Wow. If this is true, this is something. It certainly would take the wind out of the sails of the GOP ship and head it straight for the general election iceberg, but then all signs have pointed to that for some time. We may be seeing that very thing happen a lot sooner than we thought. I personally thought DeSantis would make some superannuated effort to hang in, beyond all reason, but when the money’s gone, the money’s gone. And the Koch Brothers network is so hot on Haley that I find it hard to believe that they would let her jump ship so soon. You may recall the memo they sent about how Trump will lose to Biden but they believe that Haley will beat Biden by 12 points in Michigan and perform similarly in other swing states.
I don’t know where they’re getting their polls. I know I have read a lot of junk polls, aggregated, non-scientific polls, which shows that possibility, but it presupposes that Haley gets the nomination to begin with and so far that looks like an uphill battle. In all events, Rick Wilson published on Substack and here’s what he said:
After tonight, I have a hard time seeing how she justifies heading to South Carolina to get crushed in her home state. My bet is that tomorrow tonight [sic] she’ll leave the race, bend the knee, endorse Trump, and break the last vestiges of the old GOP.
She’ll leave with several million dollars still in the bank from her SuperPAC and live to fight another day. (Unlike DeSantis, who burned donors so badly he’s done in national politics unless someone invents a charisma transplant and he wins the Powerball lottery.)
“Trump in heels” becomes one last disappointment for the donors and the gentry GOP. The overwhelming instinct even of many Never Trump GOPers is always to run back to the nest, to return to the party’s warm embrace; this made even some diehard Never Trump types Nikki-curious. She was right on a cluster of issues where Trump is deeply, profoundly wrong, to wit, Ukraine and foreign policy. None of that was sufficient.
Nikki’s capitulation after a brief moment of defiance and resistance will be sweet wine for the MAGA faction. Trump, who has taken to calling her “Nimbra” and rolling out his greatest-hits birther racism against her, doesn’t need South Carolina and I suspect he will show less grace than he’s shown with DeSantis.
I’m strangely unemotional about Nikki Haley. In some other universe, she’d be a mainstream Republican. In our dark and gloomy timeline, she’s another piece of political roadkill on the Trump highway, an imitator who could never master what it took to win. Watching her in the last few days as she struggles with the joy of actually bringing the attack against him and the knowledge that she’ll pay for every one of those hits when she loses has been fascinating.
She’s every part of the dying old GOP’s struggle, writ large. The illusion that Trump would disappear, the irreconcilable nature of the donor class and the MAGA base, and the deeply wired submission and cowardice of the elected and political elite of the GOP all came together in her. The idea that with a MAGA-ish candidate and the right focus group magic that the Trump deathgrip on the party could be broken got its best test in Nikki Haley and failed.
That’s not as much about her as it is about what the MAGA GOP has become, and why the stakes of the fight are so high.
Amen to that. Rick Wilson has also predicted that when this farce of a pretend primary is over that the GOP big donors will take our their checkbooks and write big ones and I don’t doubt they will. If there’s some possibility that Trump can squeak in between a No Labels bleed votes from Biden campaign and the quirks of the electoral college, the Koch network and all the others will kick in cash. That’s a no brainer.
Let’s watch carefully to see what Haley does tonight and let’s see what happens tomorrow, the 23rd. If she loses New Hampshire, as she is slated to do, then she will either fold, or go on to South Carolina, where she’s slated to get slaughtered. And getting slaughtered in your home state is not a good thing for a politician, last I knew.
So Rick Wilson may be right. Tonight may be Haley’s last stand. If not tonight, then South Carolina for sure. But I don’t think she’ll go on to South Carolina. I think this macabre horror show of a primary is just collapsing of its own weight and Haley will bail sooner rather than later.
As to her endorsing Trump? Most probably. She’s got to be the good Republican team player, right? And when Haley endorses Trump, that will be that. The Old Guard Republican party will be gone. We’re going to watch it curl up and die, like the Old South died one night. The GOP might be gone with the wind as of tomorrow. And the Trumpification of the Republican party will be complete.
Then watch how Trump loses the fourth election in a row for the GOP. I don’t pretend to know the future of the GOP but if they keep up at this pace of loss and ineptitude, I can’t see them getting back on track for maybe three or four presidential cycles. Maybe Trump will want to run in 2028 if he’s not in prison. Who knows how nuts this can get? But this is the ticket they bought. When they put Trump on their ticket in 2016, against the better judgement of most of the party, this is the path they took. And it was said so in 2016. Hell, Lindsey Graham said it in 2015, he was in the vanguard of the anti-Trumpers, curiously enough.
As I’ve said before, I believe a new conservative party will rise from the ashes of the GOP. I don’t see any other way.
I know I keep harping on it but part of this tragic farce that will likely end (this week) as Wilson predicts can be laid at the foot of the DC Court of Appeals. Had they issued a strong denial of Trump’s immunity appeal and structured it to force a rapid escalation to SCOTUS (who I still say would deny cert) Trump would be going on trial in DC in March. Maybe not on the 4th (the day before Super Tuesday) as planned but before the end of that month. And almost certainly convicted which would have a huge impact AFTER Super Tuesday.
But it’s been crickets from the DC Circuit and it’s now clear they will take their sweet ass time ruling, and it seems a LOT of time. Without Trump sitting in court come March and likely being a convicted felon by mid to late April no one has a chance against him. The old guard of the GOP including the big money folks will be faced with the choice of mega bucks to Trump or sitting things out and allowing Biden and Democrats to win in November. Good business in the LONG-Term would be for them to accept some losses now, especially with a SCOTUS to their liking in place ready and willing to deliver all sorts of rulings they want.
However, greed and petulance will likely win out with them and they will go for broke trying to get just one more cycle of keeping a Democrat out of the WH and.or denying Democrats control of the legislative and executive branches.
And I’m convinced it comes back to the DC Circuit not having ruled and gotten Trump’s DC trial (and conviction) back on track.
the koch bros think if they say/write something enough times, it will become true. Were they trust fund babies like dingleberry?
Fake News is the new conservative party.
2+2=5
Maybe they’ll call it, “Class of ’84”
She’s already endorsed this criminal rapist, racist, and traitor by standing on a national stage raising her hand in support, and saying she would pardon him! She keeps saying we don’t need an 80 year old in the white house, although Joe’s saved our collective asses since the disaster of Trump, and during a period where 76 million want to piss on our history, and DENY REALITY. What we really don’t need if we want to survive as a democratic Republic, and, as a species, is either a dickhead,(trump),or a dickless Trump, the liar from SC.
There is no way a brown skinned woman born of immigrant parents from a non-European country will be the nominee for the racist republicans.
A sad truth, but a truth none-the-less.
I’m not sure mega bucks will help Trump in November. Too many factors are working against him: his increasing senility; his authoritarian proclamations (popular with his base, but alarming to everyone else); and his many legal problems. During his presidency, his overall favorability ratings never exceeded 50%…and that was before Covid, Jan. 6, theft of classified documents, etc. Moreover, donors don’t want their money siphoned off to pay legal expenses or judgements against him.
Most likely, “old-GOP” donors will focus on Congressional and state races, and let Trump fend for himself.
ha ha! trump got 100% trounced in NH already. shout out to Dixville Notch!