Tag: south carolina
Haley Is Out, But Deep Wound In Republican Party Remains Unhealed

Haley Is Out, But Deep Wound In Republican Party Remains Unhealed

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley suspended her campaign on Wednesday, leaving Donald Trump as the last Republican presidential candidate standing. Again.

But as she announced the end of the campaign, Haley did not endorse Trump. “I have always been a conservative Republican and always supported the Republican nominee,” said Haley. Then she cited former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in saying, “Never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind.”

“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him,” she continued. “And I hope he does that.”

While her departure may mean that Trump can coast through the remaining primaries, it certainly doesn’t mean that the open wound in the Republican Party is going to heal.

A better understanding of how the Haley campaign feels about Trump and Trump supporters might be gleaned from this exchange between Haley’s communications director, Nachama Soloveichik, and Trump supporter Kari Lake, the front-runner for the Republican nomination in Arizona’s Senate race.

Haley’s whole primary campaign was based on the knowledge of the subset of Republican voters who say they won’t vote for Trump in November. Even in Trump’s wins on Super Tuesday, Haley picked up 23 percent of Republican votes in North Carolina, 29 percent in Minnesota, and 35 percent in Virginia, with 95 percent or more of the total vote reported in each state. Those are all states that Trump desperately needs to keep in his win column.

Even in deep-red states like Tennessee and Arkansas, Trump is walking away with less than 80 percent of the vote. That doesn’t mean these states are likely to swing to President Joe Biden in November, but it is a good signal that a significant portion of the GOP is unwilling to hold their nose and go MAGA. It’s fair to read much of the vote Haley has received not as showing their love for the ex-governor, but as showing their distrust of the party’s authoritarian leader.

“I don’t know. I did not vote for Biden the last time,” said one former Republican who bolted from the party in the last year. “I don’t know that I could do it this time. But I don’t know if I could vote for Trump.”

The schism goes both ways. As Daily Kos’ Kerry Eleveld reported on Tuesday, Trump is engaged in a purge of the Republican Party. He has declared that moderate Republicans are no longer welcome and that Haley supporters are “permanently barred” from joining the MAGA elite.

With Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump set to empty the party’s remaining funds into Trump’s account, and Trump making it clear that there is no party outside of MAGA, those voters who have voted against Trump in the primaries may find there’s no home for them remaining in the Republican Party. Though they may have a home elsewhere.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell may have managed a half-hearted endorsement, but former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney can’t bring himself to go even that far.

“I think we agree that we have looked at his behavior, and his behavior suggests that this is a person who will impose his will if he can, on the judicial system[,] on the legislative branch, and on the entire nation,” Romney said on “Meet the Press” in December.

Meanwhile, Trump says the Republican Party is getting rid of the Romneys. “We want to get Romneys and those out,” Trump told the crowd at a Virginia rally recently. Haley responded with a statement that “Trump is actively rejecting people from the Republican Party — a losing strategy in November and a recipe for extinction in the long run.”

We can only hope.

For at least two decades, the Republican Party has become increasingly hostile to anyone who didn’t hold to a very specific set of conservative beliefs. That requirement already cost Republicans the moderates and liberals who used to exist in their party.

The entry of Trump has upended the entire Republican platform, replacing it with the One Commandment: Obey Trump.

The party going to the polls in November is not McConnell’s party, or Romney’s party, or anything that would be recognized by any Republican candidate going back to Abraham Lincoln. It’s a classical authoritarian party, devoted to the rule of just one man—the one who says he’d beat Lincoln even if the 16th president teamed up with George Washington.

There’s no doubt that Trump’s cultish followers are enthusiastic to see their golden calf perched back on his altar, and Republican dissidents may wander home before November. But right now, the Republican Party appears to be split between those who want to see democracy only weakened and those who want to see it completely stripped away.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Donald Trump

No, Trump Didn't 'Win Big' In South Carolina

Politics reporters last weekend hailed Saturday’s South Carolina Republican primary results as a “big win” for Donald Trump.

Not so fast. The results show that Trump is a weak candidate even in one of the most conservative states in the country. And the coverage shows that our biggest and best news organizations, on their third try, can’t figure out how to cover Trump’s campaigns.

