Pitiful Little Marco

Pathetic, just pathetic.

It was on March 3, 2016 in Detroit when

Donald Trump opened the GOP debate here by boasting about the size of his genitals. He responded to recent comments from Marco Rubio in which the Florida senator joked about the size of Trump’s hands and said “you know what they say about men with small hands.”

On the debate stage, Trump stretched his hands out for the audience to see – then insisted the suggestion that “something else must be small” was false.

“I guarantee you there’s no problem,” Trump said to howls from the audience at the Fox debate.

Trump twice taunted his rival with "Don't worry about it, Little Marco." No problem, though, because Rubio got back at actor Trump later in the debate. He knew how to ridicule Trump and cut him down to size. The senator called him "Big Donald." Way to cut him down to size, Marco!

                

But that was before Rubio endorsed Trump a few months later, prior to his rapid and radical "transformation from "Never Trump' to 'Forever Trump.'" And now the little man has hit a new low:

Marco Rubio on Jon Karl being stunned when Rubio said he wants to be Trump's VP: "At the end of the day, I think the view is that the president doesn't even deserve to have a vice president." pic.twitter.com/X7B4vZBB3f

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 25, 2024

Oh, the humiliation. Rubio does have the advantage of being Latino and Trump hopes to be able to expand the inroads which polls indicate he has made with that demographic. However, he also is Cuban-America, and that brings into question his ability to appeal to Puerto Ricans in New York or more importantly, Mexican-Americans in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and North Carolina. Presumably, Rubio would help marginally in Florida but that has become a reasonably safe state for a GOP presidential nominee. 

Moreover, Article II, Section 1 of the USA Constitution reads "The electors hall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves." 

That would raise the possibility of four years of President Donald Trump and Vice-President Kamala Harris. Yet as entertaining as that would be, it wouldn't play out that way. Although a resident of Texas upon election as V.P. in 2000, Dick Cheney claimed to live in Wyoming, where he had previously resided and served as a U.S. Senator. And that was that. In the analogous situation, Trump simply would insist that he resides in New York, New York and that would be that.

Nonetheless, the nominee is about as likely to peg Rubio as his running mate as he is, say, Elizabeth Warren. Donald Trump needs a woman to round out the ticket, and there are several, such as Kristi Noem and Elise Stefanik, who would promise whatever necessary to do as requested. Then there are Nancy Mace, who might not, and Nikki Haley, who wouldn't, but would credibly remind everyone that a vote for Joe Biden as President is a vote for President Kamala Harris.

The ads touting Biden-Harris or ridiculing Trump-Rubio would practically write themselves- better yet, the V.P. nominee could write the ads. About a week before the "Little Marco" debate, Rubio had asserted "We cannot allow the conservative movement to be taken over by a con artist because the stakes are too high. Friends do not let friends vote for con artists," asserted the Florida senator about a week before he was dubbed "Little Marco." "Even Marco Rubio endorses Biden-Harris" would have a nice ring to it.

It's very unlikely that Trump would tap- uh, er, choose-  Nikki Haley because he'd have to worry every time he turned his back on her. However, she, Mace, Noem, and Stefanik are only a few of the Republican women who would jump at the chance to be on the ticket, and would alleviate slightly the (accurate) image of Trump as a narrow-minded, misogynistic bigot.

They'd all be very bad in their own way. However, no matter what the lucky lady is expected to do as running mate, it will be hard for her to define pathetic as thoroughly as has Marco Rubio.

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Dialing 911 for a Strongman

In 1974, Randy Bachman of the Guess Who wrote "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet."  Now in 2024, Donald Trump is saying "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet."

At a rally near Dayton, Ohio on Saturday, Mr. Trump remarked

If you’re listening, President Xi — and you and I are friends — but he understands the way I deal. Those big monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now … you’re going to not hire Americans and you’re going to sell the cars to us, no. We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars if I get elected.

Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That will be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars. They’re building massive factories.

          

Although questioning Trump's tone, GOP Senator Bill "Hopalong" Cassidy of Louisiana said on Sunday's Meet the Press "You could also look at the definition of bloodbath and it could be an economic disaster. And so if he’s speaking about the auto industry, in particular in Ohio, then you can take it a little bit more context.” The same morning,  colleague Mike Rounds of South Dakota rationalized on This Week without George Stephanopoulos “With regard to the autoworkers that he was talking to, he is showing them or he’s telling them what has been an economic downturn for them,”

Mark Mulvaney, NewsNation contributor and chief of staff to President Donald Trump, stated “I didn’t realize this until I went to do the research. It’s a conversation about Chinese automakers trying to use Mexico to get cars into the United States.”

Mulvaney evidently didn't say what constituted the  "research" but the Biden 

campaign responded to that objection with a video montage that included the “blood bath” comment alongside footage of Mr. Trump saying there were “very fine people on both sides” of the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” and pledging to pardon Jan. 6 defendants. “MAGA wanted context, so we gave them context,” a Biden spokesman, Parker Butler, wrote on social media on Monday.

