The GOP candidates most enamored with Trumpian populism – including Trump himself – are most likely to condemn the party to defeat in the 2024 presidential election. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who is more aligned with traditional American conservatism and abjures grievance politics, is the best alternative.
WASHINGTON, DC – Last week, in a speech in New Hampshire, former US Vice President Mike Pence declared an “unbridgeable” divide in the Republican Party between traditional conservatism and the populism of former President Donald Trump, asserting that the latter is a “road to ruin.”
Trump’s electoral record supports Pence’s argument. The former president is a four-time loser for the GOP. After winning the 2016 presidential election, Trump lost his re-election bid in 2020. In the 2018 midterm elections, while Trump was still in office, the Republicans lost the House of Representatives. In 2021, he sabotaged Republican efforts to win two Senate runoff elections in Georgia by throwing public temper tantrums about state leaders’ repeated refusals to overturn his defeat, handing control of the Senate to the Democrats. And Trump’s highest-profile endorsements in the 2022 midterms went to candidates who significantly underperformed.
Looking forward to the 2024 presidential election, a new CNN/SSRS poll shows that the GOP candidates most enamored with Trumpian populism – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and Trump himself – are all statistically tied in hypothetical head-to-head matchups with current President Joe Biden. Only one Republican candidate beat Biden in the poll: Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations. Polls following her breakout performance in the first GOP primary debate last month have likewise indicated that a meaningful number of Republican voters are looking at Haley in a new light.
Haley’s recent surge could reflect many factors, not least her temperament. Like Trump, she presents herself as a tough fighter who is willing to stand up to entrenched interests. But instead of the persona of an angry populist, Haley projects confident resolve. She does not indulge in the politics of resentment and victimhood that characterize Trumpian populism.
For example, she was asked at a CNN town hall event this summer about the foundations of her political leadership. A Trumpian populist would have raged against the elites, promising to fight on behalf of the masses. Instead, Haley answered that “faith and a conscience” are “above all things” for her. She spoke of reciprocity and the mutual obligations of living in a community, saying that “the best way to appreciate God’s blessings is to give back.”
When describing why she wants to be president, Haley did not echo Trump’s combative, grievance-filled 2017 inaugural address, in which he vowed to end “American carnage.” Instead, she spoke with the fundamental optimism that used to animate American conservatism: “When we really focus back on faith and family and country, and the idea that America is the best country in the world, that’s when our best days are to come.”
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Beyond temperament, Haley’s views on public policy – and the values communicated by those positions – align more closely with traditional American conservatism. In sharp contrast to the Trumpian populist candidates, Haley has been explicit that the United States has a direct interest in Ukraine defeating Russia. During last month’s GOP primary debate, she cast the conflict in moral terms, as a fight between “good and evil.”
On fiscal policy, Haley also represents a departure from Trump, who abandoned the Republican Party’s traditional position of reducing long-term spending on retirement and health-care programs for the elderly – the most important component of any plan for fiscal consolidation. Haley supports changes to those programs with the goal of placing them on stable footing for future generations.
In the first primary debate, she went so far as to criticize Trump’s fiscal record, pointing out that he “added $8 trillion to our debt.” Attacking Republicans for expanding the welfare state, spending through earmarks, and increasing the size of the national debt, Haley argued: “Our kids are never going to forgive us for this.”
Like traditional conservatives, Haley is an enthusiastic champion of free markets and limited government. In 2020, she wrote that capitalism “is the best and fairest economic system the world has ever seen,” and skewered nationalists and populists in the GOP who support “watered-down” capitalism – “the slow path to socialism,” as she called it. “Only in a free and prosperous country,” she wrote, “is it so easy to take capitalism for granted.”
But on several important issues, including US-China relations, Haley shares Trump-era GOP concerns. She has called China “our number one national security threat” and criticized the bipartisan consensus – namely, that cooperation with China was always in America’s best interest – that had prevailed for three decades prior to Trump’s election.
Haley’s approach to China, however, is more thoughtful and nuanced than that of the economic nationalists in the GOP. In the CNN town hall, she acknowledged the importance of free trade, once a central principle of Republican economics. “I don’t care if Americans buy T-shirts and light bulbs from China,” she said, “any more than I care if the Chinese buy agricultural products from our farmers. I welcome that.” What does concern her is the US relying on China in ways that could threaten national security.
Imagine if Haley approached the American working class in a similarly reasonable manner. Trump stokes outrage and offers nostalgia for an imagined past. In contrast, Haley could focus on expanding economic opportunity and increasing participation in economic life.
Enduring political success is built on a foundation of policy success. Trump’s protectionism, trade wars, and border walls were not successful policies – empirically, grievance-onomics doesn’t work. And Pence, Trump’s vice president, is right: going down this road will lead to political ruin for the GOP. The candidacy of Haley, whose temperament and policy positions stand in stark contrast to Trump, offers a more promising path forward.
