When Hillary Clinton was (praise the Lord!) denied the presidency on Nov. 8, 2016, the country was spared a wicked fate under the heel of her sensible comfort pumps. Dodging that Hillary-sized bullet was America’s greatest geopolitical victory of the last 50 years.
So why is Nikki Rodham Haley following the haggard Hillary playbook?
Maybe it’s because no one in American history has ever managed to dodge raindrops quite like Hillary Clinton — and stayed dry. HRC set the contemporary female path to the presidency: kick and claw your way to financial security by swimming in the sewer with the other rats, then turn and smile and lie your way into political power.
The former first lady was Nikki Haley’s inspiration to get into politics. According to Vogue Magazine, “It was a speech by Hillary Clinton at a 2003 conference at a local university that inspired her to run. ‘She said there will be all of these reasons that people tell you you can’t do it. She said that there’s only one reason for you to do it, and it’s because you know it’s the right thing. I walked out of there thinking, I’ve got to do this.’”
Ladies, how did we ever get saddled with Mrs. Clinton as our model of female political ambition? The devil surely holds in his vault a smoking piece of parchment with her signature on it in blood.
Let me give you a few of my reasons for why I am #NeverNikki — and why she should be kept far away from elected office, forever.
To paraphrase what Auntie Em said to Almira Gulch (the Wicked Witch), for years I’ve been dying to tell you what I think of Nikki Haley, and now, being a Professional Political Pundit, I can finally say it.
Charisma Matters
First, there is the personality problem.
Hillary, of course, battled this deficit too. Hillary and Haley both fell prey to the weird impulse to “act like a man” to look tough. (Or you might say, act like the worst, stereotypical middle-aged HR boss.) I was told feminism meant women didn’t need to act like men to succeed. I thought feminism meant we could present as feminine women and still get taken seriously. Guess not.
Trigger warning: In the second Republican debate, Haley, in true Hillary fashion, came across as shrill. Angry. And yes, unlikeable. I’m sure in real life she is a lovely person, a wonderful mother, etc. But politics is an unforgiving charisma contest, and to win it you have to have a personality that doesn’t make people wince. You need to be charming and warm, or glib and witty, or incredibly charismatic. The biggest political winners manage to put all this together in a package no one can resist.
Haley, like Hillary, projects few of these qualities. She exhausts me the minute she opens her mouth. I brace for the hectoring she is about to unleash. Does this make me sexist? Is this my internalized misogyny talking? Nope — my misogyny is fully externalized. Of course, I would absolutely vote for a woman as president, but the pickings so far are pretty slim.
Public Service Pays
Second, Crooked Hillary is as corrupt as they come, but Crooked Haley is no slouch either. Until recently, I knew almost nothing about her other than she’s from South Carolina and never saw an unwinnable foreign war she didn’t like.
But did you also know that like Mrs. Clinton, Mrs. Haley has spent the years since leaving the Governor’s Mansion earning millions of dollars from speaking events ($11 million so far, and counting)?
She’s been on the board of companies like Boeing, which paid her $300,000 a year. I’m sure this is totally unrelated to the fact that as governor, she fast-tracked $120 million to Boeing to get them to invest in South Carolina.
Forget her enormous six-figure advances for books no one buys. Why doesn’t anyone ask her about her deep and lucrative connections to the military-industrial complex? Lee Fang did a deep dive into Haley’s “sudden wealth” and her significant defense connections on his Substack:
Haley also works as a consultant to Prism Global Management, a New York-based investment fund run by Richard Kang, a position that earned $708,335. While the investment fund has no substantial online presence, Kang is active in the defense world and serves as an advisor to America’s Frontier Fund, a new group backed by former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and run day-to-day by Gilman Louie, the former head of In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm.
At a launch event for the fund last year, a participant openly discussed the fact that America’s Frontier Fund is investing strategically in ‘choke points’ in case of war between China and Taiwan, in which case the fund’s portfolio would increase ‘10x, like overnight.’
Look out, Hillary — there’s a new war hawk on the way, and she’s got pockets almost as deep as yours.
Oh, and Mr. Haley’s got his hands in the missile cookie jar too. Michael Haley “earns up to $500,000 from a company called Allied Defense. An investigation from the Daily Beast showed that Allied Defense appears to overlap with a sister company, Defense Engineering Services, that helps clients ‘navigate political and legal concerns to allow for defense system acquisition.’”
Sounds profitable to me! Gee whiz, Nikki, leave some DOD kickbacks and weapons contracts for the Clintons, OK?
D.C. Nikki
Finally, like Hillary, Haley is an unrepentant establishment stooge through and through. There is zero daylight between her foreign policy ambitions and the Benghazi Babe herself. Nikki Haley, the Clintons, the Obamas, the Bidens, and the rest of the D.C. swamp are committed to “winning the Ukraine war” and “defeating Russia” and funding it for “as long as it takes.” If you disagree and want to stop the bloodshed or halt a nuclear war you are literally Hitler, a Putin apologist, and a Russian stooge.
This attitude should disqualify you from elected office. Ladies, please don’t saber rattle unless you actually know how to wield a saber.
Nikki also likes to remind us that she was the UN Ambassador under President Trump. Imagine bragging about your UN credentials, as if we didn’t all know that the UN is the Legion of Doom, headquarters of international supervillains. Has anything good ever come out of the UN except war, famine, and disaster? I’ll wait.
If you follow me on the platform formerly known as Twitter, you know I’ve actually always been #NeverNikki. But after her two GOP candidate debate performances, I am happy to report I am more never than ever.
Therefore, when it comes to the Republican GOP contest, may the best man win!
