JV Last at the Bulwark points out that everyone needs to take a breath and remember that Nikki Haley is untrustworthy. All you have to do is look back at the way she’s been trying to have it both ways throughout the primary campaign to realize it. I would add that her decision to work for Trump and then sing his praises when she left the administration, promising to campaign for “this one” gesturing to Dear Leader was a low point.
Anyway, Last writes:
Nick Catoggio argues that Haley is trying to execute “the Half Liz.” He means that she’s attempting to thread the needle between the Liz Cheney and Ron DeSantis positions on Trump:
[Q]uestioning his mental stability and vouching for the defamation judgment are meaningful, if lesser, transgressions to GOP orthodoxy in their own right. By moving past policy to blame him for causing his own biggest problems, Haley is rejecting the first commandment. From “chaos follows him” to “he surrounds himself in chaos”: That’s the half Liz.
But Catoggio points out that what Haley is saying about Trump now will ultimately matter a lot less than what she says after she quits the race:
[W]hat Nikki Haley says about Trump after her campaign ends will be much more significant than what she says about him during its current “hospice care” stage. The half Liz strategy is fine for now—she’s earned the benefit of the doubt on her political instincts by overperforming in the primary—but if she turns around after exiting the race and supports Trump, she’ll have proved my critique correct. Unless it eventually progresses to the full Liz, the half Liz is ultimately just a “permission structure” to vote MAGA in the general election, albeit a bit more grudgingly than you otherwise might have.
I wouldn’t get my hopes up. Last notes that she is still trying to hedge her bets quoting her saying that despite all his problems, “I trust the American people to make good decisions.”
“I trust the American people to make good decisions” is tautological. It’s declaring that any decision which the public makes is, by definition, the good one.
But it’s not just tautology. It’s a permission structure. Haley is laying the groundwork to endorse Trump because, if the voters choose Trump as the nominee, then they must be correct. Nikki Haley has off-loaded her capacity to reach critical judgments concerning Trump. That’s simply in the hands of The People.
And who is she to tell Republican primary voters that they’ve made a terrible decision?
The logical contradiction is obvious. Here’s the first theorem:
IF, Nikki Haley trusts the American people to make good decisions . . .
AND in 2016 and 2020 one group of the American people—Republican voters—chose to nominate Trump . . .
THEN these must have been good decisions.
But how does that gibe with the second theorem:
IF in 2020 an even larger group of the American people decided that they preferred Joe Biden to Donald Trump . . .
THEN that was a good decision, too.
You can reconcile them by simply agreeing that Biden > Trump.
But Haley has to square it with a third theorem:
IF Republican voters decide to nominate Trump for a third time . . .
THEN this is a good decision . . .
AND People should vote for Biden this time, too . . .
BECAUSE Biden > Trump.
As Last concludes, she is certainly going to endorse Trump when all is said and done. It will be a total shock if she doesn’t.
Meaning that, again, this is a politicians who will simply say anything.
Of course she is. She will do anything to preserve her viability. But, in truth, she will have none. If he wins he will never forgive her. If he loses the base will never forgive her. She should probably go full-Liz in the hopes that somehow the GOP will come to its sense in the next few years and reward those who stood up. But she won’t. She’s cooked.