The Republican party became desperately ill circa 2015. At that time it was thought that a miracle cure lay in a certain orange tinted insult comic. That particular comedian was great at fundraising and drew crowds, so even though he was a shame and an embarrassment, they put him atop their ticket and thereby turned their party into a circus. One is put in mind of the old expression, “When you send a clown to the palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.” And so it was. The nearest contender that year was the oleaginous phony Ted Cruz and if that’s your alternative, then you really do have nobody.
So nobody is what they bought into. And through the vagueries and vicissitudes of the Electoral College, a miracle did indeed occur and the most controversial and least qualified candidate in the history of our nation did somehow win. Now, it’s 2024 and Donald Trump is still with us. He got a bit of pushback from Nikki Haley, but that ended at 10:00 a.m. EST today with the brief note: “It’s now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those of us in our party and beyond it who did not support him and I hope he does that.”
But will she endorse him? Will she finally bend the knee and get on board the Trump train, as Mitch McConnell did today, when he bent the knee to Zod? Ahhhh. Therein lies the rub. Rick Wilson explains exactly what she’s up against.
In the coming days the push for Haley to endorse Trump will become a deafening cacophony of political and financial pressure that will crash down on her, demanding her surrendur, as will the threats of death and violence against her family.
Even last night, one could already hear the gears of her settlement and surrender grinding, like fell machines deep underground in Mordor. The Dark Lord cometh.
Her staff and consultants will tell her quite plainly that her endorsement of Donald Trump is only a matter of time. They’ll do this less to protect her political future than their own. Every person pulling a payroll from Nikki Haley’s campaign or SuperPAC is getting calls and messages from friends bearing thinly veiled promises or threats. The more senior they are, the more those messages are about the possibility of the opportunity of the conditional hypothetical offer to join Team Trump and come back into the fold.
I have seen this process since 2015—and once received the same message in a friendly call from a mutual friend of and close ally to Trump in 2018, offering to help me “get right with Donald. He respects you for punching so hard. You’d be a good get.” It was then, and always is, a lie.
It is a lie, yet despite all the evidence that it’s a lie, so many people seem to think that they’re the exception to the rule, the one thing that Trump touches that doesn’t die. Haley’s quest here is a complex one, on some levels, but a very simple one on others. She either throws in her lot with Trump by endorsing him and therefore becomes a liar, walking back the perfectly true condemnations that she made of him before, or she continues to fight Trump. To the end. The end of what? The end of this iteration of the GOP and the rise of whatever conservative party comes after it. She might have a shot at leadership in some new version of a post-Trump GOP. That’s the simple answer. If she capitulates and endorses Trump, then what happens? That’s where it gets complicated.
She gets to tell the millions of Republicans desperate for an alternative to Trump that every word she spoke to them was a political lie.
She gets to tell her donors the fight was just too hard.
She gets to tell them she’s comfortable with the man she described as mentally unwell just days ago, too old for the job, and destined to lose against Joe Biden.
She gets to wind back her morally correct condemnations of Trump’s vile character, criminal exposure, abusive nature, and grotesque abuses of power.
She gets to end her career the moment that endorsement is made. MAGA will never forgive her.
And she gets to tell her daughter and every little girl who saw her on the campaign trail that she’s endorsing a rapist, an abuser, and a serial adulterer who will snatch away their freedoms.
MAGA will never forgive nor forget. So there is no sense of getting back on the Trump train. But maybe Haley won’t realize that, although I can’t imagine she’s that dense. Or, much more likely, she won’t be able to resist the urgings of people around here who are telling her that she must capitulate, for the good of the Republican party.
There is no Republican party. What there is, is the shattered shards of the old GOP and MAGA, and once again, MAGA is in the ascendant and Trump is on the ticket. Every time Trump speaks he talks more about purging the old guard, the moderates, and purifying the MAGAification of the GOP. He believes that this will cause him to win — when the plain facts are that between 25% and 40% of Republicans have indicated that they prefer somebody else to Trump and MAGA.
Now here’s a completely wild thought: Maybe Haley could endorse Joe Biden? Because if she did that, she would be endorsing democracy over MAGAism, sanity over insanity. And in point of fact, the views of the Republicans who did vote for Haley do align with Biden’s.
This is no ordinary election. Does Haley have the guts to stand up for America? Or, will she fold? The answer to that question is going to be key to what happens next. I hope she stands strong. On a long game level, she will have a place in some new post-Trump party. And on an ultimate level, she’s got to see the ruination that can come from a second Trump administration. How can she possibly endorse that so that her employees and colleagues can pay for their beach houses?
But that is a possibility. We sail in uncharted waters here and anything is possible on this odyssey. Including democracy smashing against the rocks and America being no more, only an ideal and a dream that died.
She’s a republican.
She’ll fold, like all the others.
The pressure is too great, and they’re too weak.
Never forget, “conservatives” ARE ethical egoists. They choose what benefits THEM over “US”. What’s good for ME. She’ll endorse and she’ll twist herself into knots justifying why. Damn them all.
She has numerous extreme RWNJ views to be sure. However, she gained some footing as someone even Democrats could “do business with” as the saying goes. And as with spending time working for Trump but up in New York at the U.N. and then getting out with her reputation relatively untarnished as of this morning she’s in a similar position. Sure, the pressure on her will become enormous. However, whether she takes a long view (she’s only fifty) and wants to have a big role in some post Trump/MAGA version of the GOP or a new party born from the ashes, or wants to sit on corporate boards and get rich endorsing Trump will as you say ruin her future.
It might not seem like it now but she does have one. IF she can hold out and say what she did this morning – that Trump needs to earn the votes of those who voted for her. I thought that was a fairly adept way of splitting the political baby on the endorsement/no endorsement thing. But during the days (and weeks) ahead she should take a cold, hard look at what’s happened to those who stood up to Trump and then capitulated. Who bowed down and kneeled (I fucking hate that “bend the knee” expression – it’s way too polite for being a coward and sucking up begging for forgiveness when you haven’t done something that requires it) before “Zod.” Take a look at Ted Cruz! Trump takes DELIGHT in tormenting and publicly humiliating Cruz and others who made a show of opposing him but eventually begged to be forgiven.
Haley would get far worse from Trump. It will be a rough road between now and November if Haley holds her ground and refuses to endorse Trump. However IF she does life will improve almost overnight for her. And she’ll have a pretty bright future. Not right away perhaps but maybe as soon as say 2028.
Liars lie and she’s a liar, and a racist. She’s also a rich elitist who wouldn’t approve medicaid for the poor folks when she was governor. She’ll fold. Hell she already has by implying he’s a legitimate choice instead of a rapist, a con man, a criminal and murdered hundreds of thousands of Americans by lying about covid for a phucking year.
Nikki Haley is a RWNJ. Full stop. She is bad news. For anything and everything. She really has NO positive anything, and is just as dangerous as the dotard. Don’t fall for her “spell.”