It was a good point but unnecessary to determine context. Trump could have simply floated his tariff idea and added "Now if I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole- that's gonna be the least of it." But he didn't, instead adding "It's going to be a bloodbath for the country. That will be the least of it."

That will be the least of it. It would not be only a bloodbath for the auto industry or a bloodbath for the country because of the impact on the auto industry. No- that will be the least of it. In an article Politico published on St. Patrick's Day, Michael Kruse wrote

“He’s always been funny,” Jen Mercieca, the author of Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump, told me — “branding” and “framing” his foes in a way that “undermines their credibility” and “reaffirms the us-versus-them polarization” all “under the guise of just joking.” Practically every joke is “an in-group and out-group joke,” and “laughing at the joke is a sign of loyalty,” Mercieca explained.

“That,” she said, “is how autocrats work.”

It's going to be a bloodbath for the country, Trump said, as an in-group promise. To much of the media, right-wing and centrist, the former President was speaking exclusively about the auto industry. After all, it's difficult to acknowledge that the individual your fellow Americans are (for now) poised to elect as President will be eager to promote a bloodbath. It can't happen here, can it? Can it? Moreover, he already has made clear, publicly, that he's rooting for an economic cataclysm.

Trump cares little about the short-term impact of his words and largely disregards tactics. It's strategy which he has decided upon, which won him the presidency (with considerable help from FBI Director Comey) in 2016 and which he is counting on to return him to the White House.

That strategy has remained consistent while reinforced by the surprisingly strong campaign waged against him by Nikki Haley. The ex-governor, ex-ambassador said that he was the right President at the right time scoffed at the idea of voting Trump "off the island;" pledged to support him if he is re-nominated; vowed to pardon him if she is elected President.

Her argument was that Trump is a loser and is too old (as is Biden, she maintained) and that chaos follows him around.  "Chaos," Haley emphasized, "follows him everywhere he goes. Chaos follows him. And in a time where we need to start getting our act together, do we really want to go that route? I don't think we do."

Neither do Democrats nor the Independents not intent on voting for Trump. They want normalcy and no drama. And thus at the speech in Ohio on Saturday

“Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s gonna be a bloodbath. That’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country,” he said, without clarifying what he meant.

Later, he added: “I don’t think you’re going to have another election in this country, if we don’t win this election … certainly not an election that’s meaningful.”

If I don't win, there will be no more real elections, Trump insists. He argues- in the words of the late Randy Newman in the theme to Monk- that if he loses there will be "disorder and confusion everywhere." The song asks "hey, who's in charge here," to which Trump answers "No one- unless I'm elected."  A bloodbath awaits, unless he's put back in charge.

It may be chaotic now. But Donald Trump promises "you ain't seen nothing yet."

    

 

 

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Tiny Step Forward

At a Get Out The Vote rally at a Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina

“Where’s her husband? Oh, he’s away. He’s away,” Trump said, appearing to imply Haley was having challenges in her marriage that would explain her husband’s absence. “What happened to her husband? Where is he? He’s gone.”

At her separate rally in Gilbert, South Carolina, Haley addressed Trump’s comments head on, and again challenged the former president to a debate.

“I need to start with the fact that Donald Trump had a rally today, and in that rally, he mocked my husband’s military service,” she began.

“I have long talked about the fact that we need to have mental competency tests for anyone over the age of 75. Donald Trump claims that he would pass that — maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. But if you mock the service of a combat veteran, you don’t deserve a driver’s license, let alone being President of the United States.”

I don't know where in the US Constitution competence tests are listed as a qualification for federal office but my guess is that Nikki Haley would have Americans for Prosperity administer those tests.

Last July, the same Nikki

Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and former governor of South Carolina, said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Monday that the country needs a “new generational leader” but added she would back Trump if he wins the primary.

“I would support him because I am not going to have a President Kamala Harris. We can’t afford that. That is not going to happen,” she said.

(Rev.com) In  September 27, 2023, the debate stage at the Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California, co-moderator Dana Perino asked ".... And candidates, it’s now obvious that if you all stay in the race, former President Donald Trump wins the nomination. None of you have indicated that you’re dropping out. So which one of you on stage tonight should be voted off the island....?  Nikki Haley responded "Are you serious?"

In January

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said in an interview on Fox News that if elected she would pardon former President Trump only if he were found guilty and would not consider preemptively pardoning him.

“I think you only do it if someone’s found guilty. So, you know, what I’ll say is this is about moving the country forward, and the last thing we want to see is an 80-year-old former president sitting in jail,” she told the network when asked if she would pledge to pardon Trump preemptively or only if he was found guilty.

The former President will not be "sitting in a jail," even if he is convicted and sentenced to a period of incarceration. It would be prison- not jail- and he would be much more likely to serve such a sentence with electronic monitoring or some other punishment; so, straw man. She would not pre-emptively pardon Trump, in part because he might not accept a pardon because it comes with an assumption of guilt.

