I confess that if I were a Republican, I would be praying every night for Nikki Haley to become my party’s nominee for president. I would see her as the only candidate in the rapidly dwindling field who might have a fighting chance of pulling my party back from the brink of self-destruction.
But here’s the thing: She doesn’t appear to be taking it all that seriously. She refuses to really challenge Trump on his xenophobia, sexism, or record of utter corruption. She refuses to call him out for plotting to overthrow the results of a free and fair election. She refuses to mention that he plays footsie with tyrants, dictators, and serial violators of human rights. If she becomes president, she has vowed to pardon him for all of his alleged misdeeds. At times, she seems more like a Trump fan than a Trump opponent.
Haley is apparently so afraid of alienating Trump’s MAGA base that she was not even able to say, when recently asked about what caused the Civil War, that the war was fought over slavery.
If Haley can’t go toe-to-toe with the clear front-runner, then what is she doing in the race? The MAGA base will only vote for Trump. They don’t want someone meaner than Trump (Ron DeSantis); they don’t want someone nicer than Trump (Asa Hutchinson); they don’t want someone who is more of a motor-mouth than Trump (Vivek Ramaswamy); and they don’t want someone smarter than Trump (Chris Christie). They also don’t want someone more female and more “ethnic” than Trump (Nikki Haley). So why is Haley still so hesitant to go for the jugular?
MAGA Republicans will never vote for her, and that should feel liberating; yet she routinely flubs the opportunity to tell the unvarnished truth and draw important contrasts. Trump’s base won’t vote for her under any circumstance, no matter what she says. But that leaves about 35 percent of Republicans and 100 percent of Independents who are ripe for the picking by someone with the courage to state the obvious: Donald Trump poses a danger to American democracy.
So, “Operation Haley” is beginning to feel less like a campaign and more like an audition … but for what?
Haley already served, for a time, in Trump’s last administration, as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. I do not recall what the rationale was for her eventual resignation, but given Haley’s deep commitment to national security and strong international alliances, I would imagine that she found having to shill for the Bloviator-in-Chief on the world stage to be an exercise in abject embarrassment. Surely, she can’t believe that a future position as one of Trump’s lackeys would feel appreciably different.
The vice presidency would be even worse than an ambassadorship. If anyone has any doubts about that, just ask Mike Pence. Would Haley really seek a role that would require her to gaze adoringly, without intermission, for four long years, at a man who makes her skin crawl? As Pence would be happy to tell her, the only compensation for four years of continual groveling is the opportunity, at the very end, to be lynched by a mob of lunatics.
What, then, is Nikki Haley after? Does she want to spin her current run into a high-priced, post-primary consultancy? Is she hoping that No Labels will ask her to run as their third-party candidate after Chris Christie turns them down? She must be aware of the conventional wisdom that a third-party candidate is unlikely to win, but quite likely to guarantee another Trump presidency.
Or could it be that she is just warming up the water for another presidential run in 2028?
It might be helpful for someone on her campaign to explain to her that if Trump regains the White House, there is a good chance that there will be no 2028 election.
But there may be an American gulag, courtesy of Donald Trump’s enablers, custom made for political opponents who look a lot like Nikki Haley.
