To use political jargon, Nikki Haley—who has lost primary contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and her home state of South Carolina—does not have a snow ball’s chance in hell of winning the GOP nomination for president. Still, she is apparently intent on not going down without a fight, and to that end, the former governor has a message for voters: Anyone who votes for Donald Trump has a death wish for America.
She’d be only marginally better in that she wouldn’t attempt to become a dictator, but she still represents the party of “Fuck you and fuck minorities, got mine”.
These people are spineless, they call Trump the most dangerous thing to democracy in one sentence and then endorse him in the next breathe. They are all so weak.
She’s not going to endorse until the ballots for the general are printed. She’s positioning herself as the only candidate who didn’t resign in case Trump is legally barred from running.
That is her entire strategy and even if everything unfolded how she wanted I doubt she’d actually be a front runner.
She may be further betting that even if Trump runs, he will lose. If the Republicans lose again, that may well mean they decide to finally throw Trump under the bus. Haley would be in a strong position if that came to pass, setting her up for a 2028 run, or at least a whole lot of “told you so” speaking engagements at significant profit.
Also Trump won’t be on the ballot in some states (Illinois is in the news today for this reason), that could also be an opportunity for her - unless i misunderstand the american electoral system, which honestly i do most of the time
I say almost the same thing all the time about local government (especially the unpaid volunteer positions serving on boards and such): “decisions get made by the people who show up.”
Her existence is to try to keep moderate conservative voters from flipping sides, and as insurance in case the supreme court sides against trump. The pardon is for the extreme side as a consolation prize if the SC rules against him.
When the supreme court rules in his favor and the risk of him going to jail is 0, she’ll support him and hope that the last minute endorsement will put the presidency on the regressive side. She’s not any better than him, nor was she ever. They’re cut from the same cloth, they’re just pandering to two sides of the same party.
A vote for a repub is more dead Ukrainian soldiers and it pisses me off to no end. Reagan is rolling in his grave how his party is now the russian puppet party.
Well, with all the crimes he committed against the American economy, I would not put Reagan on a high pedestal, but yes, at least he had the balls to counter the Russians.
You could say his economic crimes put us on the inevitable path to where the political system is today. Decrease in labor power vs capital, allowing capital accumulation and concentration into few hands, inevitably flowing into the political system to maintain that status quo. And here we are.
My state has open primaries and I voted for Haley. Not because I support her but because giving her a boost in the primaries will be a good foil for Trump.
And, if in the small chance she gets the nom, she might actually be easier to beat than Trump. Not holding my breath on that one though.
Nikki Haley and others like her keep insisting that the ‘real’ GOP isn’t based on Trump politics, when are they are going admit that it’s the REAL GOP committing a murder/suicide on America. And the Dems are just the meme of the dog in the room on fire.
And yet they treat the primaries with so little concern that the orange doofus is almost guaranteed to be the gop nominee come November. One half of the gop wants trump in the white house. The other half, it seems, just doesn’t care.
Haley is just as crazy as trump. Which is why normalizing him by running worse Dem candidates than we normally would is so terrible.
Suddenly people like Haley and Liz Cheney start being called “moderates” because they’re halfway between trump and a neoliberals running with a D by their name.
Haley’s domestic policy stance is basically the same as Trump’s. They do differ on foreign policy, and Haley is arguably more sane as she isn’t obviously supporting Putin’s goals.
It’s not “extremist” to say that two candidates from the Republican party are similar - they are in fact, similar. Haley’s campaign tagline is basically “not Trump”.
Haley does not have the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 plan in the wings. She would probably not have done a Jan 6th. If you can’t see the difference between a fascist and a shitty Mitch McConnell type, the problem with our country is you.
Nuance and details are important. People’s bullshit gut checks based on their feelings are not.
This cat has been lumping 90% of the country together for months now, we’ve gone back and forth on it before. There seem to be zero colors asides black and white in his eyes.
I’ve been curious where the hell he came from for awhile now.
It should be pretty damn clear there’s differences between an outright fascist and a generic pro-business idiot.
Wonder if them and that ozma person are the same or just part of the same group of idiots? They both give bad takes trying to convince people to either not vote or vote third party. Which means they are either the mentally challenged from r/libertarian and/or r/centrist or outright Trump lovers trying to masquerade as something else.
This cat is a malicious commenter that shits on almost everything. ozma posts news articles and pushes on some genuinely important issues.
I argue with ozma from time to time, I definitely don’t always agree with their stances, but I have no real problems with them. I think people like that are important in a healthy democracy. Not a troll imo.
Pointing out that the Democrats are bad is not the same as saying ‘both sides are the same’. Sure, Biden is infinitely better than the alternative, but it would be really nice to have some actually good options instead of just lesser evil
Dude’s comment was clearly saying that Trump and Haley were the same. If someone cannot see the very clear and obvious differences between the two, their brainwashing has been strong.
Except I wonder if its brainwashing or just trolling.