Look, @NikkiHaley, you supported Trump after he mocked John McCain, attacked a Gold Star family, called fallen military heroes “losers and suckers,” and tried to order military to attack Americans.

You said you’d support Trump if he was convicted of a felony.

So now he mocks… https://t.co/89xsm90XFZ

— Stuart Stevens (@stuartpstevens) February 10, 2024

Yet just as President, Trump lied about veterans; rhetorically asked "I don't get it- what was in it for them?" while at the gravesite of the Homeland Security chief John Kelly's son, killed in Afghanistan; objected to the presence of maimed veterans at a military parade because "nobody wants to see that;" and cancelled a visit to Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris while remarking "Why should I go to that cemetery? It's filled with losers."

But now the former President has questioned the military service of Nikki Haley's husband, and her criticism finally has gone beyond derogating Trump- and Joe Biden- as "grumpy old men," a stereotype which would be beneath Nikki Haley if anything were.

However, no one has asked the candidate if she still would support the former President if he is nominated for a second term. Nor has anyone asked whether she still believes that Trump should be pardoned if and when he is found guilty of a criminal offense.

No one, even at Americans for Prosperity, knows when Nikki Haley will drop out of the presidential race. Nor does anyone know for sure what she will do thereafter. However, we do know that it will be whatever benefits Nikki Haley, and there will be no other consideration.

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The Haley Way

Here we go again.

In a New Hampshire town hall gathering in late December, Nikki Haley was asked about the cause of the Civil War. When the presidential candidate failed to mention slavery, the questioner responded "In the year 2023, it’s astonishing to me that you answer that question without mentioning the word ‘slavery.’” Haley in turn responded "What do you want me to say about slavery?"

It turns out that exclusion from Haley's answer of the role of slavery should not have been astonishing, nor even surprising. After what most of us thought at the time was a gaffe, then-candidate Ron DeSantis said that Haley “has had some problems with some basic American history.”

American history, and probably also civics.  Appearing with the obviously humble host Charlemagne tha God

"if Texas decides they want to do that, they can do that," Haley said in an interview with the radio show "The Breakfast Club."

"If that whole state says, 'We don't want to be part of America anymore,' I mean, that's their decision to make," Haley said, though she also noted, "Let's talk about what's reality. Texas isn't going to secede."

Asked if she still believes that states generally have the right to secede, a sentiment she expressed on camera during her initial run for governor of South Carolina, Haley said that "states have the right to make the decisions that their people want to make."

"I believe in state's rights, I believe that everything should be as close to the people to decide," she said.

This is Nikki Haley being Nikki Haley, consistent if nothing else.  When Haley initially was asked about the Civil War, she did not explicitly mention states' rights. However, this has always been the intellectual rationale for secession of southern states from the Union. And here we have the supposedly normal and moderate rival to Donald Trump arguing "if that whole state says 'We don't want to be part of America anymore,' I mean, that's their decision to make."

Well, no, it's not the state's decision to make. Conveniently, it was action by the State of Texas which resulted in a ruling by the United States Supreme Court in 1869 which confirmed that a state cannot simply call it quits.  The Texas firm Zadeh has explained

In the aftermath of the Civil War, the state of Texas issued bonds that were purchased by George W. White and others. The bonds were guaranteed by the state of Texas, but after the war, the state claimed that the bonds were invalid because they were issued during a period when Texas was not a part of the United States.

White and the other bondholders sued the state of Texas, arguing that the state had not legally seceded from the United States and was therefore still responsible for its debts. The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court.

In a 5-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of White and the other bondholders, holding that Texas had never legally seceded from the United States and remained a part of the Union. The Court also held that the Constitution did not provide for the right of secession.

The decision in Texas v. White had significant implications for the post-Civil War Reconstruction period and helped to establish the supremacy of the federal government over the states.

The firm added "It also had important implications for the country's understanding of the relationship between states and the federal government."

Evidently, that's no longer the case, at least for someone who managed to be a governor and ambassador to the United Nations, seemingly without learning civics. 

Haley would be justifiably confident that virtually no one will accuse of ignorance someone assumed to be knowledgeable and intelligent. Sidney Blumenthal, a former advisor to President Clinton and to Hillary Clinton, maintained "the unexpected incident (in New Hampshire) showed Haley to be slight, frightened, and cowardly. Her deeper problem is that she is a slave to her party" who "keeps trying to pass the southern test."

Jaime Harrison, current Democratic National Committee chairman and South Carolina party chairman during Haley's term as governor, saw Haley's act close-up. When she couldn't, or wouldn't, give a straight answer about slavery's role, Harris advised us "Time to take off the rose colored Nikki Haley glasses, folks."

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Haley Dissembling

Suspending his presidential campaign and endorsing Donald Trump on January 21, Florida governor Ron DeSantis stated "We can't go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents.

Of course, a second Trump Administration would be warmed-over corporatism, yet with a large dose of authoritarianism mixed in.  On the heels of praise for the ex-President from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, James Downie notes a President Trump "would deliver these millionaires and billionaires more massive tax cuts. He would reverse the Biden administration's moves for stronger bank regulations. And he'd end President Joe Biden's efforts to rein in monopolies, help organized labor and safeguard workers' rights."

