I’ll admit it, and regular readers of this column have already seen dribs and drabs of this, but I simply can’t stand Nikki Haley. She represents so many awful and insufficient things about the pre-Trump Republican Party that they might not fit in a single entry in this space.
READ MORE from Scott McKay: Five Stupid Things the Left Would Have You Believe
So I won’t even try. I’ll forego the discussion of Haley’s idiotic and cowardly participation in the Taliban-at-Bamiyan bowdlerization of South Carolina’s historical landmarks following the Dylann Roof mass murders at a black church. I’ll leave off talking about her non-stop neocon warmongering. I’ll leave her post–Jan. 6 disavowals of Donald Trump alone.
Instead, I’ll restrict this conversation to two items Haley inflicted on the American public on Tuesday, either of which, in its own right, would be disqualifying and, in tandem, should make her a pariah among conservatives.
I’ll call them the Toxic Femininity Moment and the Abominable Karenism Moment.
We’ll start with the Toxic Femininity Moment, which was a continuation of Haley’s shrill attacks on Vivek Ramaswamy. Haley said this:
🚩 RED FLAG 🚩
Nikki Haley says you’re not allowed to “criticize” her or RNC Chair Ronna McRomeny because they are both “women”
This is intersectional feminist identity politics in practice.
Nikki Haley is Hillary Clinton.
Repulsive.
Disqualifying.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 15, 2023
What Ramaswamy said in that Republican presidential “kids’ table” debate about the horrifically underperforming Ronna McDaniel had absolutely nothing to do with her sex. His criticisms gave McDaniel a whole lot more respect as a professional than did Haley’s defense of her. Ramaswamy demanded McDaniel’s resignation because the results of the 2023 election cycle in Ohio, Kentucky, and Virginia, in particular, were the continuation of a string of GOP defeats for which she’s responsible.
And what Ramaswamy said about NBC debate moderator Kristen Welker — who shamelessly and irresponsibly pushed the Trump–Russia hoax on MSNBC audiences for two years until there was no more blood in that turnip — had nothing to do with Welker’s sex, and Ramaswamy similarly showed more respect for Welker as a professional than did Haley in her defense. Ramaswamy directed his criticisms of Welker at her job performance and said she wasn’t qualified to moderate a Republican presidential debate given the Democrat partisanship she’s shown throughout her career. That had nothing to do with the fact that Welker is female. (READ MORE from Scott McKay: Five Quick Things: Thank You, Vivek!)
Then Ramaswamy “hit” Haley.
Let’s remember that what torqued Haley up at that debate more than anything else was that, when she attacked Ramaswamy for using the Chinese spy app disguised as a social media platform, or TikTok, for campaign messaging and outreach, Ramaswamy noted that, regardless of the manifest demerits of TikTok (which, bizarrely enough, was a corporate sponsor of the debate), it nonetheless delivers a large audience of young voters. And he punctuated that assertion by noting that Haley’s 25-year-old daughter had maintained a significant presence on TikTok.
This was completely valid argumentation. It wasn’t an attack on Haley’s family. It was a refutation of Haley that made her look ridiculous, to be sure, but it’s hard to argue that it isn’t fair game. After all, here is Haley screeching about how Ramaswamy shouldn’t be on an app that her own daughter doesn’t see a problem with.
What was her reaction when Ramaswamy mentioned her daughter’s use of TikTok? She called him “scum.” Then, later, she demanded that pro-life people be less “judgmental.” Lest they call abortionists “scum,” or something, one imagines.
Sure, the GOP is looking for charismatic and substantial female politicians to diversify its roster of candidates for high office (and, luckily enough, it’s finding them in people like Kristi Noem, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kim Reynolds, and Marsha Blackburn, among others). But we shouldn’t be willing to excuse this kind of low-level argumentation, which, as Benny Johnson noted above, apparently elevates women to the status of super-citizens who can’t be criticized for their actions without it being evidence of either sexism or male fragility.
Pathetic.
How many electoral failures does Ronna McDaniel — who reportedly called Ramaswamy an “asshole” rather than “scum” when he delivered his thunderbolts from the debate stage and vowed that the RNC wouldn’t support him with a single penny, something that would call into question her fitness to serve as its chair in the event he were to win the nomination — have to produce before Nikki Haley would permit a man to criticize her or seek her removal?
How many partisan Democrat lies can Welker tell before Haley would permit a man to question whether it’s appropriate to put up with her as a debate moderator? Does such a number exist, or is there no limit?
And are Ramaswamy’s disagreements with Haley, which have been the principal subject of memorable (and forgettable, to be sure) moments in the Republican debates, to be solely credited as “Battle of the Sexes” identity politics playing out?
That seems a hard thing to sell.
Ramaswamy has attacked Haley for being on corporate boards of defense contractors while demanding more military spending. Does that have anything to do with the sex of either? He’s also attacked her on Ukraine, which has nothing to do with either’s sex, and on a host of other policy issues.
Now he has something else to attack her on.: Haley also offered us Abominable Karenism this week. This has to be the death of her presidential campaign:
If there was even a shred of support left for Nikki Haley, this just took that shred and absolutely obliterated it into nothingness. What she is suggesting here is historically un-American public doxxing by government for “safety”. It’s not safe at all.
Haley must have forgotten… pic.twitter.com/rovHOxhcM3
— rooted.wings (@BrittRooted) November 14, 2023
Got that? A Republican presidential candidate just went on national TV and advocated for the mandatory doxxing of everyone in the country who wants to have a presence on social media.
And she justifies it on national security grounds.
This obviously makes a mockery of national security. It’s the Patriot Act on crystal meth. It’s a mentality that shows utter and open disdain for individual privacy and, worse, directly emulates all the worst abuses of the Chinese Communist Party where it comes to cyberspace.
Ron DeSantis has largely left Haley alone while Ramaswamy has campaigned as her chief critic, but he broke his silence with a withering takedown of this insanity:
You know who were anonymous writers back in the day? Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison when they wrote the Federalist Papers.
They were not “national security threats,” nor are the many conservative Americans across the country who exercise their Constitutional… https://t.co/YkAGMhUVCX
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) November 15, 2023
Exactly right.
Nikki Haley has always been an irritating figure. When she decided to run for president, that character solidified. The value proposition of Nikki Haley is one of the most obnoxious in recent American political history — essentially, it’s that she offers George W. Bush/Mitt Romney politics, the brand that Americans have forcefully rejected since 2004 and that now even the majority of Republican voters can’t stomach, but she offers it not as an old white guy from the country club but as someone of Indian heritage in heels.
This is slovenly enough, but Haley goes further — the second verse of this value proposition is that if you reject her brand of politics as you’ve rejected it from the Bushes, or Romney, or John Kasich, then your rejection is both racist and sexist.
Because of this, the meaner — and often anonymous — critics of Haley on Xwitter have taken to calling her “Brown Hillary.” Perhaps that stings enough to have generated the unhinged proposals she uncorked this week.
Stuck pigs squeal the loudest, of course. And the comparisons to Hillary Clinton are by no means off base.
After all:
🚩🚩🚩 pic.twitter.com/DdspyDDrN1
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 15, 2023
We can do better than Nikki Haley. And if the Republican Party is again going to make itself relevant to the aspirations and concerns of the American people, we’re going to have to.
Author’s Note: The promised second edition of “Stupid Things the Left Would Have You Believe,” which would have filled this space today but for Haley’s unhinged outbursts, will make its arrival here tomorrow.