With nearly all ballots counted, Nikki Haley won almost 40 percent. Trump got almost 60 percent. That’s well below the 30-point or even 35-point margin polls predicted for Trump, so his win was not so big.

The South Carolina results are significant because they show, yet again, how the focus by political reporters on the horse race rather than the issues distorts and damages American politics. At DCReport, we don’t cover horse races because we focus on what politicians do far more than what they say. We also never shy away from critiquing the performance of our fellow journalists.

Tuesday, Michigan Republicans will vote in their primary, which should further indicate what to expect in November. Michigan is one of only 13 states, most in the heart of the country and the edge of the Old South, in play in the Electoral College.

Clueless Commentators

For a week or so, I’ve watched numerous politics reporters, political strategists, and former party and elected officials on various cable shows offer long, detailed, and often obtuse explanations for why Haley hasn’t withdrawn from the Republican presidential primaries, given Trump’s unbroken winning streak.

The answer is so obvious you can say it in a few words. You can conceptualize it if you think about one of those billion-dollar lotteries: If you buy a lottery ticket, your chance of winning is tiny, but if you don’t, you have no chance.

Haley is simply positioning herself to be the only viable Republican choice should Trump falter due to criminal conviction, ill health, or telling voters to stay home if he realizes he may lose badly on November 5.

The South Carolina primary vote results convey a valuable message for all Americans about the values of our citizenry: not all Republicans have gone MAGA.

A large minority of GOP voters reject the racist make America white again foundation of Trump’s campaign, along with his kowtowing to dictators, promises to deploy the military for mass roundups of undocumented people, vows to lock up those who displease him, as well as his crude misogyny.

Traditional GOP Values

In short, many Republicans still believe in democracy, the rule of law, standing up to dictators, treating others with respect, holding politicians accountable, and women’s reproductive and other rights.

That these traditional American values were supported by only a minority, albeit a significant minority, of Palmetto state Republicans, shows the truth in Haley’s argument that Trump is a weak general election candidate. As Haley said just after the polls closed Saturday evening, “nearly every day, Trump drives people away.”

In South Carolina, people can vote in the other party’s primary, so some of Haley’s votes may have come from Democrats, but it is unlikely that was a significant factor.

We will have another test of Trump’s support on Tuesday when Michigan holds its primary election. How many people turn out, the share of votes Haley gets, and how politics reporters cover this primary all matter for the fate of our democracy.

In the mid-1970s, when I was the investigative reporter in the Detroit Free Press state capital bureau, Michigan was a bastion of socially conservative and economically progressive Democrats allied with powerful unions, especially the United Auto Workers. Union political arms looked out for Joe Lunchbox’s family.

Parts of Michigan, notably around Grand Rapids and west to Lake Michigan, were solidly Republican. Still, the elected officials I knew didn’t spout hatred, admiration for dictators, and revenge as their core message the way we hear from Trump and his MAGA mob.

Jobs and Voting

Michigan’s red shift followed decades of the big three automakers paying too little attention to quality. That created an opening for Japanese and other overseas car makers who steadily improved their offerings and adapted to changing consumer preferences. Many newer vehicle plants are in Ontario because Canadian healthcare isn’t on the books of employers, unlike Michigan and the rest of America.

The anti-union politics of the 1980s also drove down American pay. As pay and job availability deteriorated for factory and related workers, many Michigan Democrats aligned with the Republicans, believing that GOP policies would make working people better off. We now have more than 50 years of indisputable economic evidence showing the reverse.

But support for Republicans, while enough to capture the governor’s office for 20 of the last 33 years, was always weak in Michigan. Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 by fewer than 12,000 votes, while the Democratic Party candidate has won every other presidential election since 2000 by at least 154,000 votes.

Trump and his allies insist “deep state” operatives and partisans stole the 2020 election. Three months ago, Trump even claimed he won all 50 states. But when judges in Michigan and elsewhere asked for offers of proof in five dozen lawsuits, Trump and his fellow election deniers produced not even a scintilla of evidence. Nonetheless, ever since, leaders of the Michigan Republican Party have perpetuated Trump’s lie. This has made for a literal state party fistfight, a dramatic fall in donations, and general disarray.

