Nikki Haley isn’t my kind of pro-lifer, but I don’t like to see her routed by Trump

Well, here we are, in that period between International Women’s Day and Mother’s Day. This year has the distinction that many women will have voted to remove the only reference to “woman” in the Constitution and the only reference to “mother” (singular) as well.

It does not seem to demonstrate much sisterly solidarity to vote to remove the sole reference to a vital contribution women make to society by their work in the home in favour of a revised article that many carers believe is patronising and allows the State to evade its responsibilities.

Lots of women will have had what they believe were good reasons for voting to remove words directly mentioning women, including embracing inclusion and diversity. Still, it is an odd kind of inclusion when a measure renders women more invisible, lost within such a broad definition of care that one would never guess that women provide the bulk of it. It makes you wonder how real is sisterhood and female solidarity. How far does it, or should it, extend?

Today, tribalism, which is a form of picking a crowd and sticking with it, is everywhere. It was evident in the lacklustre campaigns leading up to the referendums

And what about the woman who suspended her campaign to be the Republican presidential candidate while quoting Margaret Thatcher? Nikki Haley said, as she declined to endorse Donald Trump, that Thatcher provided some good advice when she said: “Never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind.”

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In 1981, Thatcher said she was raised by her father, Alfred Roberts, to believe that following the crowd was the worst thing one could do.

Today, tribalism, which is a form of picking a crowd and sticking with it, is everywhere. It was evident in the lacklustre campaigns leading up to the referendums. People proudly proclaimed that if that crowd — insert your favourite despised group — were for it, then you should be against it; no painful expenditure of energy on thinking required.

Yet sometimes the tribalism falters. There is more sympathy for Haley than one would expect, given her place on the political spectrum. This is not unconnected to Donald Trump’s casual misogyny, or the feeling that it is past time the US had a woman as president.

I mostly share her pro-life stance but many American pro-lifers are a different breed. Almost all the Irish pro-lifers attempt to be consistent and abhor, for example, the death penalty. Haley does not fit that mould. The last person to be executed in South Carolina was under her watch as governor in 2011. (The only reason that they ceased executing people in South Carolina is because it has run out of lethal drugs. The state added death by firing squad instead a few years ago.)

Still, it is hard to watch any woman being routed by Trump. Why is that? A feeling of sisterhood?

Haley is also a hawk on war, like her heroine, Thatcher. You might also think that her background as the child of Indian-Sikh immigrants would have made her more compassionate about immigration. Nonetheless, she vociferously objected to resettling Syrian refugees in South Carolina because they allegedly represented a security threat.

Still, it is hard to watch any woman being routed by Trump. Why is that? A feeling of sisterhood? Or just because Trump’s expressed opinions about women are so revolting that you hate to see him crowing?

He is the epitome of a schoolyard bully. Trump never saw a belt that he hesitated to punch — or in the case of women, declared he was entitled to grope — below. He christened Haley “Birdbrain”. You could say that it is no worse than “Lyin’ Ted” (Cruz) or “Ron DeSanctimonious” (DeSantis) or “Sleepy Joe” or “Crooked Joe” (Biden). His other nicknames for Haley are Nirmada and Nimbra, distortions of her birth name, Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. Trump has said that “it’s a little bit of a take-off on her name. You know, her name, wherever she may come from.”

Elizabeth Warren, who campaigned to be the Democratic presidential candidate, has said that women can’t win; that if they point out real problems they are considered to be whiners, but if they say everything is wonderful, ‘half the population wonders what planet you’re on’

It is typical of Trump to target someone’s intelligence and origins. The problem is that lots of people find him funny, in that kind of half-horrified, “I can’t believe he actually said that”, way. Haley, meantime, had to do that thing women always have to do — be assertive enough to be taken seriously and accommodating enough not to be considered unfeminine.

Elizabeth Warren, who mounted a campaign to be the Democratic presidential candidate, has said that women can’t win; that if they point out real problems they are considered to be whiners, but if they say everything is wonderful, “half the population wonders what planet you’re on”.

Haley did call Vivek Ramaswamy “scum” when he dragged her daughter into a dispute about TikTok. (Haley thinks the social media platform is a Chinese espionage tool but her daughter uses it.) While the Tiger Mom moment was regrettable, it pales in comparison to Trump’s complete lack of civility, and his rampant narcissism.

Of course, Haley is one of a privileged elite and her problems are ones most women in less developed countries could only dream about. Nonetheless, whether privileged or impoverished, whether wanting to be a president or just to secure the right to flexible work or to work full-time in the home, it is still not easy to be a woman or a mother in 2024.