November 20, 2023
By Jeff Crouere, The Crouere Column, AMP News Inc.
As President Donald Trump continues to dominate the GOP race for the nomination with 62% in a recent survey and is regularly leading Biden in the latest polls, the neocon wing of the Republican Party is getting desperate. These establishment Republicans hate Trump and his “Make America Great Again” agenda and want a GOP nominee who will support policies like those advocated by former President George W. Bush.
Initially, they believed that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis would be the challenger to stop Trump. Yet, his campaign has been a huge disappointment as he has struggled to connect with voters. It turns out DeSantis needs a personality transfusion, and his lack of charisma is not going to change anytime soon.
Never Trumpers Looking for Candidate
With DeSantis unable to gain traction, the “Never Trumpers” are frantically looking for another alternative. Enter former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, or as Vivek Ramaswamy accurately described her, “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels.”
Like Cheney, Haley aggressively advocates for a robust projection of American military power throughout the world. Unlike Trump and DeSantis, she has been a staunch supporter of U.S. funding for the war in Ukraine. She blasted the Biden administration for doing “too little” and said it is not time to “take the foot off the gas” regarding our support for Ukraine.
One reason for her staunch neocon positions could be her ties to the defense industry. According to Ramaswamy, Haley became a “multimillionaire” by joining “the board of Boening” and becoming a “military contractor.” He said that, if elected, Haley would revisit “the mistakes from the neocon establishment of the past.”
In fact, Haley is not just a clone of the former Vice President, she is also a protégé of former First Lady Hillary Clinton. Amazingly, in 2012, Haley admitted in an interview that she was inspired to enter politics because of Clinton.
DeSantis claims that Haley is “running away from her record” because she cannot “risk exposing her liberal views on issues most important to conservative voters.”
One issue that is important to many conservative voters is preserving our nation’s history. Conversely, liberals want to erase our history in the name of fighting “racism.”
Haley Boosted by Removing Confederate Flag
As Governor of South Carolina in 2015, Haley became a national political figure when she successfully pushed for the removal of the Confederate flag from the state house grounds. This was done in response to the murders of African American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina by a racist killer.
Haley said she was “proud” of her actions, which catapulted her political career. While removing the Confederate flag did not make South Carolina a more racially unified state, it did inspire other politicians to pursue similar actions.
In New Orleans, former Mayor Mitch Landrieu used the same tragedy to successfully campaign for the removal of Confederate monuments. Sadly, the move did not improve the lives of African American citizens, for New Orleans remains a cesspool of crime, corruption, and poverty, minus monuments that were tourist attractions.
Like Haley, Landrieu’s political career was bolstered by these actions, as he authored a book, started a non-profit group, was hired by CNN and is now a “Senior Advisor” to President Biden.
Haley started a national movement which has continued to this day. A recent report by the far-left group, Southern Poverty Law Center, noted that 482 Confederate “symbols” have been removed since the murders in Charleston. Yet, countless other monuments of previous U.S. Presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, and Founding Fathers, have also been removed across the country.
To protect our history, President Trump signed an executive order on June 26, 2020, to prevent “American Monuments, Memorials and Statues” from being vandalized or removed. On this issue and so many others, Haley holds positions that are opposite from President Trump.
Nevertheless, at a 2021 press conference, Haley said that she had “a great working relationship” with Trump when she served in his administration as Ambassador to the United Nations. At that time, she pledged that she “would not run if President Trump ran.”
Haley Vs. Trump
As her presidential campaign indicates, Haley is not only a fraud, but she is also untrustworthy. In addition, her political forecasting is pitiful. In a 2021 Politico interview, Haley claimed that Trump would become “further isolated” after the events of January 6, 2021, and would not “run for federal office again.”
Despite Haley’s prediction, Trump is the leading 2024 presidential candidate. Haley is far behind him even in her home state of South Carolina where she trails by a 49-19% margin according to a RealClearPolitics poll average.
Facing a huge deficit in the polls, Haley remains undaunted. She told voters at an Iowa town hall meeting, “Get used to this face; I’m not going anywhere.”
Candidate of Wall Street
However, she will be going to Wall Street. On December 3 and 4, the Wall Street Journal reported that Haley will be meeting with corporate executives, bankers, hedge fund operators and GOP mega donors. This follows her meeting last week with Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, and Gary Cohn, former President of Goldman Sachs.
Haley is raising campaign funds from companies like BlackRock which promote Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) policies which even her campaign has labeled “corporate socialism.” States such as Texas, Florida and Louisiana have pulled their investments from BlackRock, due to their commitment to support companies based on their “social and environmental” policies.
Nikki Haley is in sync with the big military and business powerbrokers and is extremely comfortable with big government. Last week, she made headlines by vowing that, if elected President, all social media users would have to be “verified by their name” for so-called “national security purposes.”
This should send a chill down the spine of every American for such a policy would severely limit free speech, lead to more censorship, and create more surveillance power for an already out of control federal government.
It would lead to “cancel culture” on steroids. Hopefully, before such insanity occurs, Republicans voters will have the good sense to cancel Nikki Haley.
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Jeff Crouere is a native New Orleanian and his award-winning program, “Ringside Politics,” airs Saturdays from Noon until 1 p.m. CT nationally on Real America’s Voice TV Network & AmericasVoice.News and weekdays from 7-11 a.m. CT on WGSO 990-AM & Wgso.com. He is a political columnist, the author of America’s Last Chance and provides regular commentaries on the Jeff Crouere YouTube channel and on Crouere.net.
For more information, email him at [email protected]
