Nalin Haley is the Poster Boy for MAGA's Shift Furth...

By Marni Rose McFall

News Reporter

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“Nalin Haley is going to quickly rise to become the face of the male Gen Z Right-Wing,” Evan Kilgore wrote on X in a post viewed over 400,000 times.

And Kilgore might be on to something. Fresh off an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show, Nalin Haley, the 24-year-old son of former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, has blown up on social media. Nalin Haley has also made clear that there is an ideological distance between himself and his mother, who was once seen as relatively moderate in Republican circles.

Haley is young, articulate and stands further to the right than some of his predecessors. He might be exactly what MAGA has been looking for.

Newsweek has contacted Haley for comment via social media.

Why It Matters

Gen Z, in particular, younger Gen Z men, increasingly identify as conservative and right-wing, and were key in helping to propel President Donald Trump to victory in the 2024 election, with Trump taking a 14-point margin over Vice President Kamala Harris among young men, according to exit polls.

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There is potentially a chasm between younger and older Gen Zs in this conservative tilt, with older Gen Zers more likely to skew liberal. According to the spring Yale Youth Poll, younger Gen Z men, and women between the ages of 18 and 21, are more likely to lean Republican.

That poll, though, identified an additional phenomenon: that Trump, as well as Vice President JD Vance, is unpopular with pretty much everyone.

As Trump’s approval rating remains low, there’s a political shift bubbling in the ether. MAGA is at a potential breaking point, as the movement has fractured over issues including the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files and intervention in foreign conflicts. And the right is beginning to look for a new face.

What To Know

Many of Haley’s beliefs are reminiscent of the values already held by younger conservatives. He is strongly America first, has a firm dislike of the media and is against intervention in foreign conflicts.

Haley has, for his part, rejected political binary terms. In a post on X, he wrote, “I have been criticized by the Left and the 'Right' as Fascist, Socialist, Radical, Angry, Racist, Woke Right, and more. All because I advocated for Americans (specifically GenZ) to have: 1. Jobs 2. Affordability 3. Safety You’re not radical for wanting these things. You’re rational!”

He also noted in his interview with Carlson that he does not “feel represented by anybody.”

Haley’s combination of nationalist rhetoric and anti-establishment positioning has made him particularly appealing to younger, conservative men, who are particularly beleaguered in our current political climate.

Some of Haley’s beliefs, though, could be considered further right for MAGA. During his interview with Carlson, Haley said that naturalized citizens should not be allowed to hold public office in the U.S. He decried the idea of dual citizenship and said that the country needs “leaders who were raised in the country from birth.” Haley has also called for a ban on H-1B visas, a policy that has the support of the President, but has sparked criticism from Republicans, including Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Speaking to Newsweek over email, Thomas Gift, director of the Centre on US Politics at University College London, said that Trump “has unleashed a political creature with MAGA—one he can no longer fully control.”

“An expanding segment of the right, especially younger men, has radicalized well beyond his [Trump’s] original nationalist-populist appeal. In many ways, Trump is now too tame for parts of the movement he started. That may include rising leaders like Nalin Haley,” Gift said.

Adam Hilton, an associate professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College, highlighted a similar theme, telling Newsweek over email that Haley “seems indicative of a broader trend in far-right thought that's been percolating to the surface in the first year of the second Trump administration.”

“The race is on to succeed Trump as the leader of the MAGA movement,” Hilton said, adding that there is a “deep bench of ambitious figures positioning themselves as future leaders of MAGA, the GOP, or both.”

Newsweek also spoke with Dr. David Andersen, an associate professor of U.S. politics at the University of Durham in England. Andersen said that Haley’s beliefs, like many others in the MAGA tent, “do seem to be drifting from the movement created in 2016 under the Trump campaign.”

Andersen described this as being emblematic of the shift occurring in MAGA, as it prepares to move on from Trump, but countered that he would not counter this as more or less conservative, as he argues it has little to do with the traditional liberal conservative scale.

“Ideologically, it sounds like Haley, and many other young men on the right, are moving left and now are advocating for regulating businesses and free markets in order to protect Americans,” Andersen said.

“But at the same time, they still declare 'the left' to be evil and socialism to be the worst alternative. They are torn between wanting a more active government to protect them and accepting the fact that that belief is, in fact, liberal. But they are also moving rightward on social values, favoring traditional values and opposing immigrants. What results is a tortured set of inconsistent beliefs that don't map well onto any ideological spectrum,” Andersen added.

What People Are Saying

Nalin Haley, speaking in his interview with Tucker Carlson: “Everyone else is heading toward the same direction, which is nationalist, America First. And that’s the direction I hope it will be.”

Adam Hilton, an associate professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College, told Newsweek: “The populist-right faction of conservative activists and Republican politicians have spent the better part of 30 years stoking this sense of frustration and now that they are in power (and can't deliver) a new crop of radical activists are happy to recycle the old script to advance their political careers.”

Rachel Campos-Duffy, co-host FOX & Friends Weekend & host of FOXNoticias, in a post on X: “Nikki Haley’s Gen Z son is a based right winger - no H1B visas, no forever wars, distrustful of government & he even converted to Catholicism.”

Dr. David Andersen, an associate professor of U.S. politics at the University of Durham in England: “Young people on the right share many economic policy beliefs with young people on the left, but MAGA has taught them that the left is evil and cannot be worked with. So, the only outlet is turn against the existing establishment, which is MAGA and Trump himself. For Haley, and many other young men on the left, this leads to a post-Trump populist nationalism but without a clear leader.”

What’s Next

From left to right, new faces are emerging in politics across the country, as identities evolve and voices from the younger generation start to enter the fold. Gift told Newsweek, “Political movements never remain stagnant. They change and evolve. Sometimes that means the pendulum swinging back to the middle, but not always.”

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