Nikki Haley is roundly defeated by Donald Trump, even in her home state of South Carolina. Yet the fact that she has still not quit the race is a positive sign for the state of the world’s oldest democracy.
Donald Trump is virtually unstoppable on his course to becoming the Republicans’ presidential nominee. After winning in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and not forgetting the Virgin Islands, Trump also emerged the clear winner in the South Carolina primary election.
It was the last real chance for his sole remaining challenger, Nikki Haley, to become a threat to the former president. South Carolina is Haley’s home state, where she served as governor, and where Democrats as well as Republicans were eligible to vote in the primary. Even so, Trump came away with two-thirds of the vote, just as the opinion polls had indicated he would, thus garnering 44 delegates for the Republican National Convention in July. To which, Haley won a mere three delegates.
Every indicator points toward things carrying on in a similar vein. Although South Carolina is geographically part of the Deep South, it is demographically rather diverse and, in fact, more representative of the whole nation than the states that held the earlier primaries. Trump looks on course to obtain the majority of delegates needed to secure the nomination at the convention by as soon as mid-March.
Nikki Haley Is Leading a Desperate Fight for The Soul of The Republican Party
Why doesn’t Haley simply drop out? For one reason, the majority of Americans are unhappy with a choice between the 81-year-old Joe Biden and the 77-year-old Trump. Moreover, 52-year-old Haley and her financial backers are leading a desperate fight for the soul of the Republican Party. She has allied herself on a national level with the party establishment, the old guard that borders on being radically conservative, but which is not prepared to see the United States turned completely upside down.
In South Carolina, she rose to the governorship as an outsider and standard-bearer for the tea party, which convened as a protest movement opposed to the liberal-economic elite and center-left politics of Barack Obama, the country’s first Black president. This history worked to Haley’s disadvantage on Saturday, as she had never been inducted into the old boys’ network in her hometown.
Haley’s Campaign Got Tough with Trump Far Too Late
In any case, Trump has long since captured the tea party and amalgamated it with his private army of voters, marching in step to the slogan of “Make America Great Again.” Now Trump poses as the one promising to bring about radical change. He has subordinated broad swaths of the party to his own interests, arranging to derail immigration policy and block aid to Ukraine, to the point where governing has become impossible.
Haley’s campaign started to get tough with Trump far too late. But at least she is now saying that voters “deserve a real choice, not a Soviet-style election where there’s only one candidate and he gets 99% of the vote.” With every primary, she demonstrates that at least one-third of core Republican Party voters do not support Trump and his authoritarian fantasies and that a substantial number of donors are invested in stopping him.
Haley makes it plain for Trump to see that he cannot lose sight of the political center ground. She herself is on the ultra-right wing of the Republican Party, as her support for banning abortion and for a highly restrictive border policy, as well as her opposition to climate protection, have shown. Yet, she respects democratic elections and the rule of law. In the United States in 2024, this counts as almost enough to be labeled a moderate. Nevertheless, she is showing Trump that he cannot simply exercise carte blanche like a king if he wants to win the presidential election in the fall, for not all Republicans believe his lies.
If Trump does not temper his behavior and ultimately loses in November, Haley means to be ready. Just as she will be standing by should any of Trump’s court cases present obstacles to his campaign. There would be cathartic moments indeed if the opportunity arose for politicians like Haley and her supporters to rebuild the “Grand Old Party” on the ruins of Trump’s Republican Party in a fashion befitting its venerable old sobriquet and a party capable of winning a majority.
She would have quit the race long ago had her motives been bogus, Haley said before the South Carolina primary, declaring it her duty not to give up when the future of “a better America” hung in the balance. It is currently one of the few encouraging signs for the state of the world’s oldest democracy that she is remaining in the race.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.