NATIONAL INTEREST
Interventionism, as espoused by Nikki Haley, is increasingly unpopular, and its dominance of foreign policy is increasingly anti-democratic.
In his final rally before winning the New Hampshire primary, Donald Trump brought on stage recently withdrawn candidate Vivek Ramaswamy while going after active candidate Nikki Haley. This seemed highly appropriate given the two Indian-American contenders engaged in one of the most bitter rivalries of the Republican primary. It was also one of the most revealing. Part of the venom between the two spurted from Trump and Ramaswamy’s challenge to the interventionist foreign policy orthodoxy. More than any other, Haley’s candidacy represents this orthodoxy at its most anti-democratic. Long after she is defeated, her establishment backers will try to push Trump toward interventionist adventures, as seen in his first term. Ramaswamy, as a VP, is a potential bulwark against this.
Nikki and Democracy
Ramaswamy’s statement, “Nikki, I don’t have a woman problem. You have a corruption problem,” went viral. This was because it voiced a rage among significant sections of the public at being plied with identity tokenism while the fundamental questions of governance, including foreign policy, remain determined only by the donor class. A 2014 Princeton study assessing public opinion and government policy over twenty years found that while “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact,” the opinions of “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts.” No one embodies this more than Nikki Haley, the last standing Republican opponent to Trump.
For most of the primary, Haley trailed DeSantis by a small margin and Trump by a large margin. And yet Haley has been consistently hoisted up by the donor class and foisted upon the public by the mainstream media.
On the question of Ukraine, Haley has been the most vocal supporter of continued U.S. support of Ukraine among the major Republican candidates, seeking to outdo Biden and the mainstream media. This is despite Pew polling revealing that the number of GOP voters who felt the United States was not doing enough for Ukraine had fallen to just 14 percent in June 2023. The number of people who thought the United States was doing too much for Ukraine had grown from 9 percent in March 2022 to 41 percent in November 2023. 62 percent of Republican voters now feel that current levels of aid are excessive. Among the general public, a plurality now believes the United States is providing too much assistance to Ukraine. The strategic justifications for funding (that it strengthens America’s security) and moral justifications (that Ukraine is a democracy fighting for democracy) have been increasingly challenged in the public debate.
Regarding the reheated Israel-Palestine conflict, polling has seen support for Israel drop since October 7. 68 percent of respondents in a Reuters/Ipsos poll believed Israel should call a ceasefire and try to negotiate. When directly asked whether they would be more inclined to vote for politicians who support a ceasefire, people answered in the affirmative by a margin of two to one.
Yet, Nikki Haley stands out, even among the chorus of pro-Israel virtue signaling across the U.S. establishment. Her particularly bloodthirsty soundbite, “finish them,” set the tone. Not only did she stand alongside Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) in calling for an attack on Iran after the recent deaths of U.S. soldiers in the region, but she had even called for it four months ago after the October 7 attacks on Israel. Haley even implied that the attacks had been coordinated with Russia since October 7 is Vladimir Putin’s birth date, reminiscent of the tactics to associate Saddam Hussein with 9/11. But despite driving in the opposite direction of voter opinion, Haley continues to collect megadonors. She was endorsed by the CEO of J.P. Morgan and a former Goldman Sachs President and met with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. She also received support from Democratic Party donor Reid Hoffman, underlining the unity across the donor class.
Astonishingly, Haley’s increasingly unpopular, defunct, and debunked positions in relation to the policy questions of our time have not prevented but rather assisted her anointment by the establishment as the preferred challenger to Trump.
Mainstream media as well. She has been praised for her foreign policy credentials by MSNBC pundits. Politico’s hit piece on Ramaswamy accused him of cynicism, alleging “if neo-conservatism were still in the fashion he’d eagerly out-Cheney Liz Cheney,” without mentioning that Haley, one of the two people it stated were “serious contenders,” is actually trying…
