The Coup de Grâce for Nikki Haley’s Presidential Aspirations
Haley gratuitously stated that she’s “deeply disturbed” by Trump’s actions since the election, adding, “The person that I worked with is not the person that I have watched since the election.” She gave no credence to evidence of election fraud but made this insidious statement: “I understand that genuinely, to his core, he believes he was wronged.”
This was not the first time the former ambassador used her political pulpit to slur the president. In 2017, she referenced a maliciously mischaracterized episode to proclaim that Trump “was wrong with his words in Charlottesville.” Again, it has been repeated often enough that Trump unequivocally observed that “there were very fine people on both sides” of the Robert E. Lee Park-naming protest and distinctly stated, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.”
There are many recent examples of Haley’s political opportunism. At the time of the June 2020 hoax involving black NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace, she tweeted, “We should all stand with @BubbaWallace today against the cowards who secretly put the noose in his garage stall.” An FBI investigation determined the item in question was nothing but an ordinary garage door-pull.
All this is of a piece with Haley’s attempts to set herself apart from other Republican contenders as a champion of minority rights by taking issue with the party’s approach to minorities, and emphasizing the “hurt” imposed by symbols such as the Confederate flag after previously having been a supporter of the flag. In 2015, she spuriously criticized the party’s approach to minorities, “The problem for our party is that our approach often appears cold and unwelcoming to minorities. That’s shameful and it has to change.”
Haley gratuitously stated that she’s “deeply disturbed” by Trump’s actions since the election, adding, “The person that I worked with is not the person that I have watched since the election.” She gave no credence to evidence of election fraud but made this insidious statement: “I understand that genuinely, to his core, he believes he was wronged.”
This was not the first time the former ambassador used her political pulpit to slur the president. In 2017, she referenced a maliciously mischaracterized episode to proclaim that Trump “was wrong with his words in Charlottesville.” Again, it has been repeated often enough that Trump unequivocally observed that “there were very fine people on both sides” of the Robert E. Lee Park-naming protest and distinctly stated, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.”
There are many recent examples of Haley’s political opportunism. At the time of the June 2020 hoax involving black NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace, she tweeted, “We should all stand with @BubbaWallace today against the cowards who secretly put the noose in his garage stall.” An FBI investigation determined the item in question was nothing but an ordinary garage door-pull.
All this is of a piece with Haley’s attempts to set herself apart from other Republican contenders as a champion of minority rights by taking issue with the party’s approach to minorities, and emphasizing the “hurt” imposed by symbols such as the Confederate flag after previously having been a supporter of the flag. In 2015, she spuriously criticized the party’s approach to minorities, “The problem for our party is that our approach often appears cold and unwelcoming to minorities. That’s shameful and it has to change.”