First because she never really had a chance to win the primaries against the maga cult
And second because even if she did, being part of the republican party these days is more than enough reason to assume she’s a fascist asshole. Does it matter if she’s a slightly less bad fascist asshole? (And if you wanna reduce it to “everyone I don’t like is all the same” that’s fine with me)
If you don’t acknowledge the repubs trying to fight against the fascist slide inside their own party, you’re just helping fascists get what they want. They’re doing a political purge. This should be remembered.
If this is republicans trying to purge their ranks, they’re doing a shit job of it by putting forth a candidate who openly says she’s going to pardon the fascist being “purged” for the sake of moving on and unity. That alone is reason enough to not buy them being different enough to care.
Until they’re willing to crush that wing of the party, they’re still complicit. And that’s not me helping the fascists, that’s me not letting the less extreme wing cover for the alt-reich wing they’ve been cozying up to for years. Hell, the Nazis are openly hanging out with them at cpac…
Probably don’t want to just believe that her words reflect her stances. Much like McConnell, she’ll say whatever she thinks she needs to say to help accomplish her personal goals.
World is a complicated place, especially when you’re trying to not fall quickly to a purge, which is pretty clearly a goal she has. Otherwise she’d be gone by now.
Honestly, at some point the “good” republicans are probably going to have to jump ship and start a new party, because the republican base has shown they’re too focused on the trumpist candidates. I’m not confident that any of them have the stones to do it, though. But maybe if they get spanked in November they’ll finally see the writing on the wall.
I think this take is pretty bad. You can disagree with Haley and Trump on a lot of pretty core issues, but trying to say they are completely equal is just plain wrong, in my opinion.
If Haley was elected, I’m positive that I wouldn’t like the direction of the country at all, and think things would regress. It also encourages Republicans to run the most extreme candidates, because there’s no pull to anything rational when all candidates are treated the same.
With Trump, I’m genuinely concerned about our core institutions surviving again.
I don’t view Haley as Moderate, but I don’t think Trump is on a politicians spectrum. The man is just chaos and ego incarnate.
She doesn’t have dozens of lawsuits, she’s not a loose cannon who will say anything at any moment (I can only imagine how awful Trump is in meetings with foreign leaders, and his lawyers don’t even let him speak in court because he’ll get himself in even more trouble), and she can get people around her to believe in things more than her own selfish means.
I get that you wanted policies, but things like this are important too. Haley wouldn’t be headlining every day with some dumb shit she said on Twitter.
I feel oddly like I’m defending Haley… I’m not. Her border policies suck, she’ll seek to pardon Trump if elected, and I don’t see her doing shit on gun control either. Economically she’ll do the same as Republicans in that she’ll grossly underfund programs and then use their underfunding as justification for closing them, and do nothing to help the average person with tax breaks (those are for companies and upper class only).
I hear you in terms of her policies being shit, but calling the worst President in our lifetime the same as a below-average Republican candidate is just equivocating and makes people less likely to hear what you have to say. There’s a lot of Republicans who are sick of Trump and do believe he’s a threat to Democracy, but when they hear that people think Haley and Trump are the same, it reinforces Trumps worst messages.
She’s just more dangerous because of the veneer of civility?
That’s kind of what I meant. You have a small shot at seeing a bullet to the head coming. With a heart attack in your sleep you lay down thinking everything is normal and never wake.
Still think it’s a good comparison, the result is still the same.
Trump installed Kavanaugh and Barrett. Barrett is BLATANTLY unqualified due to lack of experience and Kavanaugh didn’t get a full background check. Like, I get that it sucks. But man the fuck up and wait for the background check or pick someone else. I highly doubt Kavanaugh was the only person on the short list. Trump et al just wants to turn everything into a “OMG democrats are on a witch hunt” moment.
Trump has arguably incited an insurrection.
Trump is blatantly abusing government resources.
I find it hard to believe you think Haley would erode the country in the same way.
I agree… Trump also has a superpower of gathering attention. The dude loves it even when it’s all bad. It’s a massive gift to Republicans because they can do crazy shit but Trump takes all the air time.
Trump is very skilled at absolutely wrenching attention away from everything else, even if he looks like a baffoon. Haley does not have that gene.
I’m a conservative moderate independent. I very briefly considered Haley because I heard some good things about her. BUT, her views on abortion and pardoning Trump so we can “move on” as a country feel unconscionable to me.
I really don’t like Biden, but I can’t blame him for running for reelection. Incumbent presidents tend to have an advantage with voters. Part of the reason I dislike him is that my ideal candidate, Warren, is unlikely to run in 2028.
And the thing I admired about conservatives is no longer valid. I can respect that you have a different view than I do, and that you stand by your values. Republicans threw away their values and are set to throw away democracy to accomplish their goals.
And the thing is, I would vote for a literal flaming pile of poop over Trump and Biden certainly is better than that, as much as I don’t like him.
Honestly Biden has been pretty great, and the only really liberal thing he’s doing is forgiving student debt. That’s not that radical or expensive.
