This is our world now: a former and possibly future President’s mental disorders, moral vacuum, and absolute detachment from American interests, values, and history leads the entire Republican Party apparatus to embrace the pro-Putinist, anti-NATO GOP frontrunner’s position.
And there is actually a possible upside for her(if she doesn’t endorse) if Trump and the GOP do as poorly as we hope, she could become the new leader of a new GOP.
I love your JFK story. I remember 1963. I felt the sadness. And, sadly, at age three, I understood what dead was. Scamper died that year. He was a chipmunk dad had brought home for ME from the woods. Dad was a faller, but I hear Robbie Burns when I think of this story 🐿️
Your opinion of Haley is too high. Presuming she shares your fundamental values or commitments to a liberal democracy is a misunderstanding of her politics. She'll endorse and campaign for Trump because Biden and Democrats threaten her vision of an autocratic state.
To answer the headline question, No. Nikki Haley is not the next Ted Cruz because she doesn't have a punchable face. English lacks the term for it, so we borrow "Backpfeifengesicht" from the German.
Haley will most likely take the Ted Crus kind of exit. Politics are all about Kabuki theater. She’s hoping for a good outcome and the next step in a political career. What that is is up for grabs.
The fact that Trump insults military servicemembers and their families, craps on the brilliantly successful alliance that has prevented World War III (so far), and yet is going to be the Republican nominee for President of the United States is so far beyond my understanding I really don't know what to say anymore.
Great points, Rick. Another Cassandra here! I’m certainly not a Haley fan by any stretch, but in the meantime… let’s soak up the awesome work Haley is doing on behalf of the “rest” of the country! It’s so refreshing to see, even though it is short-lived. She’ll cave because her ego is stronger than her integrity.
Here’s my big question, that no one seems to know the answer to: What does Trump have on all these republicans that they roll over and play dead for this lunatic? There has to be something more than just the fear of not being reelected. And how does it work with literally ALL of them? I just don’t get it!
Given that Nikki's values are so shallow she couldn't condemn slavery, I can't imagine a different outcome than her caving to trump and am surprised you can.
Yeah, Rick, Nikki Haley is no Liz Cheney. In '10, she said that the Civil War was about "change" vs "tradition" which is almost as bad as the looneytarian boilerplate in this time around's answer to the question of what caused it. Nimrata Nikki Haley is a Sikh-American politician in a state where you win presidential primaries by inserting flyers under windshield wipers insinuating that John McCain's adopted child is an "illegitimate black baby." Texas is almost as bad; the Cruz comparison is dead-on.
Cruz is an ideologue True Believer and Haley is a finger-in-the-winder, but what they have in common is more important; they're both ethnic aliens in a xenophobic political culture. They share qualities of what is known in ethnic studies as the "scholarship boy:" bright, articulate overachievers who have internalized the dictum that at all times they have to be "a credit to their kind." Nikki has to be "whiter" than the whitest Southern belle; Eduardo "Ted" has to be more ornery than the orneriest Texas cowboy. In the scholarship boy narratives I read as an American studies major, these stories end as classical tragedies, the fatal flaw being a hubris borne of defensiveness, of drowning in a quicksand of their own making. The very act of trying so hard to fit in to a culture that doesn't accept them marks them as aliens.
This is not a recipe for a heroic epiphany, of throwing off their self-imposed yokes of conformity and being true to themselves. It's a recipe for drowning. Nikki Haley will drown in a vat of sycophancy.
I have frequently seen a parallel in the behavior of some younger female managers; they appear to feel the need to become stereotypes of what they think men are like, by being "tougher" and "harder" than the guys.
What you wind up with is a person who abandoned most of the positive personality traits women usually have, while adopting many of the negative aspects of men's behaviors.
Basically, exercising power without chivalry, hard-nosed performance instead of mercy. It's a poor trade and unfortunate that anyone would feel the need to be a bigger jerk in order to succeed.
I still hold out hope I'm wrong about Nikki. There may be so much bad blood with Trump at this point that she won't endorse him. There's even a nonzero if exceedingly slim chance she endorses Joe Biden, on foreign policy and standing up to Putin.
I mean, nothing to bank on. But I've been surprised before ;)
It's nice to know that some people still live on hope. We gave up and moved to Portugal in December, having lost all hope that American can overcome what Trump has done it.