Nevertheless, DeSantis is right about Haley. Moments after DeSantis bowed out, CNN's Dana Bash asked (at :23 of the video below) Haley

O.K., when he dropped out, part of what he said was he reminded everybody that he "signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee. I'll honor that pledge. "He," meaning Donald Trump, has my endorsement because we can't go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear or repackaged form of warmed- up corporatism that Nikki Haley represents. That's tough stuff on his way out the door.

The former U.N. ambassador responded

You know and it's interesting because there's no proof of that. These fellas say this because they wat people to believe it. But what's amazing to me is they think they can lie to the American people and the American people are going to believe it.

Prove it. Prove the fact that Donald Trump says I want to cut Social Security or raise the age. I've never said that... Prove the fact that Ron DeSantis says I'm a corporate whatever he says I am.

 I've never done that.

That corporate whatever" would be "repackaged form of warmed up-corporatism." The candidate bet that few in the pro-Haley center and left media would go to the videotape and for the most part, she seems to have won that bet. However, the tape does in fact exist. At the recent debate held prior to the Iowa caucus, Haley promised (beginning at :25 of the video below)

And the way we fix it is that no one has to worry that you're going to lose what you paid in or what you gave. America should always keep her promises and we have to live by that. But what we will do is make changes to those like my kids in their '20s, those coming into the system. We will change their retirement ae to reflect life expectancy. We Will change, rather than doing cost-of-living increase, we'll do increases based on inflation. We will limit the benefit on the wealthy and we'll expand Medicare Advantage plans that seniors love that create competition.

Some elderly people opt for Medicare Advantage because Medicare benefits are inadequate. Haley proposes to expand Medicare Advantage, which primarily advantages profit-seeking private companies, in the obvious hope that public support for the Medicare program dissipates.

And that's her plan for Social Security. After raising the age at which benefits can be received- which she explicitly told Bash she had not proposed- Haley would apply a less generous formula for calculating benefits. Thereafter- if not before- she would eliminate benefits for the wealthy, thereby converting the program into a welfare program, which gradually would erode support for its continuation.

Haley's stated plan was not merely impulsive, a debate faux pas. A few months earlier (:29 of the video below), the South Carolinian had asserted

So the way we deal with it is we don't touch anyone's retirement or anyone who's been promised in. But we go to people like my kids in their '20s when they're coming in to the system and we say the rules have changed. We change retirement age to reflect life expectancy. Instead of cost-of-living increases, we do it based on inflation. We limit the benefits on the wealthy and we expand Medicare Advantage plans.

            

It wasn't for nothing, as the saying goes, that Americans for Prosperity, the political arm of the Koch Foundation, last November heartily endorsed Haley of President. She has been both consistently wrong about earned benefits and brazenly dishonest in claiming that she hasn't advocated raising the retirement age or cutting benefits.

Ron DeSantis' prescription, election of Donald Trump to the presidency, is ridiculous, as we are inadvertently reminded by Jamie Dimon.  However, the moderate image of Nikki Haley does not capture the reality of an extremely conservative political figure.

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Friend, Not Enemy

"It is a moment tailor made for Nikki Haley to distinguish herself from the former President ," Alex Wagner (video below) with the fitting backdrop of "With Enemies Like This, Who Needs Friends?"

The answer would be "no one." Though Haley claims that as President she would not pre-emptively pardon Donald Trump as did President Ford for Richard Nixon., HuffPost reports

Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley said it would be bad for America to see Donald Trump “sitting in a jail cell” should he be convicted in any of the multitude of legal cases against him, but added she would not preemptively pardon him. 

 “For me, the last thing we need is an 80-year-old president sitting in jail because that’s just going to further divide our country,” Haley said during a town hall event with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday. “This is no longer about whether he’s innocent or guilty. This is about the fact: How do we bring the country back together?”

 Trump currently faces 91 criminal charges in four separate indictments and has been forced to see-saw from the campaign trail to the courtroom as the Republican presidential primary heats up. He handily won the Iowa caucuses this week and currently leads in the New Hampshire primary, according to recent polls. But he has amped up his attacks against Haley as she sits firmly in second place in the state before next Tuesday’s presidential selection process.

Haley, who possesses a degree in finance and accounting, has no law or criminal justice degree. Nevertheless, having served as a governor, she should realize that Trump would not be sentenced to jail were he found guilty of any or all of these indictable charges, but to prison

 More substantively, the issue is not whether a convicted Trump should be forced to sit in a "jail cell." The ex-President would not be placed in leg irons or handcuffs and hauled off to a prison cell. Far more likely, he'd be ordered to undergo some sort of supervised, presumably electronic, monitoring. He would be approximately 80 years old and an ex-President. Probably more significantly, the Secret Service would never put up with this ex-President being placed in a cell. It simply wouldn't happen, both because of the burden it would place on the agency and because, well, it's their guy, Donald Trump.

