The Adults in the Room

On Nikki Haley and lost causes.

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Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks during a campaign stop at the Fireside Grille in Altoona, Iowa, on December 17, 2023. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

A new and consequential year in politics begins as we all hoped, with both sides chattering inanely about slavery.

The chatter isn’t symmetrical. On the left, the debate consists of Very Online progressives with social-media brain damage insisting that the authors of the 13th Amendment were actually trying to legalize slavery and sane liberals replying, “What?”

Whereas on the right, the second-highest polling candidate in the Republican presidential primary couldn’t bring herself to utter the S-word when asked recently about the causes of the Civil War. When a politician as smart and savvy as Nikki Haley misses a layup as easy as that, it isn’t an accident.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    This isn’t a defense of what Haley said, but does anyone think that if Haley had said, “slavery,” that Charlie Kirk and Tucker Carlson wouldn’t have been hollering the next day about how disrespectful she is of Southern Americans and how she’s gone woke and sold out to the left etc.?

    For my entire life, I have thought that the Republican Party and conservative movement went wrong in allying with the southern agrarians. Or, at the very least, that alliance should have been conditional: the Party of Lincoln should never have come to defend segregation or whitewash slavery.

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    Dave Casper

    Well said.

    Haley is utterly spineless.

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  3. Neilpro

    This rings true. I have heard conservative southerners (and even some northerners) declare that the civil war was NOT about slavery, rather it was about states rights. But I still can't believe that Haley would be stupid enough to accept a VP nomination from the Orange Man. After all, after 4 years of subservience except for one case only ruined Pence's career.

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  4. TrashScientist

    I’d be willing to vote for Haley if she promised not to pardon Trump. But that’s not the case. Biden is the better vote for America.

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  5. Bloodredinabluestate

    I agree with Blehar here. Maybe it's too soon for ardent MAGA types to hear that their idol is a complete jerk, but they are all adult enough to hear that a war fought 160 years ago was about slavery. I can't fathom why Haley flubbed a question that everyone knows the answer to so badly. And why, for the love of God, didn't she just admit it was a gaffe that can occur when you are campaigning nonstop?

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    1. BPhillips

      Simple answer is she can't risk offending the racists in the GOP. There really isn't any other answer - I don't think she is a racist but she didn't want to upset the racist voters she'll need in the primary. Why would she want to be a member of that club??

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    Rdpulfer

    I get that there is no great way to answer the question given her Southern roots, but saying "...We need capitalism..." while avoiding talking about a system that reduced humans to tradable goods is...not a great look. I still there's a salvageable answer somewhere, like saying "The Civil War was caused by the issue of slavery being repeatedly kicked the road by the leaders of their team, resulting in catastrophe" and then connect to some other issue leaders are ignore like the deficit, inflation, etc. But it looks easy when I'm an armchair analyst with 20/20 hindsight.

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    BloggerBarbie

    Haley is my favorite of the people running, which is like saying "Really, I prefer whooping cough over Covid." Personally, I got vaxxed for both and the flu as well. All of them have compromised themselves by collaborating with Trump.

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      Kleboutillier

      Yup, all touched by El Duce of Mar-a-Lago and who will soon be distant memories until the silly GOP convention. If DeSantis and Haley really have future presidential ambitions, they both first need to wash the Trump 'stink' off before re-emerging.

      If Trump wins, the buyers (voters) remorse and national acrimony by the end of 2025 will be palpable and it will become destructive for anyone close to him and the GOP overall. If Trump loses again, anyone once associated with him, DeSantis and Haley included esp if they give Trump their spineless endorsements, will be washed away in a purge.

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    Abridge683

    But isn't this the same Nikki Haley who groveled at Trump's boots, couldn't say a bad thing about him? Sure it is. She goes where the wind blows - or maybe even a strong draft. She's a pol with nothing under her feet save sand.

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      Teresaklopfer

      Haley spoke against Trump (endorsing Rubio) in 2016 in hopes of keeping Trump out of the White House. This is the same time that Christie was running interference and clearing the field for Trump. She served as UN ambassador for the good of the country in my opinion and got out with her integrity intact—-a rare feat in the Trump administration. She is running against him. It is easy for never Trump journalists to criticize her on purity grounds. If, however, we really want to keep DJT from ever getting near the levers of power again, perhaps we should cheer on someone who comes at him obliquely if that is what it takes to win.

      Also, actions speak louder than words. In the first state to secede from the Union, Haley had the confederate flag and the pole it hung on removed from the state Capitol. And, she did it through the rule of law, which is what I thought we conservatives believed in.

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    Stephanie

    It seems like a sorry state of affairs, when an intelligent and accomplished woman like Nikki Haley has to be such a phony in order to get anywhere in politics.

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    1. RyanK

      She decided to be a Republican coming out of a staunchly Republican/Confederate state. Doing so requires compromises of one's actual morals and ethics just to get the votes.
      At the end of the day she, like most career politicians, will do and say what it takes to get to the general election.

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        Stephanie

        Question for you: do you think Republicans in general, or perhaps just Republicans from southern states, all have to be more phony than they used to?

        Do you think Republicans should be pandering to the racist voters among their base?

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    Scarlette Tarte

    I disagree with one point. Nikki can win if she stops pandering to the MAGA base and instead reaches out to conservative and moderate Dems, along with Normie repubs. In states where they can, Dems can cross over and vote for her in a Republican primary.

    But she must run as an adult, dedicated to preserving American democracy. She must state the hard truths to the right. And that means joining the "reality based" normies and center left Dems.

    I agree that roughly 35 percent of this country is lost to ignorance and fear. But she, nor anyone should pander to it in this day and age to win an election.

    Stand up for America, dammit. What the hell is wrong when a presidential candidate cannot proudly say "it was fought about slavery, ultimately, and I am damn proud America and her ideals won that war"?

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      Dan Baldwin

      To offer a rebuttal to a sentiment I otherwise agree with: Haley (nor any other GOP candidate who isn't Trump) cannot get to the point where she can run "as an adult" until she can get to the point where she *can* run as an adult.

      That means catering, pandering, and doing whatever she's got to do to survive and succeed in the New Hampshire and South Carolina GOP primaries. Those voting audiences do not want to be treated as adults, have been clearly stating this for the last 16 years, and those who do will not earn their votes. They do not want responsibility; they want to hand authority and responsibility over to a strongman so that they can obtain the privilege of being the perennial peanut gallery.

      That said, the Faustian bargain those voters make is that IF Haley caters and panders to them and gets their votes and beats Trump in the Primaries, and obtains that authority, she then has the ability to bend them to her will. They will then echo her rather than Trump.

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        BloggerBarbie

        Yeah... what we tiptoe around all too often is that the problem is the rank and file voters. I don't know what happened to them or why they're behaving like this, but we'll never get the political stuff fixed until we get the social problems at least addressed.

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          Dan Baldwin

          Apropos of nothing: I still need to watch "Barbie". Every single woman I know loved that movie.

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