That's the thing, isn't it? It's not enough that the guy hasn't long to live, it's the damage that is being done, the confidence undermined, the normalization of violence as a political tool, the whole fascist revival infection- this will not just fade away the day after his funeral.
Like Dewey, I think the reports of his demise are overstated. He seems to go on and on like the virus that he is, so I'm not betting on him keeling over any time soon.
But as Rick and the pro-democracy movement try to remind us, we can't succumb to despair. I'm not huffing the hopium with Nikki. I think the odds are greatest she'll endorse Trump and endure the ensuing humiliation which Trump is addicted to sadistically dishing out. But I'm not going to disempower the good people on Rick's substack with too much unmitigated doom 'n' gloom, either. It's a long slog ahead and we have to depend on each other.
Way back to the almost quaint " There's two people Putin pays, Roerbacher and Trump, swear to God " days, up to including this week - are a now unsurprising reality that the Pro Putin comrades have really gotten their talons dug In well. These traitorous scum finally got the American people believing Russia is their friend.
“She knows by now that she’s beyond the pale for Trump to hire her as his Vice President. She knows that he’s a liar, and will destroy any and every thing she values. He never gives people who he thinks caved to him even the time of day.”
A perfect example is the Senator from Utah, Mitt Romney. Trump dangled the Secretary of State position in front of him, and suddenly, he goes from the epitome of a Trump hater, to the most humiliating waste of human excrement to pledge fealty to the anointed one we have ever seen, since Cancun Cruz!
I mean his own niece had to change her last because the name Romney became the equivalent of a modern day skanky boot-licking ass-wipe!
And no, “living as Ted Cruz isn’t surviving at all,” but I’m sure Haley will find a way to justify kowtowing to the mango moron.
She’ll settle on “Biden’s policies are so bad, what’s a patriotic, American loving, woman to do?”
It will be filed right under the first debate debacle; when she spends two hours criticizing the Queen’s quagmire, only to be the first kiss-ass charlatan to raise her hand in support of a Trump candidacy.
And there is actually a possible upside for her(if she doesn’t endorse) if Trump and the GOP do as poorly as we hope, she could become the new leader of a new GOP.
I was thinking that a while back… if she falls in line and sucks up, she will never ever get my vote!
Hi Cassandra!
I love your JFK story. I remember 1963. I felt the sadness. And, sadly, at age three, I understood what dead was. Scamper died that year. He was a chipmunk dad had brought home for ME from the woods. Dad was a faller, but I hear Robbie Burns when I think of this story 🐿️
Your sister in democracy,
#IAMABED
“Dark & difficult times lie ahead, Harry. Soon we must all make the choice between what is right and what is easy.”
Your opinion of Haley is too high. Presuming she shares your fundamental values or commitments to a liberal democracy is a misunderstanding of her politics. She'll endorse and campaign for Trump because Biden and Democrats threaten her vision of an autocratic state.
To answer the headline question, No. Nikki Haley is not the next Ted Cruz because she doesn't have a punchable face. English lacks the term for it, so we borrow "Backpfeifengesicht" from the German.
This is actress Tatiana Maslany explaining it with Stephen Colbert about 7 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXNah-d5_rc
Haley will most likely take the Ted Crus kind of exit. Politics are all about Kabuki theater. She’s hoping for a good outcome and the next step in a political career. What that is is up for grabs.
I can not tolerate this banshee. She is responsible for so many childrens’ murders in Yemen and elsewhere.
The fact that Trump insults military servicemembers and their families, craps on the brilliantly successful alliance that has prevented World War III (so far), and yet is going to be the Republican nominee for President of the United States is so far beyond my understanding I really don't know what to say anymore.
Great points, Rick. Another Cassandra here! I’m certainly not a Haley fan by any stretch, but in the meantime… let’s soak up the awesome work Haley is doing on behalf of the “rest” of the country! It’s so refreshing to see, even though it is short-lived. She’ll cave because her ego is stronger than her integrity.
Here’s my big question, that no one seems to know the answer to: What does Trump have on all these republicans that they roll over and play dead for this lunatic? There has to be something more than just the fear of not being reelected. And how does it work with literally ALL of them? I just don’t get it!
Now do Chris Christie.
How any veteran or family member of a veteran could support trump is beyond my comprehension.
Given that Nikki's values are so shallow she couldn't condemn slavery, I can't imagine a different outcome than her caving to trump and am surprised you can.
