AWW HALEY NO! — The Weekly Opine

Nikki Haley’s future looked bright when she signed legislation to remove the Confederate flag. (Photo credit Washington Post)

Not ready for prime

Awhile back, when former CNN Morning Show host Don Lemon said Nikki Haley is “past her prime” he was rightfully rebuked. Lemon’s female co-hosts chastised him, as did media pundits and the public. Lemon’s ill-advised “past her prime” comment was one of the final straws that broke his back at CNN. As most everyone knows, CNN relieved Lemon of his job a couple of weeks ago.

Clearly, Lemon’s comment was chauvinistic, misogynistic, backwards and uninformed. He displayed surprising stupidity for a New York-based man who thinks of himself as progressive and “with it.” Instead, Lemon proved to be another tone-deaf, self-absorbed bore.

But then, after being slighted by Don Lemon, Nikki Haley took an untoward shot at President Joe Biden. (Clearly people like Lemon and Haley need to scour LinkedIn to find new publicity talent.)

In a macabre statement, apparently attempting to curry favor with the underbelly known as the MAGA crowd, Haley offered up a gem, saying Americans shouldn’t vote for Biden. Why? Because, according to Haley, Biden may die during a second term which means Vice President Kamala Harris would become president. (Last time I checked, if a U.S. president dies in office the vice president slides into the Oval Office. For example, had John McCain been elected president in 2008 and then died in office, Sarah Palin would’ve become president…Lordy!)

Haley’s morbid, scare tactic comment about Biden/Harris suggests desperation is already seeping into her campaign, just three months after she announced her candidacy. Recall that Haley precipitated Lemon’s foolishness by opining that candidates over age 75 should be required to pass a competency test.

What’s next, will Haley start a movement to re-raise the Confederate flag at the South Carolina statehouse to appease White supremacists?

It appears that – and not to be confused with Don Lemon’s stupid statement – when it comes to Nikki Haley being politically ready for primetime, the answer is as apparent as the South Carolina statehouse grounds, sans the Confederate flag taken down by then-Governor Nikki Haley.

Haley was at the pinnicle of her political power when she led the removal of the symbol of Civil War-era slavery and ongoing White supremacy.

On Friday, July 10, 2015, Gov. Haley took part in a brief ceremony which followed her signing legislation the prior day requiring the Confederate flag to be removed within 24 hours. Calls to take down the flag from the statehouse, where it had flown since the 1960s, had been growing for years and intensified following the killing of nine Black people by White supremacist Dylann Roof in a church in Charleston.

“The Confederate flag is coming off the grounds of the South Carolina statehouse,” Haley said as she signed legislation to remove the flag. A month prior, Gov. Haley said, “It is time to remove the flag. This flag, while an integral part of our past, does not represent the future.” That was a ready-for-primetime move by Haley.

Last week, Nikki Haley posted the perfunctory GOP gun photo. Did somebody say desperate? (Photo credit The Independent)

Desperado

Unfortunately, Haley, apparently trying to score with the MAGA crowd, said in a 2019 interview that the Confederate flag symbolized “service, sacrifice and heritage” before it was “hijacked” by Dylann Roof. Ugh. Controversy, and walking back the statement, ensued.

Haley’s February 2023 announcement that she is running for the MAGA, er, Republican presidential nomination conjured up memories of her brave decision to take down the Confederate flag. Haley was initially seen as a potential unifier who could bring about change in GOP leadership and position the Republican Party as moving away from the deranged MAGA faction.

But alas, Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who is running far behind in polls, succumbs to the same sleaziness that has swallowed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, former Vice President and America’s #1 Fake Christian Mike Pence, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and all the other Republicans (politicians and citizens) who are crazy, greedy and/or racist enough to stand side-by-side with Trumpism.

Desperate to become relevant Nikki Haley, a few weeks after speaking at the NRA convention, showed she may well be past her political prime. (Politicians can be past their prime the same as athletes. Who would argue that Tom Brady is not past his prime?) Just days after the gruesome execution of five people in Texas, Haley outdid Texas’ loose cannon Gov. Gregg Abbott. Abbott, infamous for being among the nation’s biggest sleazebags, said something about the perpetrator and victims being in the U.S. illegally, as if that somehow lessens the brutality of the slaughter.

Not to be outdone, Nikki Haley released a campaign photo of herself at a firing range, about to pull the trigger on an AR-15 style assault rifle. In one fell swoop candidate Haley quite possibly buried her candidacy. Maybe not among MAGA goons, but among the general populace, the overwhelming majority of whom take gun violence seriously and want much tougher gun laws, not the timid legislation both sides of the aisle currently bandy about.

A hot off the press poll shows just how out of touch Nikki Haley is regarding guns. Americans, overwhelmingly, want much tougher gun laws. Just like Americans, overwhelmingly, oppose draconian abortion laws.

No conspiracy here. Even Fox Lies acknowledges Americans want stricter gun laws. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

Democrats have a golden opportunity to punish Republicans in 2024. Reckoning is due for Republican’s complicity as MAGAs attempted – and still try – to destroy American democracy.

Nikki Haley rides among those who’ve been complicit, tiptoeing to appease wild mobs of criminals while trying to appear stateswoman-like, just in case the pendulum swings back towards normalcy.

Spineless candidates like Nikki Haley (and presumed candidate Mike Pence) should not get near the Oval Office.