He doesn’t go far enough, imo, but with this Congress he can’t. I’d love to see a top marginal rate of 80% for earnings over 4 million per year.
I’d consider voting for someone slightly worse and younger, but that candidate doesn’t exist this year. There’s a hell of a lot worse, more loyal to Putin than America, fascist, and still about the same age.
I disagree that forgiving student debt is a good thing. They signed a contract and they should abide by it. I do think that he should be fixing the root cause: why is college so expensive and what can we do to make it more accessible? Also, why are student loans so predatory? Why can the interest rate exceed inflation?
I would also love to see a high marginal tax rate, but I disagree with the 4 million cut off. We shouldn’t write in 4 million. It should be an equation of X times the poverty rate.
Forgiving student debt would provide financial relief for 50million+ (a good chunk of the country) and would quite literally provide an economic boon instantly. Not to mention the millions of POC that would give immediate upward mobility. If the govt can bail out big business and forgive their PPP loans during the pandemic they can afford to cut student loans. I agree with you on your other points though.
Here’s the thing. We shouldn’t have bailed out big businesses in the first place. We should claw back that money. We shouldn’t have to bail out people with student loans. We should fix the root cause and give them a non-predatory option.
I completely agree with all of that. Forgiveness is merely a bandaid for a broader solution, but providing intermediary relief is not saying we shouldn’t also address the root cause.
I don’t understand: if you acknowledge that the loans are predatory, why shouldn’t the victims be entitled to relief, as is perfectly normal under contract law? Furthermore, about 92% of student loans are considered “federal loans,” made up of money from the government.
It seems like this is just another way to do the same thing though except with more paperwork required by those seeking relief.
What good does it do to effectively make borrowers pay with their time when the government already knows who should be entitled to that relief?
Moreover, it wasn’t blanket student loan forgiveness in the EO. The recipients include:
Borrowers with Income-Driven Repayment Plans: The administration proposed changes to income-driven repayment plans to make them more generous. These changes could result in lower monthly payments for borrowers and eventual forgiveness after 20-25 years of qualifying payments.
Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program Participants: The Biden administration temporarily relaxed the requirements for the PSLF program, allowing more types of payments and loans to qualify. This program is designed for individuals who work in public service jobs for either a government or a non-profit organization, offering forgiveness of remaining debt after 10 years of qualifying payments.
Borrowers Defrauded by For-Profit Colleges: The Biden administration has been discharging loans for borrowers who were misled or defrauded by certain for-profit institutions, under the Borrower Defense to Repayment program.
Total and Permanent Disability Discharge: The administration has also taken steps to streamline the process for borrowers who are totally and permanently disabled to have their loans discharged.
Targeted Forgiveness Initiatives: President Biden announced a plan for broad student loan forgiveness of up to $10,000 for individuals earning less than $125,000 per year, or households earning less than $250,000, and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients.
These seem like good measures to me to get people to be able to afford homes and retirement; from a consequentialist perspective, it seems like a faster and more effective way to improve our nationwide economy.
I’m not a Republican or a Democrat. I just firmly believe in government working for the people. I don’t play party politics.
You have to realize that at the end of the day, we’re all people and that treating people like individuals is better than treating government like a competitive sport.
I’m not trying to be a Democrat. And I also don’t believe democrats should move right. That’s something Obama did wrong.
If the middle is 0, one side should be -5 and the other side should be +5. Obama had too much faith in republicans, offering 0 right off the bat, allowing republicans to go to +10.
What should really happen is that the Republican Party should be split into far right crazies and center right, and the Democratic Party should be split into center left and far left.
It is absolutely ridiculous for the Republican Party to characterize the Democrats as “the far left” and throw terms like “communist” and “socialist”. The US NEEDS a socialist and communist party such that the Republican Party can stop mis-using these terms and come back to reality.
I’m sorry if you think I misunderstood, and I welcome any corrections
TL;DR: you’re a reasonable person, but one who has no understanding of the game theory of how our political system works.
Here’s the thing: you can’t just want the Overton window to not be skewed and for all ideologies to be represented by political parties; you have to understand the current fucked-up framework we have that structurally suppresses all but the two most popular parties in order to figure out how to change it to be fairer.
The only alternatives to developing that understanding and strategy – sitting around whining about it, or trying to burn it down and start over – range from ineffective to foolhardy.
TIL that there’s a term for the concept I’ve been trying to explain what’s wrong with American politics.
By framework, do you mean FPTP naturally becomes a two party system? Because honestly, we need RCV. And it might be prudent to go back to the system at founding:
Most votes is President, second most is vice.
To be honest, I’m not sure why we have to vote for a ticket.
Thanks for displaying what it looks like when one is siloed-off and can no longer muster the good faith required for a simple conversation across ideological lines.
Yes, good faith.
You know, the thing you lack when skipping over the substance of a person’s argument, even while rushing to equate them with Newt Gingrich.
American conservatives haven’t done or said a single thing in good faith in the last half a century. You don’t get to ask others to do what you’re unwilling to do.
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