America deserves a better choice than Biden-Trump

Editorial: The US and the world will know soon enough whether Nikki Haley is made of such stuff as to beat the Trump machine. When the picture becomes clear, it will be up to the Democrats to decide how to respond

The Democratic and Republican party candidates are the Statler and Waldorf of presidential politics (AP)

Whatever else becomes of Nikki Haley, there cannot be any doubt about her valour.

Now that Ron DeSantis has ducked out of what passes for the race for the Republican nomination, Ms Haley is, if the polls are to be believed, the only thing that stands between Donald Trump and the White House. And that means that all of that famous Trumpian scorn will be directed at her and her alone.

Having worked for him as US ambassador to the UN, and observed him at close quarters, she knows exactly what she is getting into. Thus far, to her credit, she refuses to be intimidated by Mr Trump’s usual repertoire of childish name-calling and alternative facts, willingly amplified most viciously on social media and captive “news” channels by his adoring base. For that alone Ms Haley deserves thanks and praise, if not a Purple Heart.

Maybe that steely personality is why Mr Trump got her mixed up with Nancy Pelosi, the formidable former speaker of the House of Representatives, who also stood up to Mr Trump and got up his nose. Or perhaps not.

Mr DeSantis, a man so mean-spirited he makes Mr Trump look positively graceful, managed to misquote Winston Churchill in his sour concession speech, which is rather fitting. He was so prone to demeaning Ms Halley in the most chauvinistic manner that she’d be forgiven for taking some special pleasure in the rapid unscheduled disassembly of his political career.

This deflated egotist has now thrown in his lot with Mr Trump, who has reciprocated by promoting the former “Ron DeSanctimonious” to a “really terrific person”. So miserable was the Florida governor’s bid for the nomination that he can’t necessarily expect much from Mr Trump for his endorsement, but it seems that Mr DeSantis doesn’t have much choice.

The question now is what does the remarkably vibrant Ms Haley do in the circumstances she finds herself – even further behind Mr Trump than was Mr DeSantis in the Iowa caucus result and confronted with the most solid political base in modern American history.

The only answer can be: “more of the same”. So far as her pitch to the party faithful is concerned, she would be in any other circumstances a classic populist conservative Republican in the contemporary.

The oversized tangerine personality of Mr Trump tends to overshadow just how much she agrees with him and the Maga movement and, in her case, probably more sincerely, seeing as she didn’t, once upon a time, hang out with the Clintons and vote Democrat.

She has, for example, recently said that she would be OK with a federal anti-abortion law, and once advocated sending US special forces into Mexico – an invasion and an act of war. A Haley presidency wouldn’t be quite so clownish as Mr Trump’s last term of office, and she’d be less mesmerised by Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, but it wouldn’t be so very different from that of Mr Trump.

From her point of view, cynically or not, she needs to echo her rival’s prejudices and do a better job than Mr DeSantis did of portraying herself as a younger, less nutty version of the 45th president.

She is also shrewd enough to stress her relative youth – 52 – and appeal to the wider Republican electorate to opt for her to prevent a Biden-Trump (current combined age 158 years) rerun, two candidates who cannot be said to be in the prime of life.

In doing so, Ms Haley taps into a deep disquiet among Americans about how their party system has delivered such an unprecedented and unpalatable choice to them. As President Kennedy didn’t quite say: “Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to an old generation of Americans…”

Can she do it? There is, as the professional political strategists say, a path to success, albeit exceedingly narrow. New Hampshire, the scene of the next primary, is much more promising territory for her as it will include independents as well as Republicans, and the variegated opponents of Mr Trump can now coalesce behind her as the sole challenger to the status quo.

She might even develop enough momentum to then score another decent result in her home state of South Carolina, though Mr Trump seems well established there. Plus, there is the ever-present possibility of the law catching up with Mr Trump such that his candidature ceases to be viable. It’s possible.

America and the world will know soon enough whether Ms Haley is made of such stuff as to beat the Trump machine. When the picture becomes clear, then it will be up to the Democrats to decide how to respond.

The conventional wisdom is that Mr Trump is the candidate that President Biden would find easiest to beat – but that does not mean that Mr Biden would beat him. If Ms Haley does emerge as the Republican nominee, to a mixture of relief and surprise, to challenge Biden, then the Democrat establishment will have some uncomfortable options to contemplate.

Straying a little into fantasy, America in 2024 might even be given a choice between two women of colour for the presidency – Ms Haley and Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Far-fetched as that may be, what does seem clear is that America deserves a better choice than Biden-Trump, the Statler and Waldorf of presidential politics.