Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday went after Nikki Haley while referring to her by her first name, Nimarata, in the latest example of Trump using racist dog whistles to attack his GOP presidential rival.
Haley is the daughter of Indian immigrants and was born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. She took her husband Michael Haley’s last name after they married.
Trump misspelled Nimarata as “Nimrada” as he attacked her in a new post on his social media platform Truth Social.
There’s something odd about considering a person’s name to be a racist dog-whistle. In my opinion, this article is displacing the blame for the racism going on - which is in the way that GOP voters react to mundane information such as a person’s name. In doing so it seems to deny a valid criticism of Haley, that she is courting voters who would discriminate against her ethnicity if they were better informed.
The problem is the intent behind using her Indian name is SPECIFICALLY to delegitimize her in front of her racist voters.
Trump’s playing a dirty game here because he’s gone just far enough and has plausible deniability like " what? I just said her real name!"
But there is literally no other purpose for him using her name but to make her voters like her less because they are that type of people.
I agree in criticizing his words and motivations. My comment was more about the perspective the article portrays it in, and how that caters to the GOP’s racism.