I have a circle of acquaintances and friends who fall into the categories of Never Trump, maybe-Trump, or kind-of-Trump Republicans. They’ve been on the lookout for a candidate they can fully support and contribute their resources to, someone who can serve as an antidote to Donald Trump and have a real shot at winning a general election.
We’ve engaged in countless discussions about who that person might be. Some of these acquaintances went through a phase of considering Ron DeSantis as a potential candidate. Others entertained the idea of a third-party candidate endorsed by No Labels. In my conversations, I’ve often advocated for Tim Scott. I would stress that if Trump represents a moral stain, then Scott is the kind, honest, and optimistic remedy.
However, after Wednesday’s debate, I am persuaded that the best alternative to Trump is not Scott, but Nikki Haley. This isn’t a knock against Scott; he simply didn’t demonstrate the specific power and force necessary to take down Trump. In contrast, Haley exhibited more than just a glimpse of that power.
The debate on Wednesday shed light on the cancer that plagues the Republican Party. It’s not solely Trumpian immorality; the real ailment is narcissistic hucksterism. The true danger lies in the creation of a generation of individuals, like Vivek Ramaswamy, who pose a threat to dominate the GOP for decades.
Ramaswamy has no legitimate reason to run for president. He publicly declared that Trump is the best president of the 21st century. So why is he running against someone he admires? The answer is simple: to draw attention to himself. Perhaps he aims to become Trump’s vice president or social media memes secretary.
Ramaswamy emerges from the world of social media and the inferior corners of right-wing media. His statements are confrontational and provocative, designed to elicit short-term populist satisfaction. It’s all a show for him. Ramaswamy seems disinterested in actual governance, much like his idol.
Trump has proven untouchable for Republicans because they have been unable to counter and replace the core ethos of Trump/Ramaswamy: that politics is primarily entertainment. However, Haley seemed to implicitly tell the Trump/Ramaswamy faction during the debate: “You need to stop showboating and face reality.” She displayed impatience towards the macho bravado that stems from fragile male egos.
Haley dismantled Ramaswamy’s stance on foreign policy. It wasn’t just her condescending put-down: “You have no foreign policy experience and it shows.” She challenged the entire America First philosophy, which may sound appealing in a soundbite but proves ineffective when governing a global superpower. Pointing at Ramaswamy, she emphatically stated, “He wants to hand Ukraine to Russia, he wants China to seize Taiwan, he wants to cut off funding to Israel. You don’t treat friends that way.”
Similarly, when it came to the topic of abortion, many of her opponents used it as an opportunity for self-righteous grandstanding. Haley was the only one who acknowledged the complexity of the issue, attempting to humanize those caught in difficult situations. She recognized that the absolutist position is politically unsustainable.
Haley bravely articulated the obvious truth: Trump undermined decades of GOP fiscal conservatism. While other candidates adhered to the usual conservative positions on tax cuts and spending, she shed light on the reality that, under Trump, the national debt increased by $8 trillion. Where have they been for the past seven years?
This was just one example of her larger accomplishment. Haley understands that to run against Trump, you must truly challenge Trump. Many other candidates, like Ron DeSantis, seem to have adopted the perception that Republican voters are naive enough to be won over by gimmickry. DeSantis, a smart individual, is trying to portray himself as a simpleton. Conversely, Haley believes that voters are intelligent beings who should be treated as adults.
I’m trying to highlight an overall pattern here. When politics transforms into entertainment, it becomes effortless to construct a realm of make-believe where one gets intoxicated on their own rhetoric. To follow Trump, one must bid farewell to reality and succumb to the rules of a funhouse carnival. However, Haley manages to keep her feet firmly grounded—willing to confront the blunt facts of the real world, as Saul Bellow once put it.
My primary question regarding Haley is whether she possesses an understanding of the current year. The most engaging exchange of the night occurred between Ramaswamy and Mike Pence. To his credit, Ramaswamy delved into the nation’s mental health crisis and the underlying national identity crisis. Pence dismissed these concerns about the loss of purpose and meaning as mere folly, asserting that the real issue lies in the government’s shortcomings compared to the people. Pence and many others in the field are still trapped in the era of Reagan or, at most, the Tea Party. They haven’t shifted their focus to address the concerns that matter most to working-class, non-college-educated voters. They fail to comprehend why the old Republican orthodoxy crumbled in the face of Trump. They haven’t confronted the new realities that have defined this century.
Does Haley possess this understanding? It is too early to tell. However, if any of my acquaintances and friends are determined to stop Trump, now is the time to give Haley a chance to prove herself.
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