What Nikki Haley’s Run Means

Former South Carolina Governor Nimarata (Nikki) Haley has announced she is running for president in 2024, becoming the second Republican to officially enter the race and the first one who will attempt to bring the Party’s rank and file back in line after the Trump era. Don Lemon aside, she has received mostly positive attention, both from the Establishment Right but also the Establishment Left. She should also be a fundraising machine. Unless she makes major mistakes, she should be a formidable candidate, even if I do not think she is likely to win the nomination.

Long before she announced, I suspected she would run. There is nothing the GOP Establishment wants more than to push a button and make Trump disappear; they want to go back to the days when they could easily convince their base that mass immigration and free trade deals are really in their best interests. They want to reanimate the corpse of “Zombie Reagan” one more time, convincing themselves and their followers that a doubling down on Reaganism is all that is needed to bring back the landslide victories of the 1980s, ignoring the massive demographic changes forced upon the United States that Reagan is at least partially responsible for. And, they see Haley as the best person to do it.

But undoing what Trump did is not going to be easy. The average right-leaning normie now knows what is happening to the country, and the GOP never thought this was a possibility. Nikki Haley, by virtue of being Trump’s former Ambassador to the United Nations, is the best candidate to fill the particular niche needed here – essentially, more warmed-over Reagan, but close enough to Trump to keep the rank and file in line. Thus, contrasting her between a candidate that would be an explicit rejection of Trumpism (I suspect former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan will fill this position), Trump himself, a candidate symbolling Trump without the dumb fights (Florida Governor Ron DeSantis probably here) and a candidate promising to be “More Trump Than Trump” (look for Ann Coulter to take this spot). Nikki Haley’s campaign is the Party’s last attempt to bring back Reaganism in its most pure form. There is literally no chance of Hogan winning the nomination, but he would represent a pre-Reagan GOP. Trump would, of course, mean more Trump, warts and all. DeSantis would represent the populist fury that propelled Trump to the White House, but now without the pointless fights. An Ann Coulter nomination would me a purified populist revolt, though she would likely run into the same discipline problems that plagued Trump. A Nikki Haley presidency, or even nomination, would, at least in the short term, mean more heliography of Ronald Wilson Reagan.

But to Southerners, Nikki Haley’s run for the presidency should bring up another feeling – anger. Anger at an almost decade long, intense campaign of cultural genocide against the South. Nikki Haley was governor of South Carolina the day a drug addled loon decided murdering a bunch of black people at church was more important that actually doing something to improve himself and help his people, giving the Left the pretext they needed to launch that campaign. That is important, because Nikki Haley helped bring that campaign to fruition.

As soon as I heard a White guy shot up a black church in the “Cradle of the Confederacy,” I thought the Left would use this as an excuse to go after Dixie. They had been doing that for years with varying degrees of success. Still, initially it looked as if there would be another gun-control focused debate, but then several pictures came out of Dylann Roof holding a Confederate flag. It was at this time that the Confederate flag flying over the South Carolina statehouse started gaining attention, with protesters demanding it be taken down. This is important, because I remember them saying this is all they wanted, arguing that because the statehouse was a public place, the Confederate flag should not be flown over it, and that the Left was not going to target the flag in other places. I have no idea to what extent Nikki Haley trusted the Left and if she did, she is at best utterly naïve. However, as soon as she relented and took the flag down, there was blood in the water and the current genocidal campaign against our culture began.

There were many factors that went into how the Left was able to use Dylann Roof to destroy as much Southern history as they did; a media and a school system that has taught young Southerners to despise their own nation for decades stands out in my mind as two looming reasons. And while I never thought that the Left was sincere when they said all they wanted was the Confederate flag removed from the statehouse, I never would have thought they would have gone as far as they did. If you told me in 2015 that within a few years Dixie Beer would be no more and Flannery O’Connor’s name would be removed from a school building, I just flat out wouldn’t have believed you. But none of that changes the central role Nikki Haley played in launching the 4^th Reconstruction. This is the most severe crisis that Dixie has faced since 1865, and Southerners cannot forget the woman that helped open up those floodgates.

With Haley in the race, it is almost guaranteed that the Confederate flag will come up during the primaries, especially if DeSantis runs, as the media will no doubt love casting the race between the woman who took the Confederate flag down and the man who signed the best monument protection bill in the country. It will be interesting to see how this plays out – if DeSantis is running ahead of Haley in Dixie, I can see Haley trying to save face by claiming that all she agreed to was removing the Confederate flag from the statehouse, and everything that has transpired since, including the demonization of Southern icons that have nothing to do with the Confederacy, was not part of the agreement. Doing so wouldn’t make me vote for her – she would still be the woman who helped launch the 4^th Reconstruction and her foreign and trade policies would remain terrible – but it would finally address the elephant in the room: the Right gave the Left an inch and they took a mile. This is not just an issue regarding the Confederate flag, but almost everything else that has transpired over the last decade or so. Remember the phrase: “All we want to do is get married and leave you alone”?

And that is why, though I will not vote for her, I am glad Nikki Haley is running. Her campaign will bring up memories to Southerners of the losses we have taken since 2015, and how dishonest the Left has been. Nikki Haley does not need to be president, and not just because of the Confederate flag – I don’t want war with Russia either, but her presence does mean the Confederate flag is an issue. Southerners will be reminded of the utter betrayal they have suffered under Con, Inc. Southerners will be reminded of how quickly “let’s take the Confederate flag down from the statehouse” became “destroy everything that has something to do with Dixie.” In the long term, that helps build a greater sense of a uniquely and specifically Southern form of national identity, and that is what we need.