Voters should pay close attention to the Michigan Republican primary turnout and the margin of Trump’s almost certain victory. The turnout will help gauge voter enthusiasm within the GOP. And, as with South Carolina, Trump’s margin will indicate the breadth of his support within the Republican Party.

Reprinted with permission from DC Report.

Donald Trump

You'll Love Trump's Perfect Excuse For Mixing Up Pelosi And Haley

Donald Trump held a rally on Wednesday in North Charleston, South Carolina, in the run-up to the state’s Republican primary. Trump decided to address one of his many recent forgetful moments, when he confused his primary opponent Nikki Haley with former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, saying Haley was in charge of security on January 6, 2021.

When I interpose, because I'm not a Nikki fan and I'm not a Pelosi fan. And when I purposely interpose names, they said, ‘He didn't know Pelosi from Nikki, from Tricky Nikki, Tricky Dickie. He didn't know.’ I interpose and they make a big deal out of it. I said no, no. I think they both stink, they have something in common, they both stink.

Let me interpose myself here, between Trump and the actual definition of the word “interpose.” What would the betting line be that Trump vaguely remembered the word “interchange” and the word “transpose,” but then was too afraid to mutter “trans,” and thought he created a portmanteau?

Nothing says “speculation about my cognitive abilities and forgetfulness in recent months is totally not bothering me” like blathering to an audience while accidentally transposing words to prove it doesn’t bother you.

Trump wants everyone to forget that he personally picked former South Carolina Gov. Haley to be his United Nations ambassador. That’s who he mistakenly named and blamed as Speaker of the House for the Capitol insurrection.

Other people and things Trump has recently interposed:

  • Joe Biden and Barack Obama
  • Ex-wife Marla Maples and E. Jean Carroll (who accused him of rape)
  • World War II and World War III
  • North Korea and China
  • Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
  • Jeb Bush and George W. Bush

Trump also threw water on any hope that he might choose Haley as a running mate, saying, “When I make a statement like that about Nikki, that means she will never be running for vice president.”

Here’s a clip of Donald “interposing” the two women, whose only similarity is a willingness to challenge his narcissism.

Republicans demanded border security, worked on a compromise deal with Democrats, and now want to blow the whole thing up. Biden is promising to remind Americans every day that the Republican Party is at fault for the lack of solutions to the problems they claim are most important.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Frustrated Trump And His Thuggish Stooges Are Threatening Nikki Haley

Frustrated Trump And His Thuggish Stooges Are Threatening Nikki Haley

On Tuesday, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley took 43 percent of the vote in New Hampshire’s Republican primary. That allowed her to nab nine of the state’s 22 delegates. With this finish, Haley declared that she was staying in the race and moving on to campaign in South Carolina.

That Republican primary in South Carolina is a full month away. That gives Haley time to grow her voter base and reach out to her network of supporters in a state that elected her governor. Twice.

Naturally, Donald Trump is boiling over about Haley’s refusal to get out of his way and Trump’s legions of sycophants are hurrying to apply pressure. But some statements stand out from the crowd because they lower the bar on Republican hypocrisy. And that bar was already on the ground.

As might be expected, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) jumped straight to claims that the vote for Haley included “fake numbers” and said that “Nikki Haley does not have this much support.”

Then Greene went after Haley’s donors and said her consultants “should go to jail,” as captured by Acyn on X:

Turning the pressure level up to 11, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel also called for Haley to drop out in a Fox News appearance.

“I do think there’s a message from the voters which is very clear,” said McDaniel. “We need to unite around our eventual nominee, which is going to be Donald Trump.”

Trump topped off his primary night festivities with none-too-subtle threats that he knew “five reasons why” Nikki Haley should be under investigation.

But threatening opponents with investigations is old hat. When it comes to genuinely smashing all previous barriers of hypocrisy, it was Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway who really went there. So much so, that you may want to put away anything breakable before watching the video below.

"This is a democracy, a constitutional republic. We must respect the will of the people,” said Conway, “and Nikki Haley can't become an election denier. She’s been rejected. She can say tonight she came in second, or you can say she came in last.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.