Worst, obviously, is that Nikki Haley disagrees with Theodore Roosevelt, who in his Third Annual Message to Congress in 1903 maintained

Every man must be guaranteed his liberty and his right to do as he likes with his property or his labor, so long as he does not infringe the rights of others. No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor.

We went down the Haley road in 1974 when President Gerald Ford pre-emptively pardoned former President Richard M. Nixon. It should have been evident to thoughtful Americans at that time that this was not only a mistake in principle but that it would come back to haunt us because a future President would expect a pardon for criminality. Presidents in the ensuing decades have assumed increasing amounts of power, and now we have an ex- and possibly future President who has asserted that the "Massive Fraud" of the 2020 election "allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution."

 If former governor and ambassador Haley is nominated for, then elected to, the presidency, she probably would pardon Donald Trump, were he convicted. Proudly and with no sense of decency, she would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Convict in Chief. With enemies like Nikki Haley, Trump needs no friends.

 

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A Very Clear Vision

It's as if, asked for her opinion about Senator Bernard Sanders, Nikki Haley had said "he just doesn't care about minimum wage workers."

Campaigning in mid-January in Iowa, the leading challenger to Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination stated

The majority disapprove of both of them. Trump and Biden are both about 80 years old. Trump and Biden both put our country deeper in debt and our kids will never forgive them for it. Both Trump and Biden lack a vision for our country's future because both are consumed by the past. 

A person begin at noon to list all the dangers Donald Trump poses and still be going strong at midnight. Each would be valid. And Nikki Haley's criticism is that he lacks a vision and is consumed by the past.

Of all the attributes and policies to condemn Trump for, the ex-governor/U.N. ambassador chooses one not inconsequential but demonstrably and radically invalid. On November 10, 2023 Mark Esper, who became Secretary of Defense after Jim Mattis resigned and later was fired by President Trump, remarked

I think if something like [the invocation of the Insurrection Act] were to happen right after an inauguration in January 2025, I guess there would not be a civilian chain of command in place at that point in time, first of all, to push back, So there would probably be an acting secretary, he or she would then have to decide whether or not to implement that order. Otherwise, the military chain of command would be intact. There's another option too. Most often, people go to the active duty, but there's nothing that prevents the president from asking a governor, a friendly governor, to mobilize his national guard to assist as well.

Evidently, as Esper noted, a President may legally invoke the Insurrection Act, which usually has been upon recommendation of the Attorney General, who on January 21, 2025, probably would be an acting attorney general. 

A few days earlier, on November 6, The Washington Post had explained

In public, Trump has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family. The former president has frequently made corruption accusations against them that are not supported by available evidence.

To facilitate Trump’s ability to direct Justice Department actions, his associates have been drafting plans to dispense with 50 years of policy and practice intended to shield criminal prosecutions from political considerations. Critics have called such ideas dangerous and unconstitutional....

Much of the planning for a second term has been unofficially outsourced to a partnership of right-wing think tanks in Washington. Dubbed “Project 2025,” the group is developing a plan, to include draft executive orders, that would deploy the military domestically under the Insurrection Act, according to a person involved in those conversations and internal communications reviewed by The Washington Post. The law, last updated in 1871, authorizes the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement.

The proposal was identified in internal discussions as an immediate priority, the communications showed. In the final year of his presidency, some of Trump’s supporters urged him to invoke the Insurrection Act to put down unrest after the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, but he never did it. Trump has publicly expressed regret about not deploying more federal force and said he would not hesitate to do so in the future.

As if to validate the Post's reporting, in December the once and possibly future President told Sean Hannity that he would not be a dictator- "except for day one."  

Trump claimed that he was referring to expanding oil drilling and closing the southern border with Mexico, which may be two of his policy objectives. However, on January 20 or January 21, he likely would sign an order invoking the Insurrection Act to employ the military domestically, shutting down dissent and facilitating persecution and prosecution of his political enemies.

In response to Trump's promise, Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez issued a statement noting "Donald Trump has been telling us exactly what he will do if he's reelected and tonight he said he will be a dictator on day one. Americans should believe him."  No vision at all, Nikki Haley would say.

               

 

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If Not Slavery, What?

Evidently, not everyone who graduates from Orangeburg Preparatory School in Orangeburg, South Carolina remember Article I, Section 2 of a fairly important document.:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

Ladies and gentlemen, presenting the favorite Republican presidential candidate of cable news of the center or left:

Nikki Haley: "We've never been a racist country" pic.twitter.com/qcB0wTjvJS

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 16, 2024

Haley states to Fox News host Kilmeade "We're not a racist country, Brian. We've never been a racist country." As to whether the USA currently is a racist country, your mileage may vary. As to whether the USA ever has been a racist country, there can be little doubt when the most important of our founding documents reinforced slavery as an institution and defined its victims as three-fifths of a person. "Blacks are by nature inferior to whites" would have been a little more explicit, but not by much.

