Nikki Haley’s capitulation to Donald Trump this week sent a message to any Republican woman believing they can blaze a trail in the modern GOP, an analyst wrote Thursday.
"If someone blazes a trail right into a brick wall, is that inspirational? Or just a warning?” wrote MSNBC’s Ja’han Jones. “Because the message to MAGA women seems clear following Haley’s debasement: Support the man in charge, or get out.”
Jones was writing after Haley, Trump’s last-standing opponent in the race to become their party’s presidential nominee, encouraged her delegates to back Trump.
The advice was given Wednesday despite her saying as she bowed out of the race that she would not endorse him.
Jones wrote, “Nikki Haley bowed to Trump again, just for him to humiliate her.”
“That total capitulation didn’t even earn her an invite to the Republican National Convention," he added. "She won’t even be afforded the opportunity to witness Trump absorbing her political power in person. “
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“The scenario reinforces my theory that Haley embodies a sort of dead end for Republican women — or perhaps it's a Trump-imposed glass ceiling.”
And he said Haley’s bowing to Trump now is a kick in the teeth to the many women who saw her as a pioneer.
"Haley was attempting to model a way for women to exist within the MAGA movement while retaining a modicum of self-respect and self-determination," he observed. "So I wonder what the women who were truly Trump-averse and Haley supporters are thinking today, now that Haley has fallen back into lockstep with the rest of the GOP.”
