Why Nikki Haley’s Presidential Bid Is So Troubling

If you feel like freaking yourself out today, here’s a scary fact: There are only 629 days until the next presidential election. There’s something horrifying that every few years, this country has to decide between fascists who will throw the country into chaos and the Democrats. (Also, how is this a choice that is so close, every time?!) Personally, I still haven’t unpacked the trauma of “The Big Lie,” and I can’t believe we’re essentially a year and a half away from going through all of this again. So it is with no pleasure that I tell you Nikki Haley is gunning for the GOP Presidential nomination, which she announced on Valentine’s Day. Love is truly dead.

Is she going to get the nomination? Absolutely not! I will eat my Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign hoodie seasoned by my own liberal tears if that happens. Donald Trump is already running, and it’s only a matter of time before Flordia’s own fascist Angel of Death, Ron DeSantis, throws his hat into the ring. This, friends, is purely a race for a Vice President role. Don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security, though. Haley—a former South Carolina governor and Trump-appointed UN ambassador—is the worst and you don’t want her anywhere near the White House, let alone in a position of power.

She has some truly horrible, racist views. Here she is, on video, stating she thinks there should be a “Confederate History Month,” which she says should be done in a “positive way” that focuses on the “traditions” of the people who want to “celebrate it.” Excuse me, what?! We need to focus on the traitors who went to war because they thought it was important that they could literally own Black people as property? What, pray tell, could possibly be positive about that, Nikki?

If that doesn’t scare you, here is her campaign’s kickoff prayer being led by Pastor John Hagee, who has said such charming things as: “…the Holocaust was a divine plan from God, Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for Pride parades in New Orleans, and women are “only meant to be mothers and bear children.”

It’s clear off the bat what kind of campaign she’s going to run, based on her association with that hateful bigot alone, and no I’m not talking about Trump, although she didn’t mention him once in her campaign announcement, per the BBC:

In her announcement video and during her 26-minute campaign speech in Charleston, she did not mention the former president by name once – although she occasionally talked around him.

“We’re ready to move past the stale idea and faded names of the past,” she said. “And we are more than ready for a new generation to lead us into the future.”

I think anyone who cares about who becomes President learned an extremely valuable lesson in 2016: Mock and write off the long-shot Republican contenders are your own risk. Haley is already surrounding herself with dangerous people and as I stated above, right now it seems like a competition for a VP slot for her. And that’s still an extremely dangerous position for Nikki Haley to be in.

This is a woman who values white supremacy. Who said the Confederate flag stood for “service, and sacrifice, and heritage” until Dylann Roof ‘hijacked’ it.”

Roof, if you don’t recall, walked into a church in Haley’s home state of South Carolina and brutally murdered nine Black Americans after he sat and prayed with them in their house of worship. Also, in case you forgot, the Civil War is responsible for the deaths of approximately 620,000 Americans, which according to the National Park Service, is “approximately equal to the total of American fatalities in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War, combined.” There is nothing honorable about what those traitors did.

Haley is dangerous. She peddles a myth about the Southern Confederacy that is scary, which attempts to make racism palatable and benign, and now she’s packaging her run as some kind of girl-boss feminism win, as she’s a woman running for President. Don’t be fooled, and don’t think this is a joke, either. A Vice President can have a very active role in shaping our country; just look at what our current Vice President, Kamala Harris, has done, breaking ties in the Senate in the previous Congress. That had a massive impact! Don’t think for a second whoever gets the Presidential nod isn’t looking at Nikki Haley, thinking they can get a narrative of right-wing “feminism” for their own campaign if they picked her.

This is exactly why some of her supporters want her, too. Per the BBC:

“I think we need a new candidate, and I think that we need a female in there to tell these men how to do things just the right way,” said Suzie Vahala, a Haley supporter from nearby Mt Pleasant who is attending the campaign. She says that she supported Mr Trump when in past campaigns, but the party needs to move in a different direction in 2024.

“He just needs to be quiet,” she added. “He can’t shut his mouth.”

The attempt to hijack the concept of feminism is also on full display in whatever the hell this campaign material is:

Like I said, we’ve got 629 days until the next Presidential election. Stay strong, stay vigilant, and whatever you do, stay far far far away from Nikki Haley and her campaign.

(featured image: Win McNamee/Getty Images)