I have nothing against Nikki Haley, or at least I used not to have anything against Nikki Haley. Now, after the last week or two, I don’t know what she is thinking at any given moment, and I find myself caring what she’s thinking even less.
Haley isn’t dumb, though you might be able to convince me otherwise now after the way she’s continually stuck her foot in her mouth. I wonder if she’s trying to sabotage her chances even at a VP nomination or if she's always been this bad of a candidate, and I just wasn’t paying attention to her. Both are possible, but neither would surprise me.
It started, famously, with her being asked a pretty basic question about the cause of the Civil War. There’s a simple answer upon which any other answer would hinge: slavery. You opine about all sorts of other things after that word, but it has to start with Slavery. Many people will say “state’s rights,” but you’d have to ask what rights southern states cared about most. It would be the “right” to own other human beings or slavery. There wasn’t a whole lot of discussion about how Confederate states wanted to regulate their healthcare industry or impose regulations on pretty much anything; it was that they wanted slavery to exist.
Haley rambled on about freedom, though not freedom from being enslaved, just freedom in general. Honestly, her answer is hard to mock because it made no sense.
She later acknowledged her awful answer and moved on, which, aside from not giving a stupid answer, is how you respond if you give a stupid answer.
Then, she was asked about it again by CNN at a town hall. Her answer was even worse than the first time. It was like slicing your tee shot into a water hazard, then lining up your mulligan backward.
The part that’s getting all the press is that she said she had black friends growing up. I always loved it when some leftist would accuse someone of being a racist, and the person would respond with, “I have black friends,” because the Democrat would always laugh and say something like, “That’s exactly what a racist would say.”
Actually, that’s not at all what a racist would say. A real racist who was racist against black people wouldn’t have black friends because they don’t like black people because they’re black. Not too many committed Nation of Islam members palling around with many Jews because their leader is wildly anti-Semitic. So, if you have Jewish friends, while that won’t give away a lot about you, one thing it will be a “tell” for is the fact that you’re not a member of the Nation of Islam.
No, that’s not the problematic part of what Haley said; it’s the rest of it where she says, “I should have said slavery right off the bat. But if you grow up in South Carolina, literally in second and third grade, you learn about slavery. You grow up, and you have — I had Black friends growing up. It is a very talked-about thing. We have a long history in South Carolina when it comes to slavery when it comes to all the things that happened with the Civil War, and all of that. I was thinking about slavery.”
When you’re in a hole, stop digging. What the hell does that mean? You were thinking about slavery? To what? Regional fashion differences that may have contributed as well? How do you fumble a question about a question you’d previously fumbled? It’s like having lunch at Chipotle to celebrate the settlement check you got for getting food poisoning at Chipotle.
She also gave a weird, rambling answer to whether or not she’d pardon Hunter Biden when her only response to the question should have been to point out how stupid the question was and ask if the reporter asked it because she wants to date him – smack these moronic reporters upside the head with their idiocy rather than indulging it. Haley opted for indulgence.
The worst thing for Haley this week, the thing that really turned me off to her campaign, didn’t happen this week, but it did pop back up from 2015 to haunt her.
Speaking to a bunch of leftists at the Aspen Ideas Festival in 2015, Haley spoke of illegal aliens by saying, “…let's keep in mind, these people that are wanting to come here, they want to come here for a better life, too. They have kids, too. They have a heart, too. So, we don't need to be disrespectful. We don't need to talk about them as criminals — they're not. They're families that want a better life and are desperate to get here. We need to make sure that we have a set of laws that we follow and that we go through with that.”
Sorry, I don’t care. I get this was almost a decade ago, but the attitude is the problem, and it’s unlikely that has changed.
Who cares if they “have a heart,” every living human has one; that’s biology, not a key card to bypass immigration law. We can’t be the world’s economic life raft or emotional tampon; I don’t give a damn why people want to come here if you don’t do it legally (and don’t bring something serious to the table as far as skills that will add to society), I’m not interested. That some illegal claims want a better economic future for their kids is nice but irrelevant because so does every American, and they are the priority. Or at least they’d better be.
Haley was enjoying a bit of a surge – the open borders Koch Network is shoveling money to her, and Democrats are advocating other Democrats register as Republicans to drag her over the finish line to hurt Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. She’s flirting with the idea of being Donald Trump’s running mate if the nomination doesn’t work out for her. It should be a good time for her. But she has a problem…also her.
Republican candidates have a history of making themselves their biggest problem. Some punch themselves in the face, figuratively, repeatedly; others just can’t stop stumbling and bumbling when it comes to simple questions. Maybe I didn’t notice before, but it sure seems like Nikki Haley became just that this week.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.
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