I can imagine it but I’m not betting on it.
Yeah, Rick, Nikki Haley is no Liz Cheney. In '10, she said that the Civil War was about "change" vs "tradition" which is almost as bad as the looneytarian boilerplate in this time around's answer to the question of what caused it. Nimrata Nikki Haley is a Sikh-American politician in a state where you win presidential primaries by inserting flyers under windshield wipers insinuating that John McCain's adopted child is an "illegitimate black baby." Texas is almost as bad; the Cruz comparison is dead-on.
Cruz is an ideologue True Believer and Haley is a finger-in-the-winder, but what they have in common is more important; they're both ethnic aliens in a xenophobic political culture. They share qualities of what is known in ethnic studies as the "scholarship boy:" bright, articulate overachievers who have internalized the dictum that at all times they have to be "a credit to their kind." Nikki has to be "whiter" than the whitest Southern belle; Eduardo "Ted" has to be more ornery than the orneriest Texas cowboy. In the scholarship boy narratives I read as an American studies major, these stories end as classical tragedies, the fatal flaw being a hubris borne of defensiveness, of drowning in a quicksand of their own making. The very act of trying so hard to fit in to a culture that doesn't accept them marks them as aliens.
This is not a recipe for a heroic epiphany, of throwing off their self-imposed yokes of conformity and being true to themselves. It's a recipe for drowning. Nikki Haley will drown in a vat of sycophancy.
What a well-written post! Thank you!
I have frequently seen a parallel in the behavior of some younger female managers; they appear to feel the need to become stereotypes of what they think men are like, by being "tougher" and "harder" than the guys.
What you wind up with is a person who abandoned most of the positive personality traits women usually have, while adopting many of the negative aspects of men's behaviors.
Basically, exercising power without chivalry, hard-nosed performance instead of mercy. It's a poor trade and unfortunate that anyone would feel the need to be a bigger jerk in order to succeed.
I still hold out hope I'm wrong about Nikki. There may be so much bad blood with Trump at this point that she won't endorse him. There's even a nonzero if exceedingly slim chance she endorses Joe Biden, on foreign policy and standing up to Putin.
I mean, nothing to bank on. But I've been surprised before ;)
It's nice to know that some people still live on hope. We gave up and moved to Portugal in December, having lost all hope that American can overcome what Trump has done it.
That's the thing, isn't it? It's not enough that the guy hasn't long to live, it's the damage that is being done, the confidence undermined, the normalization of violence as a political tool, the whole fascist revival infection- this will not just fade away the day after his funeral.
Like Dewey, I think the reports of his demise are overstated. He seems to go on and on like the virus that he is, so I'm not betting on him keeling over any time soon.
But as Rick and the pro-democracy movement try to remind us, we can't succumb to despair. I'm not huffing the hopium with Nikki. I think the odds are greatest she'll endorse Trump and endure the ensuing humiliation which Trump is addicted to sadistically dishing out. But I'm not going to disempower the good people on Rick's substack with too much unmitigated doom 'n' gloom, either. It's a long slog ahead and we have to depend on each other.
Way back to the almost quaint " There's two people Putin pays, Roerbacher and Trump, swear to God " days, up to including this week - are a now unsurprising reality that the Pro Putin comrades have really gotten their talons dug In well. These traitorous scum finally got the American people believing Russia is their friend.
“She knows by now that she’s beyond the pale for Trump to hire her as his Vice President. She knows that he’s a liar, and will destroy any and every thing she values. He never gives people who he thinks caved to him even the time of day.”
A perfect example is the Senator from Utah, Mitt Romney. Trump dangled the Secretary of State position in front of him, and suddenly, he goes from the epitome of a Trump hater, to the most humiliating waste of human excrement to pledge fealty to the anointed one we have ever seen, since Cancun Cruz!
I mean his own niece had to change her last because the name Romney became the equivalent of a modern day skanky boot-licking ass-wipe!
And no, “living as Ted Cruz isn’t surviving at all,” but I’m sure Haley will find a way to justify kowtowing to the mango moron.
She’ll settle on “Biden’s policies are so bad, what’s a patriotic, American loving, woman to do?”
It will be filed right under the first debate debacle; when she spends two hours criticizing the Queen’s quagmire, only to be the first kiss-ass charlatan to raise her hand in support of a Trump candidacy.
And the band played on!….:)