Verily, it is so. Question though: Is Ann Coulter still a thing on the right? I haven’t heard much from her over the past 20 years or so…
I don’t think being a clod when you speak would hurt much, or at all.
And, much as I wish it was otherwise, I don’t think swing voters will have a problem with his immigration policy.
I think his biggest November 2024 vulnerability is having called for Medicare and social security to start at age 70. If he flip-flopped on that now, maybe the 2024 attack ads would seem to be about something ancient, but he’s declining to do so. I guess he’ll get to it eventually, but the longer he waits, the worse it will bite him.
Nikki can’t really complain. She basically said the same thing about Raphael Warnock.
Nikki Haley Says Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Black American Pastor, Should Be ‘Deported’ (yahoo.com)
She wasn’t clear on where he should be deported to, though I would assume it’s “his own country”.
So these Republicans are saying, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua has the right idea?
I’d like to agree with you regarding De(mon)Santis, but so far, I can’t. There are just too many people who also worship him for him to lose, should he get on the presidential ticket.
So what exactly is her platform? Why is she running?
But Trump lost in 2020. Why would he do better than Trump?
This New Yorker article has some insights:
From what I can tell, it’s typical MAGA stuff with one exception; she wants to aid international efforts to help Ukraine push Russia out. She’s opposed to Putin. Otherwise, you get what you’d get if Trump was elected again.
If Haley represents the old-guard G.O.P., it is only in her hawkish approach to foreign policy. In contrast to the “America First” contingent of Republicans currently in Congress, who see no reason for the United States to support Ukraine, Haley perceives Russian aggression in a larger context. “It’s not a war about Ukraine. This is about a war on freedom,” she said, after an audience member asked her position on the conflict. “Because if Russia takes Ukraine, they said Poland and the Baltics are next, and we’re looking at a world war. And if Russia wins, you can bet China’s gonna take Taiwan, Iran’s gonna get the bomb.” She went on, “If they lose, it tells every dictator and enemy of the West, ‘Don’t mess with us.’ . . . That does not mean we send troops. It does not mean we write blank checks. What it means is we get together with those nato countries, and we say, ‘What are you going to do?’ . . . And we all make sure they have the equipment and the ammunition to win that for themselves.”
In almost every other way, though, Haley’s politics align with the more extreme wing of the Republican Party.
That’s a thing?
SC comes early in the primary. Being the governor of one of the lead-off states means the voters there will give her a fair look instead of just going off a paragraph they read on some message board or new article. She’s checked the name recognition box, which is critical in a crowded primary field. I’m not saying she’ll carry the state, but I’m saying it’s a huge advantage, or perhaps I should say it subtracts a major handicap that Scott and DeSantis have.
Turnout. Trump was extremely polarizing and Democratic voters as a group are traditionally less motivated to vote than Republicans. It is highly likely some Biden votes were purely anti-Trump votes. Remove Trump and some of those might just shrug and stay home because they find DeSantis less terrifying or angering than a Trump. While you can argue that Trump voters will be less motivated as well, unless Trump is actively sabotaging the Republican vote Democratic demotivation might exceed Republican demotivation.
That is a good point, and you may be right. Could, however, there be residual anti-Trump “momentum” in the Democratic base that helps get out the vote? Of course, if Trump is the nominee, which is altogether possible, then Dems will be in DEFCON 1; if anything, the anti-Trump vote will be stronger than it was in 2020.
But let’s say DeSantis wins the primary. Trump is already in the primary, so there will be strong anti-Trump feelings already at work that can be transferred onto DeSantis. Certainly, there will be an attempt on the part of the Dems to make DeSantis seem as bad as Trump and channel anti-Trump fear and anger to help beat him. I think that would work well, but it’s just my speculation at this point.
As an interesting aside, in the last two Canadian federal elections, the new leaders of the Conservative Party both tried to pull off this stunt, and both of them lost. It’s the fundamental flaw in right-wing politics these days, almost everywhere. The person has to be far enough right to get the nomination of his party using extremist votes, but then has to move left to appeal to the center voters.
Problem is, they then get crap from both sides. The extremists complain that they’ve been betrayed, and the centrists complain that they now have no idea what the person actually believes, or will do if elected. It’s the worst of both worlds for them.
Hey, it worked once in 2016. I think that was a unique situation where the Democrats fielded someone with a history of being villified, and was not liked much by swing voters, evidently. Now if they want to go hard right and not pick someone with appeal to the center, like a Romney or a McCain, let them. Haley may be included there, and I can see her pivoting, but she will struggle against the populist appeal of those to the right of her, like DeSantis, who wont pivot. This time, tho, the Democrats have someone with crossover appeal in Biden.
I don’t know that it did, really. Trump played to the base in the primary, but never really “pivoted” to try to broaden his appeal. He just kept being awful, and managed to squeak out a win due to the nature of the Electoral College. Most “centrists” figured he was just a joke candidate, and a lot stayed home because they figured Clinton would win without them.
Four years on, and we’ve seen how bad Trump is/was, and how far the GOP will go to back that. Making a successful pivot is going to be much harder, assuming the nominee even decides to try.
And I think a lot of the people who came out to vote against Trump in 2020 will come out again - what has changed in the GOP to make those people more accepting of their bullshit? Voter apathy only works if people stay apathetic, and I don’t see that happening now. Everything that was in play in 2020 is still in play. On some things (abortion, for example), it’s just gotten worse.
Agreed. I think the GOP is in a terrible position.
Nikki Haley’s incoherent response to this question on the Civil War
Makes me think of a response by another South Carolinian.
I don’t like the title of that video myself. Being put on the spot like that would make anyone slip up.
I wonder what made that audience member ask Haley that specific question.
To find out what kind of alternate reality she is willing to pander to in order to secure the Republican base? We got the answer to that question quite succinctly.
I believe he answered this. I can’t find the interview, but he wanted to know if her view had changed, since she had previously described the war as a battle between “tradition and change”.
If you say slavery caused the Civil War, you are suggesting that white people in the North cared about the welfare of Black people. When I was a college history major, that was a politically moderate to conservative interpretation.
In the unlikely event that Haley gets the nomination, I will probably vote for Biden. But I will try to have an open mind when reading the debate transcripts (flip flops on prior right wing positions welcome).
This kerfuffle will have no influence on my vote.