For the past several weeks, I’ve found myself thinking about the role in this dangerous drama played by Christie and two other elected officials of my acquaintance: Tom Cotton, the junior senator from Arkansas, and Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House. I’ve been troubled by their actions not only because I’m familiar with these men and their records, but because they are politicians of unusual gifts, from whom much has been expected.

Christie I know well; Cotton I know somewhat well, and Ryan I know only in passing, though I’ve followed his career closely. They are three dissimilar politicians—Ryan possesses little of Christie’s ostentatious pugnacity; Cotton is as unapproachable as Ryan is genial. But all three share certain characteristics: Each is very smart; each is capable of serious analytical lift; each has a well-developed ideology rooted in different Republican and conservative schools of thought; and each possesses a great deal of energy. None of these men, to the best of my knowledge, is inclined to racism or anti-Semitism or misogyny. And each of these men—this is very important—is hugely devoted to his children.

Christie’s role in this dangerous farce has been documented carefully, as have the serial humiliations he has suffered at the hands of the cruel narcissist he supports for president. After Christie’s defeat in the New Hampshire primary—a defeat that pushed him from the race—a couple of friends who know him well suggested to me that it would only be a matter of time before he lined-up with Trump. I chose not to believe it, but the argument was compelling: Christie’s options were narrowing rapidly, and he could not abide inconsequence; and he was known as a person who is drawn inexorably, almost helplessly, to celebrity. I understood the first part of the argument, and I’ve witnessed the second—his love for Bruce Springsteen, a love unrequited, was the subject of an article I published in The Atlantic four years ago. I’ve seen Christie risk losing his composure in pursuit of Paul McCartney, Bono, and the King of Jordan, but, I must confess, his desire for celebrity affirmation made him seem pleasingly vulnerable and refreshingly three-dimensional. Until it made him seem craven.

If he were just a small-timer, with no (putatively) fixed beliefs, no skills, and without an agile intelligence, perhaps Christie’s collapse into the arms of a Mussolini manqué wouldn’t seem so tragic. But let me bring you back to a time when Christie stood, eloquently, in defense of a core American value. It was five years ago, and he had just appointed a Muslim American lawyer to serve as a judge on the Superior Court of Passaic County. The lawyer, Sohail Mohammed, once defended Muslims who had been detained by the FBI after the 9/11 attacks. None of the men wound-up being charged with crimes related to terrorism—and, in any case, they would have still have had the right to an attorney—but Mohammed’s work, and his religion, were still too much for the anti-Muslim right. Opponents argued, among other things, that he would attempt to impose shari’a, Islamic law, on New Jersey. Christie, who knew Mohammed, and worked with him closely in the aftermath of 9/11, was having none of it, and he rose to Mohammed’s defense, pushing him through to confirmation.