Nikki Haley Nukes Her Campaign, Sides With Disney in Ridiculous Attack on Ron DeSantis

I’ve never been much of a Nikki Haley fan. She’s always been a milquetoast neoconservative, who would have been perfectly at home serving in the George W. Bush administration. Still, I’ve tried to be nice. In other articles, I’ve described her as “fine” and otherwise given her a fair shake even though she’s far from what I’d prefer in a national politician.

That all got nuked on Wednesday afternoon, along with what little was left of her fledgling presidential campaign. In one of the most tone-deaf, ill-advised attacks I’ve ever seen in politics, Haley decided to side with The Walt Disney Company against Ron DeSantis, urging the woke multi-national corporation to move to South Carolina.

(See: Disney Sues Ron DeSantis, Claiming a ‘Targeted Campaign’ of Government Retaliation )

With party members like these, who needs enemies?

Hey @Disney, my home state will happily accept your 70,000+ jobs if you want to leave Florida.

We’ve got great weather, great people, and it’s always a great day in South Carolina!

SC’s not woke, but we’re not sanctimonious about it either. pic.twitter.com/uf1PWQjGc5

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) April 26, 2023

In a short few seconds, Haley managed to personify everything that is wrong with the modern GOP. What an absolutely cowardly move for her to pull that stunt. She had a chance to do what was right and back DeSantis’ play (or at least shut up about it and let him work) while showing Republicans that she can be counted on to deliver in the tough fights. Instead, she sided with a company that openly brags about grooming children and hates normal people with traditional values.

This should have been a lay-up. It should have been an issue all Republicans could come together and agree on. And what did Haley do? The weakest, most self-serving thing imaginable. That she also copied Trump’s silly “sanctimonious” attack against DeSantis only makes it more pathetic. Does this woman have an original bone in her body, or is she truly just a product of over-paid consultants? That’s rhetorical, of course, because we all know the answer to that.

Ask yourself, given what Haley just did, can you trust her to stand up to the deep state? To corporate tyranny? To social media censorship? To foreign threats? I don’t see any evidence she’d do anything but fold at the first order of her donors if she felt it would benefit her personally.

And to be clear, that’s what this is about. Obviously, she thinks if she sucks up to Trump enough and hits DeSantis by siding with Disney, she can secure a vice-presidential nod. It’s a clownish attempt to boost herself after her presidential campaign flopped like a fish out of water. More laughably, it has no real chance of succeeding.

Call me old-fashioned, but some things should be off-limits, even in a presidential primary. That includes fluffing far-left political opponents to score a cheap shot on a party member who is infinitely more popular and effective. If that’s the game Haley wants to play, she can fade into obscurity as the manufactured, non-entity that she is.

Again, I tried to play nice. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt despite my concerns. That’s all over, and the gloves are off. If she wants to go down this road, then let’s go down this road.