She can’t help a surging populist nominee, but she can make pre-2016 Republicans feel important again.

The realization is setting in among implacable Republican establishment opponents of Donald Trump that the populist former president stands on the precipice of winning again. Worse yet, he has accomplished this entirely without them. For those pre-2016 Republicans heavily invested in maintaining the belief that they still carry sway in a party whose grassroots has fully embraced Trump’s America First policies, this is a scenario that above all must be avoided. The solution: trot out Nikki Haley.

Haley ran a stubbornly hostile GOP primary campaign against Trump. Now she’s garnering a slew of big-box media national headlines due to a “report” from a signature Never Trump outlet that claims the ex-South Carolina governor is about to be tapped by the former president as a key “eleventh hour” weapon to court an alleged voting demographic of extremely questionable importance.

“Haley is in talks to join [Trump] on the campaign trail in an attempt to win over disaffected Republicans, sources familiar with the discussions” told The Bulwark in a report dated October 17.

The Bulwark is a political news site founded in 2019 by noted neoconservative William Kristol and two associates. Its entire existence is devoted to standing against all things Trump. Whether one agrees with those sentiments or not, there is no reason to accept The Bulwark as an unbiased source on this subject. Its “scoop” bolsters a very specific political narrative: that anti-Trump Republicans have a crucial role to play in 2024.

Republican Establishment Lives Matter

One can start with the dubious notion that a percentage of “disaffected Republican” voters significant enough to impact the 2024 election even exists. “Trump prizes winning over servile loyalty, and he recognizes that Haley’s brand as an establishment Republican – one who respectfully disagrees with him on the margins – could help in November, even if he said the opposite during the primary,” The Bulwark asserts.

But is that really so? Given the repeated drubbings the GOP establishment has experienced within the party since 2016, is there any reason for Trump to seek the support of people who by all sensible metrics clearly align more with Democrat nominee Kamala Harris than the man chosen as party nominee precisely due to his pronounced outsider status?

The old saw that one runs to the center in a general election campaign loses meaning when a majority of Americans see that center as hopelessly self-serving and corrupt.

‘He Should Be Basking in Her Endorsement’

Trump himself expressed bewilderment at the Haley headlines making their way through the dominant news organs.

“Yeah, I’ll do what I have to do,” a shrugging Trump told Fox News when asked if he planned on inviting Haley to appear on the campaign trail. “But let me just tell you – Nikki Haley and I fought, and I beat her by 50, 60, 90 points,” he added. “I beat her in her own state by numbers that nobody’s ever been beaten by. I beat Nikki badly.”

Indeed he did. This leads one to wonder: Is it Trump who needs Nikki Haley right now, or is it a shaken political establishment that needs assurance it is still a player across the two-party political process?

“Haley voters are precisely the swing voters Trump should be targeting – Americans who are willing to vote for a Republican but are hesitant to do so for Trump,” Marc A. Thiessen, a veteran columnist for a major Washington daily newspaper, wrote of the Bulwark-fostered Haley buzz.

“He should be appearing with her at rallies and basking in her endorsement,” Thiessen exclaimed. “He should deploy her to key battleground states for the next four weeks to convince the reluctant but persuadable 18 percent of the electorate to cast their ballots for him. Failure to do so would be sheer political malpractice. It could very well cost him the presidency.”

Isn’t that a little overboard? It sounds for all the world like it is much more critical for DC columnist Marc A. Thiessen to see Nikki Haley deployed that it would actually be for the Trump campaign.

Another neoconservative publication makes the simple point that Haley primary voters were motivated by a core urge.

“Now Haley is Team Trump – yet, the impact of Haley’s support may be blunted; Many of Haley’s supporters are Haley supporters, not so much because they like Haley, but because they don’t like Trump,” The National Interest wrote October 21. “So, Haley’s endorsement of Trump becomes complicated; many Haley supporters are not going to simply migrate along with Haley over to Team Trump.”

This is true. The political realignment in America is solidifying. The days of establishment candidates representing both of only two choices are over. There is one establishment candidate in the 2024 race, and that is Kamala Harris.

Donald Trump represents an unalloyed challenge to that establishment. He does not need to pretend otherwise. It’s not 1988 anymore. Heck, it’s not even 2016 anymore. No Mike Pences are on hand to add “balance” to the ticket.

For the first time in modern American history, including the first Trump run, the forces of the political status quo find themselves being completely shut out of one half of a presidential race. That’s a thought even more terrifying to them than a Trump victory. This is what and who Nikki Haley is coming to save.