Nikki Haley Treats You Like an Adult

By Noah Rothman

Thursday, August 24, 2023

 

It’s hard to avoid noticing how many Republicans in the race for the White House don’t seem to have much respect for your intelligence. Much of the field of 2024 presidential candidates seem to believe that if they acknowledge life’s complexities, they’ll cause some great offense among Republican voters. So many of the GOP’s presidential candidates insist that all things are possible through sheer force of will — indeed, they are possible “on day one.” Nikki Haley took a different approach on Wednesday night’s debate stage by making the genuinely courageous decision to treat Republican debate watchers like adults.

 

After spending much of her time as a declared candidate avoiding the risk of offending any potential Republican primary voter, thereby appealing to no one in particular, Haley took a calculated risk in May when she advocated the pursuit of a “national consensus” on abortion. The former South Carolina governor took that position to the debate stage on Wednesday, arguing that her approach has the added advantage of being “honest” with both “the American people” and, though it was unspoken, Republican primary voters.

 

Securing a federal limit on access to abortion will require “60 Senate votes” and “a majority of the House,” she observed — a level of support that is not present in the current Congress and won’t exist in the next if Republican candidates underperform as they have in the last two consecutive election cycles. Instead, she advocated compromise, which does not mean pro-life causes are doomed to failure. Haley noted that the kind of “consensus” she seeks already exists when it comes to banning late-term abortions, promoting adoptions, and strengthening conscience protections for medical providers who don’t want to perform abortions. But Haley nonetheless acknowledged the limits of executive authority and the bully pulpit to simply muscle into federal law the change conservatives would like to see.

 

“You’re my friend,” former vice president Mike Pence objected, “but consensus is the opposite of leadership.” Perhaps. But consensus is governance — at least, it is in the American system, which Haley reminded Pence presents some formidable obstacles to politicians who would seek radical alterations to America’s many coexisting social compacts. “No Republican president can ban abortions any more than a Democrat president could ban all those state laws,” Haley rebutted. She identified an element of dishonesty in politicians who would make sweeping legislative promises “when you know we don’t have 60 Senate votes.”

 

Haley’s tough love for the Republican base didn’t stop there. At the risk of offending GOP voters who resent the unpleasant realities Donald Trump has imposed on them, Haley reminded the Republican electorate that they are realities nonetheless.

 

“We have to look at the fact that three-quarters of Americans don’t want a rematch between Trump and Biden,” she averred. “And we have to face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America. We can’t win a general election that way.” Maybe Trump is not “the most disliked politician in America,” but if his favorability ratings are any indication, he comes close — certainly more than any other candidate on that debate stage. And when she hit the spin room in the debate’s wake, Haley bravely reminded Republicans that Donald Trump will be too consumed with his upcoming civil and criminal trials to run an effective national campaign. Trump is “going to spend more time in a courtroom next year than he is campaigning,” she said. “We have to be realistic about that.” Haley is absolutely right. GOP voters may be inclined to shoot the messenger, but the circumstances she describes are inevitable now. If Trump is the party’s nominee, they will only frustrate the already difficult task of unseating an incumbent president.

 

If Haley had a “moment,” it occurred during a heated exchange with Vivek Ramaswamy. According to the 38-year-old political newcomer, foreign policy is easy. Someone possessed of his cleverness and “courage” can hack and, subsequently, defuse the great-power competition that has defined relations between states since the Peloponnesian War. Ramaswamy’s latest big idea involves convincing Ukraine to cede to Russia the territory that Russia is attempting to seize by force. That would somehow convince Moscow to abandon the commercial, diplomatic, and military ties it has cultivated with Beijing. European battlefields would be pacified, America’s European allies would be secure, and China would be deterred, Ramaswamy’s magical thinking posits. All that is required of us is to appease a land-hungry despot by cajoling a partner nation into surrendering its people to violence and subjugation. Haley was having none of it.

 

Haley deconstructed Ramaswamy’s untested assumptions. The pharmaceuticals billionaire insists that the U.S. has given too much support for Ukraine’s sovereignty compared with Europe. But Haley noted that, in terms of individual gross domestic product, eleven European states have provided Kyiv with more material support than has the U.S. Ramaswamy claims the Sino-Russian partnership is an outgrowth of the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, and the U.S. only cements that relationship by opposing Russia’s irridentism. Haley demonstrated that this de facto alliance began far earlier and, because geopolitics is a zero-sum game, China’s interests are advanced if Russia successfully subsumes Ukraine into its orbit and destabilizes the NATO frontier. But Haley delivered the coup de grâce when she confronted Ramaswamy with the logic of his “one easy trick” approach to foreign policy.

 

Haley attacked Ramaswamy for advertising his intention to sacrifice Taiwan to China’s ambitions once we have secured the American interests under Taipei’s protection. She savaged him for his desire to dissolve and reconstitute the existing military-to-military relations between the U.S. and Israel. She battered him for his rediscovery of and advocacy for appeasement as means of pacifying land-hungry despots. And when Ramaswamy accused Haley of arguing in bad faith and only for personal financial gain, Trump’s former United Nations ambassador pounced. “You have no foreign-policy experience, and it shows!” she remarked to loud and sustained applause from the Republican audience.

 

Republican voters like to believe that they reward politicians who tell hard truths. In reality, what they have rewarded is condescension. Donald Trump’s most vocal proponents (and his mimics) insist that even the thorniest conundrum can be resolved if only our political class had the requisite courage. To her credit, Haley does not appear to think that you will shatter upon contact with a problem that does not have a pat solution with no trade-offs or downsides. It remains to be seen whether there is a market for that message among Republican voters.