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November 17, 2023 - 6:30pm
In American politics, the “radical middle” has often been the favoured territory of populists who pit themselves against the party establishment of both the Democrats and the Republicans. Think Ross Perot, the professional-wrestler-turned-governor Jesse Ventura, and — of course — Donald Trump. In the 2024 Republican primary, Nikki Haley inverts those tendencies in her emphasis on policies which combine neoliberal economics with regulatory controls. This neo-managerialism has piqued the interest of pundits and high-finance donors who are nonplussed by the ascent of populism in the GOP. Whether that policy vision will appeal to Republican voters is another question.
Such an approach is partly about affect, but it’s also about policy. Haley’s proposal to end anonymity on social media sites, for example, is textbook managerialism. Despite her campaign’s attempts to clean up her position by saying that she is mostly concerned about bots from abroad, others remain less convinced, arguing that it is a vehicle for more authoritarian controls. Haley’s appeal to “national security” as a justification for the loss of online anonymity highlights the way that invocations of “security” and “safety” (as the Covid pandemic recently demonstrated) have been a key component in expanding the role of administrative bureaucracies in American life.
This managerial attitude also extends to immigration. In addition to increased border security, Haley supports defunding sanctuary cities and using E-Verify to establish the legal status of American workers. On legal immigration, however, the former South Carolina governor argues that the Government should partner with businesses to increase the migration of workers from abroad. In practice, this could threaten the economic position of the working-class voters who are increasingly important in the Republican coalition. It is distinctly un-populist.
Haley’s presidential campaign has followed in the footsteps of her business-friendly record as governor. Tax cuts, slashing Government spending, entitlement reform, and the repeal of the industrial-policy elements of the Inflation Reduction Act are at the core of her economic agenda. In the battle between Ron DeSantis and Disney, she pointedly sided with the Mouse. She has also criticised DeSantis for his support for Florida environmental protections that prohibit drilling for oil in the Everglades and other coastal areas.
It’s no wonder, then, that Haley has generated interest from Wall Street donors. However, the very things that endear her to some corporate donors could be electoral vulnerabilities. Running against even the idea of entitlement cuts was central to the Obama-Biden 2012 campaign reboot, and Biden has telegraphed that he will launch the same broadsides against Republicans in 2024 if they give him an opening.
So far in the 2024 primary, Trump has also tried to undercut Republican rivals by saying entitlements should be left alone — though as president he also mused about eventual reform. If he were ever to view Haley as a serious threat, having thus far treated her as a negligible challenger, he might try to play the entitlement card against her. His allies have spent over $25 million attacking DeSantis while basically ignoring Haley. For her part, the former South Carolina governor tends to settle for only oblique criticisms of Trump at most.
Trump’s apparent indifference to Haley might be a blind spot of historic proportions. But it could also reveal his conviction about the shape of the GOP: that populists still have the advantage in the contemporary party and that a non-populist challenger ultimately has a lower ceiling. A skilled politician, Haley has been the victorious underdog before, so some political observers think it’s too early to count her out. More is on the line than the fate of these candidates. A Haley victory would restore some of the policy imperatives on immigration, economics, and foreign affairs that Trump shouldered aside eight years ago.
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SubscribeShe can go to Hell. Little history lesson for you kids out there. The American system of government was basically formed out of arguments between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. These would be Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers. Despite what you might see in Hamilton (the shadiest of the Founding Fathers), the Anti-Federalist Papers were just as important and why we have things like the Bill of Rights and many other constraints on governmental power. Anyway, why am I bringing this up? Simple, all the American Constitutional debate letters were written under pseudonyms like Publius, A Landholder, and The Federal Farmer. This woman is attacking the very idea of that. Haley does not care to stop the abuses of the Democrat party. She does not care about anyone’s’ rights or dismantling the surveillance state. Nikki Haley just wants the power to be hers. Side note, she has Hillary Clinton levels of identity politics “you can’t criticize me because I am a woman” going on.
Added to that she wants war with Iran, she wants big business to control immigration, she hates working people. she’s the absolute dregs. no wonder the establishment think she’s great
She’s a witch, even worse than Hillary
Be careful, every woman is a witch
Yeah but Nikki lives in a gingerbread house
And every man is a…
Awaiting your reply…
monkey
…jolly fine fellow.
First Nikki Haley doesn’t stand a chance of being the republican nominee either now or in 2028. Second, she is plain dangerous as she’s an advocate of forever loosing wars. As example take her stance on the Russian-Ukraine war which is basically to go on forever. That depite the fact that the Ukrainans have been bled dry and cannot possibly ever recover the lost territories. Further, she fails to understand the historical context of the Ukraine-Russian war which is more akin to a civil war between different states (where states has the same meaning as the US states). i.e. it was fine for Ukraine to be independent providing it didn’t align itself with the West or attempt to join NATO, as in the case with Belarus. But when the US interfered and basically engineered a coup in 2014, the current situation became unavoidable, just as it would be if the situation involved a neighbor of the US. But the Monroe doctrine is of course regarded as perfectly OK for the US but nor for Russia.
She does have a chance, if Trump is going to jail or is removed from the race, Haley or someone else will be the Republican nominee, the people in control of the party don’t want Trump
That is the one scenario where RFK Jr. might have a real chance.