She's running a con. Haley adds "I know. I faced racism when I was growing up..."  However, she was, albeit perhaps through no fault of her own, an intimate part of a bigoted system when she was growing up. In 1989 Haley graduated from Orangeburg Preparatory Schools, an "independent, college-preparatory , coeducational day school enrolling students in preschool through twelfth grade," which was formed from the merger of Wade Hampton and Willington Academy. 

The academy was founded in 1964 for parents to circumvent the integration of public schools which had begun in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Or as "a group of Orangeburg parents" stated, "separate private school facilities must be provided...)to) avoid the pernicious 'experiment' being foisted upon the people of this state and nation."

And so in 1971, all 1500 students were white. In 1989, the year one of its graduates was the future presidential candidate, only one of its students was black, and he then moved out-of-state. In 2007, 90% of the town's public school students were black while 95% of Orangeburg's students were white.

Haley may have faced racism as a young person. We know for certain, however, that she studied at a segregated academy existing so white students wouldn't have to attend school with black students.

This "I personally have endured racism but this is not a racist country" game has been played before. Delivering the GOP rebuttal to President Biden's State of the Union address in 2021, Senator Tim Scott claimed

I have experienced the pain of discrimination. I know what it feels like to be pulled over for no reason. To be followed around a store while I’m shopping. I remember, every morning, at the kitchen table, my grandfather would open the newspaper and read it — I thought....

I’ve also experienced a different kind of intolerance. I get called “Uncle Tom” and the n-word by progressives, by liberals.

Then with no apparent sense of self-awareness, Scott declared "America is not a racist country."

The message is "America is exceptional- but I've always been a victim."  And so it is with former UN ambassador Haley, who not only contends "I faced racism while growing up" but that the USA never has "never been a racist country." Never.

Maybe it's something in the water in South Carolina, which Haley previously served as governor and Scott still serves as a United States Senator. Or perhaps it is prompted by the difficulty of being a candidate for the Republican nomination for President, a race Scott withdrew from in November.

More likely, it is "of color" individuals trying to have it both ways. Republican voters don't want to acknowledge flaws in American psyche or in the narrow narrative of America the Greatest which has been predominant in our national culture and, until recently, our educational system. At the same time, they want to remind primary voters that they can nominate someone who would allow them to deny being racist or being part of a racist party, a "some of my best friends are colored" candidate. And, of course: victim.

In a generous interpretation, Nikki Haley has a complicated relationship with the Civil War. However, it could be less complicated than simple hypocrisy. and it may be difficult to discern definitively her motive. However, the left-wing media, itching for a Republican nominee and President who is not a white male, should ask this one how she would describe considering people 40% inferior because of their race.

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Please Don't Do This

I have a thought  or two.

Former Obama adviser @davidaxelrod says that a court decision to remove Trump from the primary ballot “would rip the country apart”

Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/YVLFcfD8qX

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) December 30, 2023

CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig also has a few thoughts about the effort in Colorado and in Maine to bar Donald J. Trump from the presidential primary ballot pursuant to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which reads 

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Honig asks, nearly rhetorically, of the judicial process  in the two states "were these hearings fair? Did they comport with due process?"

The Colorado Supreme Court has upheld the decision of the state's Attorney General to block Trump from being on its presidential primary ballot, though the decision has been stayed. Maine's Secretary of State has determined that the ex-presidential shall not be on the primary ballot in a move which will almost certainly be appealed.

As Honig realizes, the issue of due process will give the US Supreme Court an opportunity to overturn the rulings in the two states with the Court choosing to skirt the substantive issues involve, perhaps a win all around unless your name is "Nikki Haley."

In the video attached to the tweet above, former Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod is seen remarking "He's only gained since he got indicted. What we thought would be kryptonite for him turned out to be battery packs."

Not true. Most people (albeit with many exceptions) did not believe that indictment of President 45 would undermine his effort to be nominated by the GOP electorate. Moreover, whether Trump's legal troubles would help, hurt, or have no impact in a general election is very much uncertain, especially because we don't know what the status of the indictments will be come next fall. Nor is it at all clear that the numerous charges actually have aided Trump's bid to be nominated, as Nikki "tell me what you want me to say" Haley has risen in the polls as she (cowardly) argues "I agree with a lot of his policies, but the truth is, rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him."

Yet, Axelrod does understand

And this is a big one for him. Presumably the Supreme Court will deal with that fairly quickly and I expect they will leave him on the ballot and yes, Brianna, I have very strong reservations about all of this. I do think it would rip the country apart if he were actually presented from running because tens of millions of people want to vote for him. I think if you're going to beat Donald Trump, you're probably going to have to do it at the polls.

Of course, it would rip the country apart or, rather, rip it apart more than it already is. There were two instances of impeachment, which polarized an already polarized nation. The charge in the latter case was "incitement of insurrection" and as in the first impeachment, it ended in de facto acquittal, of Donald Trump. Then there was the January 6 Committee, which recommended the Department of Justice level charges of Obstruction of an Official Proceeding, Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, conspiracy to Knowingly Make a False Statement, and Aiding, Assisting, or Comforting an Insurrection.

