onald Trump is driving the
Republican Party into the
abyss. Can Nikki Haley pull
it back?
Trump, the Republican
presidential front-runner,
talks of immigrants as
rapists and women as bim-
bos and appeals to the
angry white man. He invokes the “silent
majority,” employs racial dog whistles
and picks fights with everybody, but con-
spicuously with two well-known broad-
casters, a Latino and a woman.
Then there is Haley, young and charis-
matic, often mentioned as a vice presi-
dential prospect.
The child of Indian immigrants, she is
the first woman and the first member of a
minority group to be governor of South
Carolina. She responded admirably and
forcefully to the police killing in her state
of Walter Scott, an unarmed black man,
and she championed legislation to put
cameras on police officers statewide —
the first of its kind.
She wept with the mourners after a
massacre at a black church in Charleston,
and she led the subsequent effort to
remove the Confederate flag from the
state capitol grounds. She told her chil-
dren about Cynthia Hurd, one of the
Charleston victims, whose motto was to
“be kinder than necessary.”
“That’s now my life motto,” Haley, 43,
saidWednesday afternoon.
Nobody ever mistook that for Trump’s
motto. And Haley, although kinder than
she needed to be, visitedWashington on
Wednesday with some sharp words for
the man who has become the party’s
standard-bearer.
“Every time some-
one criticizes him, he
goes and makes a
political attack back,”
Haley said when asked
about Trump during
an appearance at the
National Press Club.
“That’s not who we
are as Republicans.
That’s not what we
do.”
Americans, Haley
said, “want to know
they’re sending some-
one up to the White
House that’s going to
be calm and cool-
tempered and not get
mad at someone just because they criti-
cize him. We would really have a world
war if that happens.”
She also had advice for Trump on his
immigration stance, which includes end-
ing birthright citizenship and building a
wall along the Mexican border.
“Republicans need to remember that
the fabric of America came from these
legal immigrants,” she said. “If you want
to talk about tackling illegal immigration,
then let’s talk about it, but we don’t need
to attack so many millions of people who
came here . . . and did it the right way, like
my parents.”
Haley wasn’t fin-
ished. “Why are you
going all the way to this
side and talking about
birthright citizenship
when you haven’t even
talked about illegal
immigration itself?” she
asked.
“Are you as a candi-
date going to commit
to putting troops along
the border?” She also
cited the high cost of
drones, planes, and
detention and deporta-
tion capabilities, which
would be needed.
Concluded the gover-
nor: “Don’t say you’re just going to build a
wall, because a wall’s not going to do it.”
It was at times implicit and at times
explicit, but it was clearly a rebuke of
Trump from a lonely voice of tolerance
within the party.
Continued on page 8
D
News India Times
September 11, 2015
6
– that’s all you need to know
Cover Story
By Dana Milbank
By Janell Ross
Trump’s Foil
What Haley Said
About Race
And Didn’t
outh Carolina
Republican Gov.
Nikki Haley came
toWashington on
Wednesday and
said some things
on race that will
make it hard to
claim that
Republicans unilaterally avoid
matters of race.
Haley displayed some political
agility and even personal con-
cern. And, at the same time, she
affirmed her allegiance to a very
Republican worldview.
Haley is one of those politi-
cians – make that one of those
women – who has grown accus-
tomed to charting new territory.
She’s the South Carolina-born
daughter of Sikh, Indian-
American parents. She became
the first non-white governor in a
state that for many people typi-
fies the Deep South, beating bet-
ter-known white and male
Republicans. And she’s long been
part of the GOP’s go-to proof of
their party’s diversity – living,
state-leading proof that the party
of mostly white voters will some-
times elect those who aren’t
white, too.
In June, Haley’s name and
image were widely circulated as
she led her state through what
was unquestionably a difficult
time. An avowed white suprema-
cist allegedly shot and killed nine
African Americans in a historic
black Charleston church.
Haley managed a hard-to-per-
fect mix of human kindness and
political bravery before many in
her party and the South had
risen to the occasion. She called
for the Confederate flag to come
off the statehouse grounds. She
also faced some particularly ugly
forms of criticism from right-
wing corners of the Internet.
Some critics implied or said out-
right that Haley was an “immi-
grant” who does not understand
“our” American history and cul-
ture.
With that kind of recent expe-
rience, it’s not hard to under-
stand why Haley began her pub-
lic speech on race with a person-
al story:
While shopping at a South
Carolina produce market with
her Sikh and turban-wearing
dad, a 10-year-old Haley experi-
enced a kind of shopping-while-
black or -brown experience that
cannot, even today, be described
as rare. The couple that owned
the store were so suspicious of
Haley and her father that they
called police.
Continued on page 8
S
Nikki Haley Takes On The Donald
