Sorry, Nikki Haley isn't the answer
It doesn't matter that she is at times rational, she is never gonna be the nominee.
I have been a subscriber to The Bulwark, a “Never Trump” bastion of former Republicans who have consistently been anti-Trump for about 3 years now. While I am left of center1, I appreciate the rhetoric and debate of the “rational” center right, and I do pay for their Substack.
They are solidly anti-Trump, but they still have strong affections for their former party, looking for the pony in the steaming pile of manure that the modern right has become.
To get to the point of the post though, I am going to comment on their discussion after the first Republican primary debate. The number of references to how well the former South Carolina Nikki Haley performed, and how maybe, just perhaps, the Republican primary voters will gain a level of rationality and support her after her showing of foreign policy chops, and more particularly how she put Vivek Ramaswamy in his place as a bombastic trumpian troll.
This is wish-casting to the extreme. Sure, she wasn’t tongue-bathing the orange shitgibbon’s scrotum, but there is absolutely a 0% chance that she will be selected in the primary. Yes, it is quite likely that with the utter collapse of the Donor-Class favorite, Ron DeSantis, the big money Republican donors are going to look at her, and probably hitch their wagons to her train.
Fine, rich people are stupid, and they will cast around for a savior to prevent a second Trump primary coronation, wasting potentially hundreds of millions of dollars2 as is their right. But make no mistake, it is a ginormous waste of money, and that once Trump captures the nomination, they will again get in line behind Trump in the general.
Since the debate, there have been multiple articles, podcasts and a lot of hope that Haley will make an effective run against Trump in the primary.
Sorry, Haley has about as much of a chance as Jessica Alba whisking me away on her private jet to a week-long trip to the French Riviera.
Don’t get me wrong, I am glad that The Bulwark exists, and I do pay for my subscription, but their hope that things will go back to normal one day is pure unadulterated fantasy. The truth is that a lot of the elements of Trumpism has been enmeshed in the Republican party since the Goldwater days, accelerating with Lee Atwater and Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”, Ronald Reagan’s embracing of strong Racist dog whistles, and the Evangelicals, the rise of conservative talk radio and the path to Trump and where we are today is a short straight line.
Yet they pine for a return to normal. Yeah, that’s not going to happen.
Coda
When I wrote this, I hadn’t listened to the Bulwark’s Friday podcast with Tim Miller and Charlie Sykes. About the 3/4 point, Charlie got a chubby when he fantasized that Haley did so well at the debate that she just might be able to pull off a win in the primary3 and that the Dems were in big trouble if the race comes down to Nikki Haley and Biden.
Fortunately, Tim jumped in to say that on Earth 7.0, that might be a possibility, but in the here and now, with the voters we have, and the Republican base, this is not even worth hypothesizing.
Sure, I will grant that the institutional donors will switch from Tim Scott to Nikki Haley, but that is going to add up to a big fuck-all in the primary.
Face it Never Trumpers, Trump will be the nominee. It will not be close
I am less further left than I used to be, but I am solidly in the “Liberal” realm.
I am reminded of the lyrics to “I’d Love to Change the World” by Ten Years After: “Tax the rich, feed the poor, until there are no rich no more”
I should not have to say this, but a brown skinned woman, who changed her name from Nimarata to Nikki, and converted from her original Sikh faith to Christian to appeal to rank and file bigots in her native South Carolina has no chance to win nationwide.
In addition to what you write in note 3, there was the sacrilege of taking down the confederate rag just because a racist went into a Black church where they welcomed him and shot 9 of them to death. She’ll never be forgiven by many MAGAs for that.