If Haley does win the nomination, which still seems unlikely, it would leave an enormous number of Americans who identify themselves as populists without a political home. And it would be an attempted comeback by an establishment that was emphatically repudiated in 2016 but that still enjoys considerable media and financial clout.
As an added liability, this restoration seems to depend more and more on voters from the left who are joining the Republican establishment and its media boosters in promoting a “moderate” candidate. One doesn’t have to like Donald Trump (and I personally don’t) to know this game could end badly.
Trump is clearly favored by the majority of his party. Even if this situation changed, the populist direction of his party would be fixed. Efforts to undo that development by pushing a candidate who doesn’t line up with most of the party base seems like a recipe for disaster. Perhaps Haley’s fans could be persuaded to start their own party and stop trying to outmaneuver the Republican base.
[Well, DeSantis is certainly more populist in both tone and record. If one wants populism divorced from Donald Trump, then DeSantis is the obvious alternative. But I suspect that it’s Trump and not the populism that drives that segment of GOP voters that concerns Gottfried. — Ed]
Join the conversation as a VIP Member