'Burn GOP to the ground': Haley urged to destroy Trump's party after suspending campaign

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley shouldn't go down without a fight, arguedThe New Republic contributor Damon Linker on his "Notes from the Middleground" substack. Rather, she should seize the moment to "burn the GOP to the ground."

Haley, who has been trailing drastically behind former President Donald Trump ever since her campaign launch and was the final Republican in the race challenging the former president for the 2024 nomination, suspended her campaign Wednesday after losing all but one state Super Tuesday contest.

Though in her campaign-ending speech she wished Trump well and said it is up to him to win over Republicans who hadn't voted for him, she held off on endorsing him.

But that's not really enough, Linker said — she should now go for the throat.

"Haley has badly damaged her standing in the GOP by getting herself on ballots and staying in the race long enough to test her viability. Now we know the rank and file just aren’t buying what she’s selling," wrote Linker.

"Oh, how I wish she would take a different message from this result than the one she appears to be taking (at least publicly). The message she claims to have received is this: I may not be the Republican present, but I am its future. Trump may win the nomination this year, but he will lose to Joe Biden. And then the voters will come to their senses, realize that candidates like me are the key to victory at the national level, and make me a leading contender for the presidency in 2028. I’ll be back!"

She's kidding herself, said Linker. "You think the party positively thrilled by the prospect of renominating a hateful, moronic, demented, conspiracy-addled, coup-plotting, multiply indicted would-be dictator will turn on a dime to rally around a daughter of Sikh immigrants from India who espouses a policy agenda suited to a member of George W. Bush’s Cabinet?"

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That won't happen, he said — so she should wake up and do the very thing Trump has demanded she do, leave the GOP, and kneecap it on the way out the door.

"Please, Nikki Haley: Give Trump his wish. Make it happen. Lead your supporters on a mass exodus out of the Republican Party. And not out into the nowheresland of the third-party wilderness, but into the Democratic Party," he wrote.

"You need not love Joe Biden. You need only say what is true: That a party led by Donald Trump and the thugs he’s surrounded himself with have no business wielding power at the highest levels ... Light the fire that burns the GOP to the ground."