In she came, the lost daughter of the Republican Party and the last holdout during the Republican primaries, when Donald Trump crushed the would-be contenders during a rapacious winter storm in Iowa.
It’s a distant memory now that Nikki Haley alone showed a streak of independence and spine and, it appeared, true values by continuing her winter campaign through New Hampshire and on to her home state in South Carolina, amassing a significant minority of never-Trump Republicans.
She got under the big guy’s skin. She called him “unhinged”. She told her true believers that wherever her former president went, chaos followed. He called her “Nimrata”. He called her “Birdbrain.” But unlike the others, she fought and lost on her own terms.
But then came Tuesday night in Milwaukee when she joined the other line of “contenders” that Trump had casually destroyed during that stillborn primary race.
There are echoes of the Roman Colosseum about these nights, with the emperor arriving late into the proceedings, taking a standing ovation and then his place in the royal box to enjoy the entertainment.
The theme of Tuesday’s proceedings was making the country “safe again” and so the speakers concentrated on border security and reflected on the opioid crisis that has ravaged swathes of American society.
They also danced to the YMCA and to the country-rock that has become the sound of the Maga movement, but primarily they watched as all of Trump’s former adversaries and rivals came to lay bouquets at his feet. And Nikki Haley’s was the most important arrangement.
Tens of thousands of Republicans continued to vote for Haley even after she dropped out. Unlike the others, she carries a significant support base. So she was a last-minute invite, and she told the gathering after a fairly muted reception that she had accepted “in the name of unity”.
But if she retains any future national political ambitions, she would have calculated that she also had no choice. And it may have been through gritted teeth, but she did what she had to do.
“It was a gracious invitation, and I was happy to accept. I’ll start by making one thing perfectly clear. Donald Trump has my strong endorsement – period.”
This broke the ice and drew a smile of attention from former president Trump, who once again wore the gauze bandage covering his wound from Saturday night’s assassination attempt.
If he appeared subdued on Monday night, he was more like his old self here, pointing, smiling, nodding in pleased acknowledgment at the waves of adoration that drifted his way in a tide that never went out. The adoration for Trump in the big arena in Milwaukee is total.
“For more than a year I said a vote for Joe Biden is a vote for president Kamala Harris,” Haley continued.
“After seeing the debate, everyone knows it’s true. If we have four more years of Biden or a single day of Harris, our country will be badly worse off. For the sake of our nation, we have to go with Donald Trump.
“But there’s more to it than that. We should acknowledge that there are some Americans that don’t agree with Donald Trump a hundred per cent of the time. I happen to know some of them. And I want to speak to them tonight. My message to them is simple. You don’t have to agree with Trump a hundred per cent of the time to vote for him. Take if from me: I haven’t always agreed with president Trump. But we have agreed more often than we disagree. We agree on keeping America strong. We agree on keeping America safe.”
As Haley spoke, the idea that she – or any of them – could ever have convinced Trump’s Republican hard-core base to think differently seemed delusional. It’s not her fault that she has nothing of his stage presence or glowering charisma. None of them do.
Haley speaks just fine but has no delivery. She comes across like an infinitely patient mathematics teacher going through the rudiments of algebra with a particularly dense class.
What made her message compelling in those perishing school halls and cafes in the frozen midwest was what she had to say about Donald Trump – and that she dared to say it. Now, she was just another speaker lavishing praise.
But on a night when Vivek Ramaswamy, who delivered a stunningly vacuous vision of America with equally stunning passion and drew big applause, Haley at least offered a presentation of a second Trump term in which his foreign policy influence could still play a role.
The elevation of JD Vance to vice-president running mate signals a drift towards isolationism: Vance has gone on record to say he does “not really care” about what happens in Ukraine.
Haley, as a Republican candidate, argued strongly for the case for continuing aid. And she drew on her experience as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations to sell that message.
“For those who have some doubts about president Trump ... I want to tell you a few things about the commander in chief I knew and worked with. As an ambassador to the United Nations, I had a front-row seat on his national security policies. We sure could use those again. Think about it. When Barack Obama was president, Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea. With Joe Biden as president, Putin invaded all of Ukraine. But when Donald Trump was president, Putin did nothing. No invasions. No wars.
“That was no accident. Putin didn’t invade Ukraine because he knew Donald Trump was tough. A strong president doesn’t start wars. A strong president prevents wars. Iran was too weak to start any wars. They knew Donald Trump meant business and they were afraid.”
If this was Haley’s pitch for a secretary of state role in the Trump cabinet, the leader gave little indication of what he thought. He can be an inscrutable read, Trump, and although he clapped politely at the right moments as he listened to Haley’s speech, he gave little away, as though he had stumbled on a television show he used to watch and was trying to figure out why he had once liked it.
With cruel timing, the schedule had Ron DeSantis – Ron DeSanctimonious, as Trump called him during the primary when the Floridian was the butt of ceaseless verbal humiliations – immediately take the stage as Haley left. He, too, was starry eyed in his praise of Trump as he declared that Florida is now a “solidly Republican state”.
“The Democrat Party lives in ruins. The left is in retreat,” proclaimed the man who once had visions of the Oval Office.
“Electing Donald Trump gives us an opportunity to do all of that across America.” The Republicans on the floor cheered and waved their placards. Donald Trump smiled. All of the dissenting voices within the GOP had disappeared – and who would guess as to when they may be heard again.
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