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WASHINGTON, DC – Last week, in a speech in New Hampshire, former US Vice President Mike Pence declared an “unbridgeable” divide in the Republican Party between traditional conservatism and the populism of former President Donald Trump, asserting that the latter is a “road to ruin.”
Trump’s electoral record supports Pence’s argument. The former president is a four-time loser for the GOP. After winning the 2016 presidential election, Trump lost his re-election bid in 2020. In the 2018 midterm elections, while Trump was still in office, the Republicans lost the House of Representatives. In 2021, he sabotaged Republican efforts to win two Senate runoff elections in Georgia by throwing public temper tantrums about state leaders’ repeated refusals to overturn his defeat, handing control of the Senate to the Democrats. And Trump’s highest-profile endorsements in the 2022 midterms went to candidates who significantly underperformed.
Looking forward to the 2024 presidential election, a new CNN/SSRS poll shows that the GOP candidates most enamored with Trumpian populism – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and Trump himself – are all statistically tied in hypothetical head-to-head matchups with current President Joe Biden. Only one Republican candidate beat Biden in the poll: Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations. Polls following her breakout performance in the first GOP primary debate last month have likewise indicated that a meaningful number of Republican voters are looking at Haley in a new light.
Haley’s recent surge could reflect many factors, not least her temperament. Like Trump, she presents herself as a tough fighter who is willing to stand up to entrenched interests. But instead of the persona of an angry populist, Haley projects confident resolve. She does not indulge in the politics of resentment and victimhood that characterize Trumpian populism.
For example, she was asked at a CNN town hall event this summer about the foundations of her political leadership. A Trumpian populist would have raged against the elites, promising to fight on behalf of the masses. Instead, Haley answered that “faith and a conscience” are “above all things” for her. She spoke of reciprocity and the mutual obligations of living in a community, saying that “the best way to appreciate God’s blessings is to give back.”
When describing why she wants to be president, Haley did not echo Trump’s combative, grievance-filled 2017 inaugural address, in which he vowed to end “American carnage.” Instead, she spoke with the fundamental optimism that used to animate American conservatism: “When we really focus back on faith and family and country, and the idea that America is the best country in the world, that’s when our best days are to come.”
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Beyond temperament, Haley’s views on public policy – and the values communicated by those positions – align more closely with traditional American conservatism. In sharp contrast to the Trumpian populist candidates, Haley has been explicit that the United States has a direct interest in Ukraine defeating Russia. During last month’s GOP primary debate, she cast the conflict in moral terms, as a fight between “good and evil.”
On fiscal policy, Haley also represents a departure from Trump, who abandoned the Republican Party’s traditional position of reducing long-term spending on retirement and health-care programs for the elderly – the most important component of any plan for fiscal consolidation. Haley supports changes to those programs with the goal of placing them on stable footing for future generations.
In the first primary debate, she went so far as to criticize Trump’s fiscal record, pointing out that he “added $8 trillion to our debt.” Attacking Republicans for expanding the welfare state, spending through earmarks, and increasing the size of the national debt, Haley argued: “Our kids are never going to forgive us for this.”
Like traditional conservatives, Haley is an enthusiastic champion of free markets and limited government. In 2020, she wrote that capitalism “is the best and fairest economic system the world has ever seen,” and skewered nationalists and populists in the GOP who support “watered-down” capitalism – “the slow path to socialism,” as she called it. “Only in a free and prosperous country,” she wrote, “is it so easy to take capitalism for granted.”
But on several important issues, including US-China relations, Haley shares Trump-era GOP concerns. She has called China “our number one national security threat” and criticized the bipartisan consensus – namely, that cooperation with China was always in America’s best interest – that had prevailed for three decades prior to Trump’s election.
Haley’s approach to China, however, is more thoughtful and nuanced than that of the economic nationalists in the GOP. In the CNN town hall, she acknowledged the importance of free trade, once a central principle of Republican economics. “I don’t care if Americans buy T-shirts and light bulbs from China,” she said, “any more than I care if the Chinese buy agricultural products from our farmers. I welcome that.” What does concern her is the US relying on China in ways that could threaten national security.
Imagine if Haley approached the American working class in a similarly reasonable manner. Trump stokes outrage and offers nostalgia for an imagined past. In contrast, Haley could focus on expanding economic opportunity and increasing participation in economic life.
Enduring political success is built on a foundation of policy success. Trump’s protectionism, trade wars, and border walls were not successful policies – empirically, grievance-onomics doesn’t work. And Pence, Trump’s vice president, is right: going down this road will lead to political ruin for the GOP. The candidacy of Haley, whose temperament and policy positions stand in stark contrast to Trump, offers a more promising path forward.