By Mayank Chhaya-
Former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley took her rancid disdain for former President Donald Trump to the altar of political expediency and beat it to a pulp.
That pulp will now be fashioned into a vote for a man she once called “totally unhinged.” Barely three months ago she was assiduously positioning herself as the only true challenger to Trump’s unhinged ways, that included his weird obsession with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
“Trump has not been perfect on these policies. I’ve made that clear many, many times. But (President Joe) Biden has been a catastrophe. So I will be voting for Trump,” Haley said at the Hudson Institute in Washington on May 22.
Haley, who like all her Republican colleagues, speaks of strong family values and high morals has had no problem disregarding the fact that Trump has just been through a salacious criminal trial, the first of its kind for a former president, involving hush money payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels.
She has no compunctions about the fact that in May, last year a New York jury found Trump liable Tuesday for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996.
She has no qualms about the fact that he is facing four federal cases, including illegal possession of classified documents as well as instigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol Building.
Let alone those, she has no problem with the fact he has often referred to her as “birdbrain” and insulted her intelligence.
Political expediency demands that she call Biden a “catastrophe” while quickly mitigating this stunning litany of unprecedented transgressions to a level where she feels confident to vote for him. One inevitable explanation is that she is looking to be on Trump’s ticket as his vice president.
After Haley declared her vote for him, Trump was asked if there was room for her on his ticket. He said, “I think she’s gonna be on our team because we have a lot of the same ideas, the same thoughts.”
“You know, we had a nasty campaign; it was pretty nasty. But she’s a very capable person, and I’m sure she’s going to be on our team in some form. Absolutely,” he said.
What that means is that “birdbrain” and “totally unhinged” may come together save America from “catastrophe.”
Only earlier this month Trump had said on his social media platform, “Nikki Haley is not under consideration for the V.P. slot, but I wish her well!”
It is not clear whether Trump is changing his mind about Haley because in his latest names of potential VP candidates he does not mention her.
Considering that Haley continues to garner votes in the Republican presidential race even though she is no longer in it means that she has a base that could be leveraged. However, it seems unlikely that that base, which is necessarily against Trump, can be morphed into for Trump merely because Haley nudges them to. If anything, she stands to lose credibility with them should she run again in 2028 when she will be only 56.
On the other hand, a high visibility in a Trump dispensation, albeit not VP, can be quite useful for her politically.
Those are the factors that would go into the course Haley chooses. Hers has not been a full endorsement of Trump even though voting for him practically amounts to that. Quite plainly, it is not a principled stand. High principles would demand that she not vote for a man in such serious legal peril on so many fronts with more than likely prospects of conviction.
In an ideal world, the fact of him having been found liable for sexual abuse alone should have ended his run. Add to that a stunning array of charges and his toxicity as a candidate should have proved politically terminal. It has not. If anything, he has become an even more potent force within the Republican world and that too to an extent where he now has a realistic shot at returning to the White House.
Objectively, Haley can bring electoral rewards to the Trump ticket as not just as a woman VP candidate but someone of Indian American heritage. It could offer a compelling contrast against the Biden-Kamala Harris ticket.
As a politician, Haley has chosen to go with the brazen collective extenuation for and celebration of Trump by his unswerving base rather than draw on her personal principles such as they are.