But Special Counsel Jack Smith decided not to charge the former President with insurrection. Thus, Trump never has been charged with insurrection and obviously never has been found guilty of being involved in an insurrection.

Tens of millions of people want to vote for Trump, as Axelrod maintains, and it's not only likely that he cannot be beaten otherwise, in the absence of any criminal conviction whatsoever- as is the case presently- it probably is the sole manner in which he should be defeated.

Nonetheless, the drive to deprive Trump of any chance of becoming President again is a terrible idea for a reason Axelrod hints at, though omits. The country could survive backlash from barring Trump from the ballot. However, the country might not survive the effort for another reason.

Notwithstanding the political harm to the Republican Party of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the major reason Democrats avoided a "red wave" in the 2022 election cycle was identification of the GOP with animus to democracy. This included- but was not limited to- the active effort by Trump, and support of his allies in his Party, to overturn an election.

Few Republican politicians have condemned Trump for his obsession and a CNN poll this past summer found "69% of Republicans and Republican leaners say Biden's win was not legitimate."

Tens of millions of Republicans already believed Joe Biden is President only because of a rigged election. In stepped two conservative law professors, later a conservative former federal judge and liberal law professor to prove them right.

Oh, of course without this initiative most Republicans and GOP-leaning independents still would believe that the election was fishy, if not fraudulent. Yet now, oxygen has been added to the fire of their disbelief and anger. 

For nearly three years, Democrats, never Trump Republicans, and some moderates and centrists have been denouncing the specious claims of the ex-President and the Party which emboldens and enables him, and which refuses to accept the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.   The loser in 2020, who is insistent that he won, has strongly signaled that he won't accept the results of the next presidential election if and when he loses.  Then, and probably during the campaign, he will wail that the process is "rigged."  

If the Trump disqualification drive gains steam, the ex-President won't have to wait to complain about a rigged election. If he is nominated, the claim will drive Republicans and GOP-leaning independents to the polls to vote their displeasure. And if he loses the nomination to another Republican, the claim will drive Republicans and GOP-leaning independents to the polls to vote their displeasure, in presidential balloting and down-ballot. 

Good luck to Democrats asserting that only Republicans are out to savage democracy. Nothing else could facilitate a more effective GOTV nomination and it would make anyone a heavy favorite over the Democratic nominee.

The Democrats behind this drive are encouraging political suicide. For the Never Trump Republicans, it's brilliant strategy.

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Far Beyond Civil War Denial

If a Democratic Super PAC or a Republican opponent wanted a defining moment for Nikki Haley's candidacy- or even for Nikki Haley herself, it may have come Wednesday night at a town hall event in Berlin, New Hampshire.

The former governor and UN ambassador was asked "What do you think was the cause of the Civil War?" At the tail end of the video below, Jennifer Palmieri on Morning Joe can be heard remarking "This could have been a great moment for Nikki Haley for her to say like "I came from the south, this is what have learned,' and instead it is this panic, "what do you want me to say about slavery?"

Willie Geist responded "yeh, it is that line line 'what do you want me to say about slavery,' at worst sort of defiant, that she was going to refuse to say something there." Haley's apparent moment of indecisiveness arose when

“I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do,” Haley had said Wednesday in a visit to Berlin — the first of five events in the Granite State as she attempts to close the gap with Republican front-runner Donald Trump ahead of next month’s primary.

The former South Carolina governor then asked the voter who had asked her about the Civil War what he thought the cause was, to which the voter responded, “I’m not running for president.”

“I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are,” Haley added. “I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people. It was never meant to be all things to all people,” she added.

The voter criticized her for not mentioning slavery in her answer. “In the year 2023, it’s astonishing to me that you answer that question without mentioning the word slavery,” the voter said.

“What do you want me to say about slavery?” Haley asked.

One may be moved to say "whatever it is you actually believe." But she did say something significant, and it was worse: On a local New Hampshire radio show Thursday morning, Haley told host Jack Heath

I  mean, of course the Civil War was about slavery. But what’s the lesson in all of that? That we need to make sure that every person has freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do and be anything they want to be without anyone or government getting in the way. That was the goal of what that was at. Yes, I know it was about slavery. I’m from the South, of course I know it’s about slavery.

So she knows it was about slavery, with the lesson "that we need to make sure that every person has freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do and be anything they want to be without anyone or government getting in the way."

The Civil war was not about freedom of speech or of religion unless Haley is equating the right to hold slaves with the First Amendment. More relevantly, the candidate stressed the "freedom to do and be anything they want to be without anyone in government getting in the way."

If the media and politicians can surmount the controversy over the cause of the Civil War, they might notice that Haley was arguing that the war was fought over an individual's desire to act "without anyone in government getting in the way."