If the GOP candidate is Haley, then I would certainly give much thought to voting for RFK Jr. Haley is a war loving neocon straight out of the pages of d**k Cheney’s “bio”. I don’t trust her.
You do realize that Trump can run for President from jail. There is nothing in the US constitution or amendments preventing this. So no, Haley has zero chance. And some of the people in control of the party actually do want Trump – see endorsement from Johnson the new speaker for example, in addition to the current chair of the RNC. As for Trump going to jail there is zero chance of that happening before the election. If he should be convicted the conviction will be appealed and reversed. And further, jailing Trump for nothingburgers would be seen as straight out and out election interference. This would only serve to increase the number of voters that Trump gets in the primaries (as the slate of nonsense prosecutions have already done).
On the NY fraud case Trump did nothing that any other New York developer does. They all bribe inspectors and lie on loan applications. It’s how things get built.
‘On the insurrection case Trump is innocent. He summoned his supporters to a big rally no different than Martin Luther King’ march. The Democratic Not my President rally was similar. It was a lot of noise and demonstration. People exercising their rights of speech and assembly. It is legal to hang Pence in effigy and similar noise making by the looser of an election. False claims of ballot stuffing are freedom of speech. There is no evidence that Trump or anyone else in mob leadership told that crowd to invade the Capital. A leaderless mob got out of control. Anyone who did invade should share a cell with the Anti-Fascist who burned down stores in Portland.
On the Georgia election fraud case Trump is guilty. He asked the Governer to stuff a ballot box. Sentence him to 30 days in jail if a public pillory is no longer legal. I do not think any of his lawyers or aids are guilty of anything. Falsely denying that an election was stolen is freedom of speech protected by the constitution.
On the classified documents case guilty but so is Biden and other Presidents. We need some laws to ensure that Presidents do not repeat this offense upon leaving office. Hit him with a big fine. The rules of asset forfeiture of anything that may have been used in a crime would allow confiscation of the Mar a Lago estate without any conviction. Look it up: some poor idiot carrying $5000 in cash to pay for a used car loses his money to a police department at a speed trap.
Russian shrill Alert.
What are you talking about? You do realize that the whole Russian Collusion story has now been debunked and was nothing more than oppo research from the Clinton campaign. But the damage that did to the US was incalculable.
Never argue with the NPCs, it’s a waste of time
Oh, 77 Brigade patrol here too, do they?
“Trump’s apparent indifference to Haley might be a blind spot of historic proportions.”
I don’t think Donald Trump is indifferent to Nikki Haley, or has a blind spot. I think he’s watching her carefully. If Nikki Haley shows some real strength, he’ll jump on her. Otherwise, he’ll continue to focus on the runner-up, Ron DeSantis.
To me Nikki Haley has always been overrated. Sure, she’s a skilled politician. So is Chris Christie. So is (or was) Jeb Bush. But her skills brought her success in the minor leagues. Playing in the big league of presidential politics, or even any federal office, seems beyond her skill set.
My nickname for her is Haley the Harridan. I don’t object so much to her policies as to her manner and her lack of accomplishment. Before she went into politics she was an accountant at her family’s business. Nothing of note there. As a politician she has built her resume by the offices she’s won rather than the things she has accomplished. She’s a lot like Kamala Harris in that regard.
We can, and will, do better.
She kills for money. Haley quit her job as USA UN Ambassador and went to sit on the board of several Military Industrial Companies, making $8 million in no time, then back to politics.
She is for every possible war – she is a monster of Biden’s caliber. Death is her bread and butter.
There’s a large constituency for technocratic managerialism (the Professional Managerial Class) in both parties. The Democrats are more obvious about wanting to manage everyone else’s life, but the GOP has been right there in lockstep most of the way. Why do you think immigration never gets solved? It’s beneficial to the PMC.
Nikki Haley is the Mitt Romney of 2024. Let us hope the GOP is not foolish enough to nominate her. I would take Trump’s incompetence over Haley’s competent elitism, in part because a GOP Congress would rubber stamp her power grabs.
Just what we need: a 3rd term of George W Bush.
The Republican’s should run a comedian against Biden. It worked in Ukraine. But perhaps they tried that last time. He just wasn’t funny enough. Of course modern comedy isn’t supposed to be funny just politically left. So that’s why the Tommy Cooper candidate won politically left but with two left feet and a bumbling delivery of his failed magic tricks. How we laughed!
If only George Carlin were still alive. But then there is Vivek Ramaswamy.
Haily’s best chance is to become Trumps vice president and hope that some Democratic nut shoots Trump. In any case Trump is almost as old as Biden and limited to one term. As a vice president candidate, she balances the ticket well and Trump is unconcerned about what happens to his followers if he dies. Trump is sure he is immortal.
Pretty much any Republican (except Ramaswamy) is better than Trump. The US needs better than a Narcissistic Sociopath as our President. I’m unconvinced that Trump cares about anything in the world besides his own ego, which is the kiss of death for a leader. I’d literally rather the President be selected by pulling a random name out of the phone book than Biden, Trump, or Harris.
Monarchy with eldest son primogeniture is basically pulling a name out of a phone book. A survey of English kings who did not usurp the throne rated higher than a similar sample of US presidents who did not arrive as former VP. Who you rather have as ruler Charles 3 or Biden or Trump.