In short, Nikki Haley in competing against the GOP MAGA ex-president to be the republican party’s presidential candidate can expect a tirade of crude, vulgar spitballs coming her way, but this time, she knows to treat these meltdowns as the ex-president having a temper tantrum, every time he’s having his actions, questioned.

She and the rest of us who aren’t supportive of the GOP MAGA ex-president becoming a US president should discount all the polls and the thrash talk that’s being widely spread on social media, like the ex-president has the republican presidential nominee in the bag; Nikki Haley can’t possibly prevail against the big guy; she can’t even win in her home state of South Carolina, as its former governor with 75% of republican voters being evangelicals who strongly back the ex-president, etc.

There is a route for Nikki Haley to significantly improve her numbers in South Carolina. An important point to consider is that Democrats, Independents can also vote in the upcoming March 2024 republican party’s primary election in South Carolina. Since the incumbent US president already has his presidential nomination as a democrat in the bag, democrats and independent voters in South Carolina can safely consider crossing the line to bolster Nikki Haley’s numbers.

The other advantage that Nikki Haley has to do with her being part of a military family. Her Husband Michael Haley is deployed for a year with the South Carolina Army National Guard in Africa, according to the Associated Press.

After all, Nikki Haley would never act like the ex-president in ordering his GOP MAGA congressional sycophants to bolster Russia’s President Putin’s standing in the world by not funding extra monies for Ukrainians to defend their sovereignty as a democratically run country from Russian aggression, or block the passage of a conservative border control bill because the ex-president wants to use immigration problems at the US southern border as a campaign issue, even though he refers to this problem to an existential threat to US security.

With the recent killings of 3 US soldiers and about 30 injured in Jordan by drones operated by Iranian backed fighters, the middle east being a tinder box, the ongoing 2023-2024 Israel-Hamas war, US military soldiers deserve a more competent commander-in chief who doesn’t describe US missile defense systems as “Ding, Ding, Ding, Boom Whoosh;” who doesn’t hero worship leaders like Victor Orben of Hungary, Xi Jinping of China, Kim Jong-Un of N Korea, Vladimir Putin of Russia; and who claims that it’s okay for him to take home highly classified data from the White House.

She can openly promote crowd sourcing funds set up for peoples to donate monies to help Ukraine with military aid. The monies she would bring in would be guaranteed to infuriate the MAGA ex-president.

See: Crowdfunding a War: How Online Appeals Are Bringing Weapons to Ukraine/ NYT 2022

‘I want to donate to the Ukrainian military/ LA Times 2022.’ …

Ukraine Local Crowdfunding Helps Pay for War/ Bloomberg 2022

There are eight military bases in South Carolina. Recently the democrat US President Joe Biden did a campaign stump stop in South Carolina where he went for the GOP MAGA ex-president’s jugular, his weakness with military personnel and family members. Nikki Haley should grab this baton and run with it.

President Biden pointed out some of the many ex-president’s past disparaging remarks against military sacrifices, as reflected in the following the September 3, 2020 Atlantic article by Jeffrey Goldberg, “Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers:’

Excerpts:

“When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.”

“Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.”

“Trump, on that same trip, asked aides, “Who were the good guys in this war?” He also said that he didn’t understand why the US would intervene on the side of the Allies.”

“Trump’s understanding of concepts such as patriotism, service, and sacrifice has interested me since he expressed contempt for the war record of the late Senator John McCain, who spent more than five years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said in 2015 while running for the Republican nomination for president. “I like people who weren’t captured.”

“Trump remained fixated on McCain, one of the few prominent Republicans to continue criticizing him after he won the nomination. When McCain died, in August 2018, Trump told his senior staff, according to three sources with direct knowledge of this event, “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral,” and he became furious, according to witnesses, when he saw flags lowered to half-staff. “What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser,” the president told aides. Trump was not invited to McCain’s funeral. (These sources, and others quoted in this article, spoke on condition of anonymity.”

“On at least 2 occasions since becoming president, according to three sources with direct knowledge of his views, Trump referred to former President George H. W. Bush as a “loser” for being shot down by the Japanese as a Navy pilot in World War II. (Bush escaped capture, but eight other men shot down during the same mission were caught, tortured, and executed by Japanese soldiers.)”

“When lashing out at critics, Trump often reaches for illogical and corrosive insults, and members of the Bush family have publicly opposed him. But his cynicism about service and heroism extends even to the World War I dead buried outside Paris—people who were killed more than a quarter century before he was born. Trump finds the notion of military service difficult to understand, and the idea of volunteering to serve especially incomprehensible. (The president did not serve in the military; he received a medical deferment from the draft during the Vietnam War because of the alleged presence of bone spurs in his feet. In the 1990s, Trump said his efforts to avoid contracting sexually transmitted diseases constituted his “personal Vietnam.”)”

“On Memorial Day 2017, Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery, a short drive from the White House. He was accompanied on this visit by John Kelly, who was then the secretary of homeland security, and who would later, be named the White House chief of staff. The two men were set to visit Section 60, the 14-acre area of the cemetery that is the burial ground for those killed in America’s most recent wars. Kelly’s son Robert is buried in Section 60. A first lieutenant in the Marine Corps, Robert Kelly was killed in 2010 in Afghanistan. He was 29. Trump was meant, on this visit, to join John Kelly in paying respects at his son’s grave, and to comfort the families of other fallen service members. But according to sources with knowledge of this visit, Trump, while standing by Robert Kelly’s grave, turned directly to his father and said, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”

“I’ve asked numerous general officers over the past year for their analysis of Trump’s seeming contempt for military service. They offer a number of explanations. Some of his cynicism is rooted in frustration, they say. Trump, unlike previous presidents, tends to believe that the military, like other departments of the federal government, is beholden only to him, and not the Constitution. Many senior officers have expressed worry about Trump’s understanding of the rules governing the use of the armed forces. This issue came to a head in early June, during demonstrations in Washington, D.C., in response to police killings of Black people. James Mattis, the retired Marine general and former secretary of defense, lambasted Trump at the time for ordering law-enforcement officers to forcibly clear protesters from Lafayette Square, and for using soldiers as props.”

“Trump claimed that he has received the bodies of slain service members “many, many” times, but in fact he has traveled to Dover Air Force Base, the transfer point for the remains of fallen service members, only four times since becoming president. In another incident, Trump falsely claimed that he had called “virtually all” of the families of service members who had died during his term, then began rush-shipping condolence letters when families said the president was not telling the truth.”

Jim Geraghty explains why Niki Haley should keep running in this race in his January 28, 2024 Wahington Post’s opinion piece, ” Keep on running, Nikki. Keep on running:”

Excerpts:

“Haley’s home state of South Carolina does not have registration by party, so its presidential primaries will be open to all registered voters. Anyone — Republican, Democratic or independent — can vote in either party’s primary.”

“With no competitive race on the Democratic side, South Carolina independents and Democrats could vote for Haley in significant numbers. There are 15 states that, in effect, have open primaries like South Carolina’s. There are seven more that allow unaffiliated voters to vote in either party’s primaries. That’s a lot of places where former Republicans, independents and Democrats can cast a ballot for Haley in the coming months.”

“Haley could win anywhere from 30 to 45 percent of the votes in most, or even all, of the primaries from here on out. She could walk into the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee with a giant pile of delegates and a heck of a lot of leverage.”

“Haley can drop out now and be another DeSantis. Or, having gotten the one-on-one matchup that eluded Trump’s Republican rivals in 2016 and the rest of the 2024 slate, Haley can fight on until the last contests, on June 4. If you’re going to run for the Republican presidential nomination, don’t do it halfway.”