The Republican Party is currently a party that is angry — and I think they are justifiably angry on a number of scores.
One of the things the Republican Party is angry about is hearing about racial divisions. They’ve been lectured since Barack Obama ran for president in 2007 that America was coming close to racial unity, only to have that ripped away from them and watch as everybody retreated back into tribalistic corners.
That is how we wound up with Critical Race Theory, DEI, and “equity” from the Biden administration.
So when Republicans hear from any members of the Republican Party how America is a place that was replete with discrimination even 20 or 30 years ago, they tend to think, “I’m not sure the person who’s saying that is the person I want fighting this fight today.” Not that people are lying about their experiences of 20 or 30 years ago, but if you point out your experience of 20 or 30 years ago, does that make you the person who is best suited to fight against the culture today?
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The reason this is coming up is because there’s a clip of Nikki Haley that went viral just before the primaries in which she is talking about her childhood. What she said was not wildly controversial, except that it is very much at odds with the attitude of many members of the Republican base, which is to say: Are you going to stand up against the predations of the DEI, CRT culture? Are you going to stand up against the idea that America is a place of racial division with sufficient alacrity? Or are you going to try to play a little bit of identity politics for gain?
During a recent interview, Haley said:
We were the only Indian family in our small southern town. I was teased every day for being brown. So, anyone that wants to question it can go back and look at what I’ve said on how hard it was to grow up in the Deep South as a brown girl. … What I will tell you is saying that I had black friends is a source of pride; saying that I had white friends as a source of pride. If you want to know what it was like growing up, I was disqualified from a beauty pageant because I wasn’t white or black because they didn’t know where to put me. So look, I know the hardships, the pain that come with racism. It’s the reason that I fight bullies every day when it comes to racism, anti-Semitism, or hate. And I always will.
"I was teased every day for being brown"
Nikki Hayley complains about growing up in the America south. pic.twitter.com/Tm5owe5zFx
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) January 21, 2024
That went viral on the Right because the question is, was she saying that to pander to legacy media or was she doing what Tim Scott did during the campaign where he acknowledged how far we’ve come now. I’ve suffered from racism. I know what that’s like. But America is a place of opportunity. To pretend that America today is what America was yesterday is foolish.
Or was Haley’s message an “I’m a diverse candidate; vote for me” kind of play? I think a lot of Republicans took away the latter message from clips like that one, and it obviously did not help her.
I think that was combined with a lot of people who are very pro-Trump and very angry anybody would deign to run against him. Whatever the reason, it didn’t end up well for Haley in New Hampshire overall. However, she says she is not going to drop out of the race just yet. Yesterday, she said she was not going to talk political obituaries: “We’re going to go and fight until the very last poll closes. And then we’re headed to my sweet state of South Carolina and we’re going to make the case in it.”
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It’s a couple of weeks until South Carolina, and I think that Haley is going to stay in all the way until South Carolina. I’m not sure exactly why she would. Maybe she wants to rack up some delegates in case there’s an act of God and something happens to Trump, and they go to the convention and she says, “I’m the person with the second-most delegates,” and makes her case there. Maybe she wants to trade her delegates for some sort of slot in the administration.
But here’s the reality: The primaries are over. They’ve been over since Iowa. Everything else is merely a waste of time and effort.
If you’re a Democrat, you feel like the trap may have just snapped closed on your opponents. Now that Trump is the nominee, you’re starting to see polls emerging in the swing states — a poll from Pennsylvania with Trump down eight to Joe Biden. All of a sudden, they’re saying, “Oh, look at that. He’s losing in the swing states.”
Watch for that move from the legacy media.
But it is far too early to tell who’s going to win or lose this election. Period.