From Nimrata Randhawa to Nikki Haley: The Rise of the Republican who is being propelled to 2024

In her speech last night, the former Ambassador to the United Nations and former Governor of South Carolina made some very questionable statements about the status of race relations in the United States. The uneven communication between Trump Admin priorities and Nikki Haley’s time serving as former UN ambassador raised many questions about the role that America envisions itself playing on the international stage and at home. Nikki Haley’s address to the Republican National Convention was tone deaf and served a contradiction in itself to everything that the Trump Admin has done to suppress dissent from critics and embolden Q-Anon and white supremacists. As someone who ran on the Reaganomics model of government, Haley’s speech rings hollow and doesn’t address the true issues facing America right now.

Credit: Fox News

Background on Nikki Haley

Formerly known as Nimrata Randhawa, she is now known as Nikki Haley
  • She was born in Bamberg, South Carolina on January 20th, 1972.
  • Her original full name was Nimrata Nikki Randhawa.
  • She is the child of Sikh-Punjabi business owners and immigrants to the United States.
  • She has a long history in public service, having served in the South Carolina House of Representatives. She campaigned on what were then ‘traditional’ and ‘normal’ policy objectives for the Republican Party in 1996 which were severe restrictions on reproductive issues (banning abortion), tax cuts, immigration ‘reform’. She was elected in 2004 and re-elected in 2008.
  • In 2010, Nikki Haley aspired to higher ambitions and ran for and won the Governorship of South Carolina. According to Britannica, she was the target of racial slurs from other candidates but nevertheless she came out with the victory. She was a Tea Party favorite, with the backing of Sarah Palin, who was then the Vice presidential pick of Presidential contender John McCain.
  • She is the first woman and person of Indian-American ancestry to win a seat as powerful as Governor in the United States.
  • Due to the outcry of the Charleston, South Carolina shooting at AME Church, while she initially resisted attempts at lowering the hate symbol that the confederate flag represented, she was successful in taking it down after much public pressure.
  • She came out against the resettlement of Syrian refugees and had been a staunch supporter of restrictive Voter ID laws.
  • In 2016, Haley presented the Republican Party’s response to then-President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address. This was symbolizing her important rise to the top of Republican ranks at a time when the 2016 primaries were set to happen and at a critical juncture for the whole country.
  • In the crowded Republican field, Haley endorsed Ted Cruz, U.S. House member from Texas over Donald Trump who would eventually become the party’s standard bearer. She also endorsed U.S. House Representative Marco Rubio from Florida.
  • While representing the Trump admin with United Nations proceedings, she frequently was vocal about Iran and North Korea, two countries who were on track to developing very catastrophic nuclear weapons. The Iran Deal was a signature Obama admin policy that the Trump administration took aim at and removed American involvement from. The rest of the countries that were a part of the pact, the United Kingdom, China, Russia, Germany, and France, chose to stay in the deal.
  • In a stern warning to the North Koreans, then-Ambassador Haley warned that North Korea ‘would not be match with the United States in the event of a war’
  • The trouble with Haley’s work as UN Ambassador came to a head when there was frequent contradiction of what she announced, versus what the Trump admin wanted. Ambassador Haley would never know of official announcements or plans and even when she did, they were not clearly communicated.
  • Nikki Haley was also against the Russian interference of the American election in 2016.
  • In the fall of 2018, Ambassador Haley announced her resignation but is adamant that she has a good relationship with Trump and would support him, should he run for President in 2024.
  • Soon after she was appointed to the board of directors for Boeing but departed when the company was buckling under pressure from the COVID-19 pandemic and sought a bailout from the U.S. government.
These headlines are indicative of a larger power struggle over policy and also over what message the Trump admin wanted to send.
Nikki Haley visits with children at Zaatari Camp. Credit: Unknown but does not belong to Kaur Republic

Yet as Haley pledged Sunday that the U.S. would increase support, her message was diluted by President Donald Trump’s own vow to put “America First,” his planned budget cuts and hardline position on admitting refugees.

“We’re the №1 donor here through this crisis. That’s not going to stop. We’re not going to stop funding this,” Haley said. “The fact that I’m here shows we want to see what else needs to be done.”

Image Credit: Yahoo News Photo Staff•April 5, 2017

If you can show a picture to buy Sudafed, if you can show a picture to get on an airplane, you should be able to show a picture ID to (vote),” Haley said during the signing ceremony, surrounded by supporters and lawmakers who pushed the bill.” — Governor Haley, 2011

Opponents of the bill were staunchly adamant that this restriction voting was specifically partisan and determined to drive down the voting ability of Democrats and people from marginalized communities.

