Yesterday, we published a column on the findings by “the” Republican political pollster Frank Luntz, who ran a focus group through the House managers’ case and in particular through the video. Luntz’s group consisted of true MAGA heads, at least prior to the video. Luntz said that the group was profoundly impacted, to the point where Luntz said that Trump had no future in the Republican party, no future political life in any party.

We mention these findings lest anyone make the mistake of finding Nikki Haley’s comments in a Politico piece to be brave, as she declares Trump’s future political career DOA, done, fait acompli, buried, burned, filetted. From Mediaite:

“He’s not going to run for federal office again,” Haley said.

But what if he does? Or at least, what if he spends the next four years threatening to? Can the Republican Party heal with Trump in the picture?

“I don’t think he’s going to be in the picture,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I don’t think he can. He’s fallen so far.”

This was the most certainty I’d heard from any Republican in the aftermath of January 6. And Haley wasn’t done.

“We need to acknowledge he let us down,” she said. “He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”

Nikki Haley is free to STFU any minute now. No one was more willing to cover for Trump than Haley due to her own political ambitions. Unlike the Hawley’s and Cruz’s of the world, Haley was a moderate and a rising star in the Republican party as a woman (very much key, there are few GOP women pols) a moderate (crossover appeal), articulate in that she didn’t speak batshit insane conservative, she is young which is an advantage in that she had time to grow her appeal and time her run for higher office, and she is quite attractive, which is irrelevant, but it is not irrelevant to MAGA men.

She had everything going for her. And yet she stuck with Trump through it all for the most cynical reasons. She believed that she would benefit politically down the road. She is STILL willing to forgive herself for supporting Trump even though he never changed. Trump came into office willing to do whatever it took to promote himself, and left office doing whatever it took. Yet Haley acts as though something fundamental changed, but only to justify her support:

“he may have been brash. He may have been blunt. But he was someone who cared about the country. … I still stand by that. I don’t think we should ever apologize for the policies that we fought for and the things that we did during his four years.”

Shut. Up. Nick.

We desperately hope that Trump isn’t the only one whose political future is DOA.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak