On Tuesday, Nikki Haley officially released the delegates she won during the Republican presidential nominating contests and encouraged them to vote for Donald Trump.
Alongside Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson, Haley was staunch in her criticism of Trump throughout her campaign. But she faced a barrage of sexist smears and personal attacks on her family from Trump and his allies. And yet in the end, she did what Trump’s spokesperson Stephen Chung predicted she would: “kiss ass when she quits,” and endorsed his candidacy.
And that total capitulation didn’t even earn her an invite to the Republican National Convention. She won’t even be afforded the opportunity to witness Trump absorbing her political power in person.
The scenario reinforces my theory that Haley embodies a sort of dead end for Republican women — or perhaps it's a Trump-imposed glass ceiling. Back in February, The 19th published an article titled “What Nikki Haley’s run means to Republican women who don’t love Trump,” which makes the case that, to some conservative women, Haley personified a position within the MAGA movement that wasn't wholly devoted to Trump and his selfish ambitions. Which is why some conservative women were distraught by attacks on her from the right.
As Mel Leonor Barclay reported:
“I feel like all of this … ‘Nikki Haley’s a RINO, squash her,’ is really just cutting off our nose to spite our face. Because so many of the women I know really like Nikki Haley, even some who may be voting for Trump,” said Sarah Curran, a former political consultant who is now running for a Greenville, South Carolina, statehouse seat. Curran spent years helping recruit candidates to run for office as Republicans, including Republican women. “Whether or not you agree with Nikki Haley’s platform, you can’t help but tip your hat to her for being that trailblazer,” said Curran, who also co-authors a newsletter about conservative women. “So, aside from it just being primary politics at its worst, I think we’re really hurting a lot of people who might want to follow in her footsteps. And I think it could really harm recruitment efforts, at least for the immediate future.”
Several other articles framed Haley’s presidential campaign as trailblazing or pioneering. And while I suspect some were glorifying what often looked like a desperate grasp at relevance or a half-hearted attempt to steer the Republican Party away from overt fascism, some voters may have bought into that framing: that Haley was attempting to model a way for women to exist within the MAGA movement while retaining a modicum of self-respect and self-determination. So I wonder what the women who were truly Trump-averse and Haley supporters are thinking today, now that Haley has fallen back into lockstep with the rest of the GOP.
If someone blazes a trail right into a brick wall, is that inspirational? Or just a warning? Because the message to MAGA women seems clear following Haley’s debasement: Support the man in charge, or get out.