Politics/ December 8, 2023
Prepare yourself to be amazed: The darling of the wealthy and the mainstream media is leading a campaign that’s shrouded in deception.
Trump and Trump lite: Haley uses Trump’s policies, however with much better attire and a more relaxing intonation. (Mark Wilson/ Getty)
In the fourth GOP presidential debate, we witnessed an eye-opening showcase of what type of falsehoods are deemed unacceptable, versus those fabrications that somehow manage to maintain a semblance of credibility. Vivek Ramaswamy, the candidate of a flailing insurgent campaign, was rightfully reprimanded in the media for endorsing bizarre conspiracy theories – including the claim that the January 6 attack on the Capitol was an “inside job” – and espousing the “Great Replacement” theory, a racist notion that suggests there is a deliberate scheme to dispossess white Americans by bringing in non-white immigrants. Ramaswamy was justly rebuked by Slate for “proudly pushing extravagant and dangerous right-wing conspiracy theories.”
But who knew that one of Ramaswamy’s competitors, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, would also drop a bomb of lies? Unlike Ramaswamy, who is trying to win over the alt-right, Haley is the candidate of the Republican establishment, largely treated with respect by the mainstream media and showered with contributions by JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, and other billionaires. But Haley’s misleading statements barely caused a ripple on social media, which is quite perplexing. Haley caters to the fantasy life of comfortable suburbanites who fancy themselves moderates.
During the debate, Haley craftily mentioned a scenario that appeals to the bipartisan elite of diplomacy hawks. Citing Ukraine and Israel, Haley stated:
The irony is, you have to see that all of these are related. If you look at reality, Russia was losing the war with Ukraine, Putin had hit rock bottom, they had raised the draft age to 65. He was getting drones and rockets – drones from Iran, rockets from North Korea. So what happened when he hit rock bottom, suddenly his other friend, Iran, Hamas goes and gets into Israel and butchers those people on Putin’s birthday. There is no one happier today than Putin because all of the attention America had on Ukraine suddenly went to Israel.
The story Haley presents here, that Iran encouraged the Hamas massacre of October 7 as a birthday gift to Vladimir Putin, is as ludicrous as anything Ramaswamy said on the same stage. Haley presents a fallacy that appeals to a Manichean sensibility that sees all of the supposed enemies of the United States operating in a clandestine league, akin to the villains in a superhero movie. In reality, US intelligence assessments show us that Iran was, like Israel itself, surprised by the Hamas massacre. Hamas was motivated by its own agenda, not that of any external group. Furthermore, the stalemate in Ukraine was working in Putin’s favor long before the massacre.
