In mid-February, at the height of the fight for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, former Ambassador Nikki Haley sat down with NBC News and made a seemingly compelling case for her candidacy.
“I know the American people are not going to vote for a convicted criminal,” the South Carolinian said. There was simply “no way” this could happen, Haley added.
Her point at the time, of course, was to present herself as a superior alternative to Donald Trump. Haley was effectively telling GOP primary voters that the former president might have limited, far-right appeal, but the party had a responsibility to think about the general election — and Trump was simply too tarnished to be competitive at the national level.
At face value, Haley’s argument appeared sensible. After all, the United States is a serious country. Americans live in the preeminent global superpower. Ours is the indispensable nation — humanity’s last, best hope.
We might stumble and fall short of our highest ideals at times, but with Haley’s prediction in mind, Americans were not about to elect a buffoonish felon to the nation’s highest office. The White House is no place for a twice-impeached clown. A con man denounced by his own top aides as a dangerous fascist. An erratic criminal running on an authoritarian platform. A two-bit huckster found to have run a fraudulent charity, a fraudulent “university” and a business found to have engaged in systemic fraud. An impostor who neither knows nor cares about governing. A man accused by literally dozens of women of sexual misconduct — including one woman who, according to a jury of Trump’s peers, was sexually abused by the candidate. A reactionary, overtly hostile toward democracy, and sympathetic to the nation’s foreign adversaries. A corrupt politician who trashes his own country as “evil” and a “garbage can,” and who condemns many of his fellow Americans as “vermin.”
When Haley said in February that there was simply “no way” that the American people would put such a person in the Oval Office, it rang true because it appeared to summarize common sense. Sure, politics in the United States often appears broken, but there are still some basic rules in place. Even in 2024, there are some limits.
But therein lies the rub. Those assumptions have been proven wrong — and they need to be replaced.
There was a line in Kamala Harris’ speech at the Ellipse last week that lingered in my mind from the moment she said it:
Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other. That’s who he is. But America, I am here tonight to say, that’s not who we are.
It’s a phrase we’ve heard quite a bit in recent years, invariably used by those eager to see Americans in the best possible light. The Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty had a memorable piece on this, which was published 11 months ago, on New Year’s Day 2024. After noting a variety of prominent political voices who’ve pointed at political misdeeds and said they’re “not who we are,” the columnist wrote: ‘This is not who we are’ can be an affirmation, a reprimand, an inoculation. What is worth questioning is whether those words are now the truth about Americans, or ever were. An answer will come in November. No election in memory will have provided such a clear delineation of what American values really are.
“This is not who we are” is an argument of sorts rooted in the idea that when push comes to shove, the stakes are high and the United States has a highly consequential decision to make, Americans can be counted on to choose right over wrong. It’s a part of our national character, the pitch goes. It’s in our DNA. It’s “who we are.” Perhaps, as Trump prepares to return to power, we’re due for a reassessment? Maybe it’s time to grapple with what’s newly possible in our political system?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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