow the facts wherever they lead, with one objective: the truth.
So open-minded sounding.
Fast forward to 2019-2021, and to the extent that Smith is singing at all, he’s singing a very different tune. Twice he voted against impeachment, despite the transparent evidence of Trump’s corruption and criminal acts. And after the appalling events of January 6, Smith had this to say about the right-wing nut jobs who invaded the Capitol (boldface mine):
"I don't know that yet," said the Congressman. "And I'll leave that to law enforcement to decipher their identities. I saw very strange things, some strange designs on tattoos, for example a hammer and sickle. Some very strange things. It may have been Antifa. We just don't know. I'll leave that to the police to ascertain."
Needless to say, his @RepChrisSmith Twitter account was inundated with reactions, none of them too complimentary. So, what is a careerist Congressman who hides from his constituents (except the ones who praise him) going to do?
Delete his own Twitter account, of course.
So Smith, who hasn’t held a town hall in 30 years, is now even more cut off from his constituents. In what sense can he be said to “represent” New Jersey’s fourth district?
Meanwhile, while Smith makes a mockery of the American democratic process, he has the unmitigated gall to pontificate on democracy in Belarus and China. Apparently the phrase “charity begins at home” means nothing to him.
While a lot of the focus in recent weeks has been on the members of Congress who have actively upheld Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories, careerist Congress members and Senators who lay low and stick their heads up only enough to see which way the wind is blowing are just as much of a danger, since they help to normalize the aberrant behavior of their more shrill colleagues.
Smith has turned this form of cowardice into an art form, and his loyal base of sheep in New Jersey’s fourth district have certainly kept him in his position for a long time. Two strong Democratic opponents, Josh Welle in 2018, and Stephanie Schmid in 2020, came close to unseating him but not, unfortunately, close enough. When I was canvassing for Welle in 2018 I met a number of Smith supporters: veterans who felt in debt to Smith for his support for veterans, a postal worker who lauded Smith’s support for the postal union. I often wondered since then how those particular individuals felt while Trump trashed the military, and tried to eviscerate the postal service, while all the while Smith remained silent.
At some point this has to bite: Smith’s supporters are mostly old, and have to die sometime. Loyalty, as any ex-Trump supporter should know, can be a fickle thing. The only question really is when the bite will come, and whether Smith will be booted by the voters before he decides not to run again. But then my sense of Smith is that if he felt that he was really going to lose an election, he would simply preemptively decide that he was going to retire, rather than face defeat.
But one thing is certain: his career, no matter how it ends, will be seen by history as an ignominious one.