Thursday, January 18, 2024

Trump, Nikki Haley & the "Instant Karma" of Racism in the GOP

Is there anything more pathetic than watching Nikki Haley continually assert that the US is not a racist country, only to be subjected to racism by Trump and the MAGA-hordes for her own South Asian heritage? And will she ever learn? No. Blinded completely by ambition, Haley long ago sold her soul to a toxic Republican party with obvious racist markers for political gain. Most recently, she was asked by Brian Kilmeade in a Fox interview a few days ago if she was "involved in a racist party." Her reply was as patently absurd-- and offensive-- as every aspect of the GOP in 2024:

"NO. WE'RE NOT A RACIST COUNTRY, BRIAN. WE'VE NEVER BEEN A RACIST COUNTRY."

 As Politico notes:

On the one hand, she wants credit for being the first minority [Indian-American] woman governor, the same one who led the charge, under pressure, to take down the Confederate battle flag from the statehouse grounds following the racist terrorist attack at a Black church in 2015 — that same church President Joe Biden visited last week to woo Black voters. Race had a lot — if not everything — to do with those events.

It wasn’t the first time she stumbled on race. Just last month, Haley failed to name slavery as a leading cause for the Civil War, only to come back later with “of course the Civil War was about slavery, we know that,” following a torrent of negative reports which forced her course correction.

 

Does she really not notice the racism directed squarely at her in the ongoing present by Trump? I mean, even after saying,  "I would pardon Trump if he is found guilty," in late December, Trump re-posted,  on Jan. 8, a false meme asserting that the US Constitution "disqualifies Haley from presidential or vice presidential candidacy."  It's pretty clear she's running for a VP slot on the Trump ticket, or some other major position, even as Trump continues to "other" her as un-American woman supposedly ineligible to run for office as she is doing right now.. So even though he's insulted her ethnic background as recently as Jan. 8, she set herself up for some real instant karma in an interview on Fox & Friends this past Tuesday. There, Haley showed an eagerness, yet again, to whitewash US history (literally)  in exchange for Trump and MAGA approval, by saying "The US was never a racist country."  She also made a speech which sounded triumphal after the primary result in which she was a distant third.

So, what was her reward for sucking up to Trump and ignoring her own history of being an object of his racist rants?  This is what Trump posted hours after the primary speech she made on Tuesday on his Truth Social platform: 

Anyone listening to Nikki “Nimrada” Haley’s wacked out speech last night, would think that she won the Iowa Primary. She didn’t, and she couldn’t even beat a very flawed Ron DeSanctimonious, who’s out of money, and out of hope. Nikki came in a distant THIRD! She said she would never run against me, “he was a great President,” and she should have followed her own advice. Now she’s stuck with WEAK POLICIES, and a VERY STRONG MAGA BASE, and there’s just nothing she can do!

  

Did you get that, Nikki NIMRADA Haley? That's called a lesson in racism 101. Making the barb worse than it would otherwise be is the (intentional?) misspelling of her given first name, Nimarata.  I doubt she'll learn her lesson, though. Trump has used her given name to "other" her in the past, and she continues to pursue a career in the racist's shadow. Still, her grovelling despite being treated like a second class citizen by Trump and others in the MAGA-sphere illustrates the blind lust for power and nihilism that IS  the Republican party today. At the risk of sounding mean, she richly deserves every bit of this abuse. She knows damn well about racism in the country's history and ongoing present. She is even willing to suffer its indignities in the desperate hope of getting to once again serve in a racist Trump administration.

 



 

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