Last night, I watched Nikki Haley's son, Nalin, sit down with Tucker Carlson. It was an interesting opportunity to hear the Gen-Z perspective on foreign affairs and domestic challenges. I was not impressed.
As an individual, Haley certainly does impress. He is articulate, composed, and clearly a bright young man. But his viewpoints, I think, leave much to be desired, because life is simple when you're 24.
When I was 24, I was unmarried, with no kids. By 25, I was married. By 27, I was a father. By 29, a father of two. It's fair to say I am not the man at 30 that I was at 24. Life was truly much simpler. Not better—not even close, but I did view the world in a simpler way, even though I was bookish and had spent time abroad.
Haley made many points in his roughly 45-minute interview that struck me as overly simple. He stated, for instance, that we should not allow dual citizenship. My readers will know that I live abroad, in Poland. My wife is a Warsaw native, and our two children were born here. They are dual citizens. While my 1-year-old son may not be fully aware of his American identity yet, for my 3-year-old daughter, it is very real.
She enjoys watching baseball with me (the Red Sox, for better or worse) when we can get the games at a reasonable time. When we're in the U.S., we've even gone to some. She has a little American flag in her room, has celebrated the Fourth of July with sparklers (both in the U.S. and in Poland), and will next week celebrate Thanksgiving, along with our whole family. She has watched our president speak, and she loves both American books—such as Dr. Seuss' complete works—and Target (especially their mascot, Bullseye).
She may attend a Polish school and speak Polish, but she also has, thus far, spent many months of her young life in America. She speaks fluent English, reads in English, watches American programs (when we allow her to do so), and is, undeniably, an American. There are, of course, aspects of her life that are Polish, and it's entirely reasonable for that to be the case. But I raise both of my children as Americans, in every meaningful sense.
And this is the problem with so much of the Gen-Z Right at the moment: lack of nuance. Everything, to them, can be easily solved with blanket policies. They have no appreciation for the complexities of life because they have not experienced them yet.
Even Fuentes, their de facto leader (I'm not certain on Haley's views on him, but they do seem to share at least some views), is unmarried and childless at 27 years old. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it does prevent you from seeing the world through a spouse's or a parent's eyes.
You may recall that Fuentes expressed his consternation at the fact that Vice President Vance is married to an Indian American, the Second Lady, Usha Vance. Fuentes referred to the vice president as "a fat, gay, race traitor who married a jeet." I'm sure, being of Indian descent himself, that Nalin Haley would not endorse this perspective in quite the same terms. But by osmosis, it would seem Haley and much of Gen-Z have taken to the general worldview (perhaps minus 50 percent of the hate) that Fuentes espouses.
Among the other comments that prompted a tilt of the head and a squint were his comments about Israel. "They're just another country, who cares?" said Haley. He also noted his desire to completely eliminate both foreign aid and foreign lobbying, of any kind.
With regard to Israel, is it simply "another country"? I've written about this at different points, but suffice it to say, Israel is not just any other country. They are a critical ally in a critical part of the world, borne out of the horrors of the Holocaust. They provide us with critical intelligence, firepower, innovation, and, above all, friendship. If you get into a bar fight in a rough neighborhood, it's better to do so with some friends around. But Gen-Z envisions themselves as Steven Seagal in his prime, fending off countless aggressors unaided. Isolationism has always been, and will always be, a fool's proposition.
He continued: "In 2016, Trump brought the spotlight on illegal immigration, and that was really desperately needed… now we need to do the same with legal immigration," said Haley. "…I think it's irresponsible to have legal immigration at a time when companies aren't hiring—Americans specifically—we're in a fragile economy, and you have AI taking over a lot of jobs. So why would it make sense to import more foreign workers? It doesn't."
Personally, I'm more sympathetic to the notion that we need better immigrants. A recent Manhattan Institute report by Daniel Di Martino found that low-skilled immigration is costly in both the short- and long-term, meaning these immigrants tend to take more from taxpayers than they contribute. This is obviously not desirable. But it also found that comprehensive, high-skilled immigration would increase GDP and reduce the federal debt considerably, helping all Americans.
Where I found Haley to be more reasonable was his commentary on the need for degrees in jobs that ought not require them, for American citizens. But the country is already moving in this direction, regardless. In January, Elon Musk tweeted, "We don't care where you went to school or even whether you went to school or what 'big name' company you worked at. Just show us your code." And a 2023 survey found that 45 percent of companies planned to eliminate bachelor's degree requirements for some positions.
He expressed his distaste for war, which I am, of course, receptive to. But no one likes war, except the few who stand to benefit from it. President Jimmy Carter perhaps put it best when he said, "War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never good." I tend to agree with this. Haley also made his feelings quite clear on foreign languages. While I don't possess quite the same frustration he has about Miami's many Spanish speakers (many of whom are, nonetheless, great Americans), I do agree that English ought to be the language of the land.
The question, then, is whether Haley and his contemporaries will moderate with age, with spouses, with children, and with a greater sense of the complexities that life presents us all. Not all of us will ever live in a foreign country or marry a spouse from one, but doing so does not make one any less of an American.
He points out that young conservatives feel as though they are not adequately represented, as young progressives are. The Left has Maxwell Frost and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both of whom were elected in their twenties—but how are they working out? How did Madison Cawthorn, elected at 27, work out? The problem is not that they are young; it's that they do not yet have the full picture.
I might find Nalin Haley, at 24, to be wrong about some things, but he is not wrong about everything. I'm certain he has a bright future ahead of him, perhaps even following in his mother's footsteps. But if the GOP ever chooses to proceed down the road of alienation and isolation, it will have neither my vote nor my support.
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