Ironically, Haley is right. In an important sense, the Civil War was fought over the privilege of behaving as the slaveholder wished without government getting in the way.  Cotton and tobacco were king in the south and profits for plantation owners would be enhanced if workers were slaves and not employees paid a wage.  Southern states believed the federal government was going to block expansion of slavery into new states and eventually abolish it. That would be the federal government denying "every person" the "freedom to do and be anything they want to be without anyone or government getting in the way."

Southern states were determined not to let northerners and their government curb their freedom to do as they wish. At that time, the freedom was to own other human beings but, as Haley is well aware, that freedom now is less odious and far more subtle. The "freedom" touted by the candidate includes limiting federal employees to five years at their job which, as David Corn recognizes

would seem to cover TSA officials, federal law enforcement officials, intelligence analysts, food and drug safety officials, National Institues of Health research supervisors, counterterrorism experts, counterintelligence officers, workplace safety regulators, financial regulators, public health officials, border security officials, IRS tax collectors, trade officials, climate change negotiators, and you can fill in the rest.

Of course, someone would run the federal government, which very likely would be lobbyists and the interests, especially powerful corporations, which employ them. That would be consistent with Haley's enthusiasm for increasing oil and gas drilling, cutting income taxes for the wealthy and others, and undermining- uh, er, "reforming"- Social Security and Medicare.

 It's no surprise, then, that as Tim Scott's presidential campaign was imploding, Koch-financed Americans for Prosperity threw its endorsement- with all the resources it can muster- behind Haley's presidential effort. Certainly, Americans for Prosperity would not want its presidential choice to "government getting in the way" of it's interest in the wealthy and corporations. That would prove to be a pesky problem, much as the federal government 150+ years ago would not reinforce the institution of slavery.

Nikki Haley's remark about slavery on Wednesday evening was no accident. It may have been a nod and a wink to her corporate donors or it may have reflected sincere views (presuming she has any) about the role of government in society. Either way, she pointed to the likely role of any Haley Administration in shunning the interests of all but the most powerful Americans.

 

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Blood of Our Ancestors

The 45th and possible 47th President of the United States of America:

You know, when they let, I think the real number is like 15, 16 million people into our country, when they do that, we got a lot of work to do.  They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done. They’ve poisoned ... mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America. Not just in the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world they’re coming into our country. From Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They’re pouring into our country. Nobody’s even looking at them. They just come in. The crime is going to be tremendous.

Mehdi Hasan asks the conventional rhetorical question.

Not sure how these people sleep at night https://t.co/JNEoCV46X7

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) December 19, 2023

Trump contends there are "like 15, 16 million people into our country, when they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They're poisoning the blood of our country." Representative Malliotakis said "He didn't say the word 'immigrants.' I think he was talking about the Democratic policies." 

Unless the ex-President meant that there are approximately 14 or 16 million Democrats "pouring into our country "from Africa, from Asia, all over the world," he was talking about immigrants.

Nonetheless, I'd ask a different question than would Hasan. We have to accept the possibility that these folks sleep well at night, either because they lack a conscience or because they actually agree with Mr. Trump. Perhaps the better question, asked rhetorically or not, would beg an explanation as to the reason such Republicans are unable or unwilling to defend the remarks they prefer to pretend the former President did not make.

They would not have to defend the racial aspect- "blood"- of the comment. If they want to restrict dramatically the flow of migrants to the USA, they could make the argument. But they won't. Karen Finney, of whom I'm no fan, has an interesting theory which might explain their reticence when in response to Hasan, she maintains "Trump's comments are as much about interracial/bi-racial Americans as they are about immigrants. The 'poisoning the blood' rhetoric akin to 'one drop' laws in the US. This is about a much bigger version of who is American."

Technically, she is wrong, but only technically. Trump was talking about immigrants, and only immigrants and reflects the perspective of many voters. While his words and meaning are hateful and bigoted, they make sense to a lot of people. 

Nonetheless (as Finney recognizes), when Trump speaks of "blood," he is not speaking of the "blood" of African-Americans, Asian-Americans, or Americans of Latin descent. Were he doing so, there would be no "blood" to be poisoned- it already be "poisoned," the result of sexual relations among people of different national and racial backgrounds.

Thus, when Donald Trump was speaking of "the blood of our country," he was referring to the blood of white Americans. Finney's critique is insightful insofar as she was foreseeing a slippery slop, unconsciously harkening back to Reverend Martin Niemoller. The Lutheran minister, at first a right-winger, then a critic of Adolph Hitler, after the Second World War eloquently powerfully admitted

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Actor Ronald Reagan was a fake and bad President with soaring rhetoric. So he understood what even Republicans once did, that "you can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American." Here, it has been not who our parents or grandparents were, but who we are, or striving to become.

But Donald Trump's acolytes, including supposed rivals Ramaswamy, DeSantis, and Haley, are in too deep. Intimidated by, or in support of, the Republican Party's leading presidential candidate, they are unable to make an argument in favor of democratic principles, institutional mores, or American values. Their silence speaks loudly. Commitment to what has made America America has given way to accepting someone who wants to decide who gets to stay and who gets shut out based upon the supposed blood of their ancestors.

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