  • “The year was 1984. The president was Ronald Reagan. And Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick’s words are just as true today. Joe Biden and the Democrats are still blaming America first. Donald Trump has always put America first. And he has earned four more years as president.”
  • “Now, the U.N. is not for the faint of heart. It’s a place where dictators, murderers, and thieves denounce America, and then put their hands out and demand that we pay their bills. Well, President Trump put an end to all of that with his leadership we did what Barack Obama and Joe Biden refused to do. We stood up for America, and we stood against our enemies.”
  • “Obama and Biden let North Korea threaten America. President Trump rejected that weakness, and we passed the toughest sanctions on North Korea in history. Obama and Biden let Iran get away with murder and literally sent them a plane full of cash. President Trump did the right thing and ripped up the Iran nuclear deal. Obama and Biden led the United Nations to denounce our friend and ally, Israel. President Trump moved our embassy to Jerusalem, and when the U.N. tried to condemn us, I was proud to cast the American veto.”
  • “This president has a record of strength and success. The former vice president has a record of weakness and failure. Joe Biden is good for Iran and ISIS, great for Communist China, and he’s a godsend to everyone who wants America to apologize, abstain, and abandon our values. Donald Trump takes a different approach. He’s tough on China, and he took on ISIS and won. And he tells the world what it needs to hear.”
  • “At home, the president is the clear choice on jobs and the economy. He’s moved America forward while Joe Biden has held America back. When Joe was V.P., I was governor of the great state of South Carolina. We had a pretty good run. Manufacturers of all kinds flocked to our state from overseas, creating tens of thousands of American jobs. People were referring to South Carolina as “the beast of the southeast,” which I loved.”
  • “Everything we did happened in spite of Joe Biden and his old boss. We cut taxes. They raised them. We slashed red tape. They piled on more mandates. And when we brought in good-paying jobs, Biden and Obama sued us. I fought back, and they gave up.”
  • “A Biden/Harris administration would be much, much worse. Last time, Joe’s boss was Obama. This time it would be Pelosi, Sanders, and the Squad. Their vision for America is socialism. And we know that socialism has failed everywhere. They want to tell Americans how to live and what to think. They want a government takeover of health care. They want to ban fracking and kill millions of jobs. They want massive tax hikes on working families.”
  • “Joe Biden and the socialist left would be a disaster for our economy. But President Trump is leading a new era of opportunity. Before Communist China gave us the coronavirus, we were breaking economic records left and right. The pandemic has set us back, but not for long. President Trump brought our economy back before, and he will bring it back again.”
  • “There is one more important area where our president is right. He knows that political correctness and cancel culture are dangerous, and just plain wrong. In much of the Democratic Party, it’s now fashionable to say that America is racist. That is a lie. America is not a racist country.”
  • “This is personal for me. I am the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. They came to America and settled in a small southern town. My father wore a turban. My mother wore a sari. I was a brown girl in a Black and white world. We faced discrimination and hardship, but my parents never gave into grievance and hate. My mom built a successful business. My dad taught 30 years at a historically Black college. And the people of South Carolina chose me as their first minority and first female governor.”
  • “America is a story that’s a work in progress. Now is the time to build on that progress and make America even freer, fairer, and better for everyone. That’s why it’s so tragic to see so much of the Democratic Party turning a blind eye towards riots and rage. The American people know we can do better. And of course we value and respect every Black life. The Black cops who have been shot in the line of duty, they matter. The Black small business owners who have watched their life’s work go up in flames, they matter. The Black kids who’ve been gunned down on the playground, their lives matter too. And their lives are being ruined and stolen by the violence on our streets.”
  • “It wasn’t like this in South Carolina five years ago. Our state came face to face with evil. A white supremacist walked into Mother Emmanuel Church during bible study. Twelve African-Americans pulled up a chair and prayed with him for an hour. Then he began to shoot.”
  • “We know that the only way to overcome America’s challenges is to embrace America’s strength. We are striving to reach a brighter future where every child goes to a world-class school chosen by their parents, where every family lives in a safe community with good jobs, where every entrepreneur has the freedom to achieve and inspire, where every believer can worship without fear, and every life is protected. Where every girl and boy, every woman and man of every race and religion has the best shot at the best life.”
  • In this election, we must choose the only candidate who has and who will continue delivering on that vision. President Trump and Vice President Pence have my support, and America has our promise. We will build on the progress of our past, and unlock the promise of our future. That future starts when the American people re-elect President Donald Trump. Thank you, good night, and may God always bless America.
  • “In this election, we must choose the only candidate who has and who will continue delivering on that vision. President Trump and Vice President Pence have my support, and America has our promise. We will build on the progress of our past, and unlock the promise of our future. That future starts when the American people re-elect President Donald Trump. Thank you, good night, and may God always bless America.”

Takeaways From the Speech

Nikki Haley with her parents Raj Kaur and Ajit Singh who came to the United States in the 1970s Credit: Getty Images
  1. The Republican Party is becoming one of conspiracy theorists (Q-Anon) that are a cited as a domestic threat to the United States.
  2. The Democratic Party is deviating into a political party that is no longer serving as the opposition to the Republican party but now is courting Republican votes and only wants to serve Republican voters. The destruction of the republic is going to continue an accelerated pace if we continue to deny the grievances of the millennial generation who has been left behind in being able to afford the lifestyle that their parents used to be able to afford. In order to spend money you need to have it and with healthcare costs rising with property taxes with the cost of living rising in major cities and you know now the impact of municipalities that no longer have money to keep up with public services, like New York State and City is currently facing, hard decisions will be have to made about where we spend our money and what our moral priorities are in determining how much money is allocated for public services the working class people rely on in order to survive.

Kamala Harris Becomes the Vice Presidential Nominee

Brian Cahn/ZUMA Wire

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Navjot Pal Kaur

Kaur Republic has now transitioned to Substack. Please follow us there to become a monthly or yearly subscriber: https://kaurrep.substack.com/