Nikki Haley again panders to white supremacists and fans of the Confederacy
Again, there are no good Republicans!
This week we learned that President Biden refers to Donald Trump as “a ‘sick fuck’ who delights in others’ misfortunes.” Biden was speaking the truth. With Trump—who is facing 91 felonies and is out on bail—there’s no subtlety, he is unapologetic with his bigotry and cruelty.
Nikki Haley, though, is also awful—but in a different way. What Haley is doing is more the old time GOP playbook of “dog whistle” politics by using “coded language” to pander to those who support white supremacy, the Confederacy, etc. But she is not good at it.
We saw another example this week when Haley declared that states like Texas could legally secede from the United States of America. Haley—the former governor of South Carolina which was the first nation to secede from the Union in lead up to the Civil War—was asked in a radio interview: “Would you use force against Texas if they tried to secede over the border issue?”
Haley responded: “I believe in states’ rights. I believe that everything should be as close to the people to decide.” She added, “I think states have the right to make the decisions that their people want to make.”
Haley then gave an example that was sure to please the bigots of the GOP base, saying, “I mean they do in South Carolina, we said we didn’t want Syrian refugees,” adding, “We said those things.”
This line deserved more media coverage. Here was Haley—the self-avowed Christian—bragging that as Governor of South Carolina she publicly rejected refugees from Syria being resettled in her state. That happened in 2015 as Trump was running for President calling Syrian refugees a “Trojan horse” designed to destroy our nation. Haley echoed that bigotry, saying we can’t be sure any refugee is not a terrorist. As a result, then Governor Haley stated, “I am requesting that the State Department not resettle any Syrian refugees in South Carolina.”
Haley’s comment Wednesday was simply reminding GOP voters—of which two thirds in the 2016 GOP primary supported Trump’s then call for a “total and complete” ban on Muslims entering the United States—that she has long been on the demonization of Muslims and Arab refugees bandwagon. (In fact, in Haley’s state of South Carolina, 75 percent of GOP 2016 primary voters supported Trump’s proposed Muslim ban.)
Then came Haley’s comment straight up pandering to those on the right who want their state to secede to form a new Confederate States of America. Haley declared, “If Texas decides they want to do that, they can do that.” She continued, “If that whole state says we don’t want to be part of America anymore, I mean that’s their decision to make, but I don’t think government needs to tell people how to live, how to do anything,” adding, “I mean, I think that we need to let freedom live.”
This is not the first time Haley has shared her views that states could simply leave the United States in pursuit of “state’s rights” and “freedom.” Back in 2010, she made a similar comment when talking to an organization called….wait for it…"the Sons of Confederate Veterans. That’s right, Haley in 2010 while speaking to the pro-Confederacy organization told them exactly what they wanted to hear: Their ancestors did not nothing illegal by seceding from the USA in defense of slavery. When asked do states have the right to secede, Haley told those Confederate lovers, “I think that they do, I mean, the Constitution says that.”
No, states absolutely, unequivocally don’t have the right to secede from the United States. The Civil War probably tipped most people off to that!
From a legal point of view, there’s no “escape clause” in the US Constitution for states to say: We are outta here! And a US Supreme Court decision shortly after the Civil War addressed this very issue dealing with Texas (of course) in 1868. That’s when in the case of Texas v. White, Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase stated: “When Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the state.” Salmon continued, “The Act, which consummated her admission into the Union, was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final.”
Even the late Justice Antonin Scalia in 2006, when asked by screenwriter Dan Turkewitz if the idea of Maine seceding from the country made sense as a possible plot point, replied: "I cannot imagine that such a question could ever reach the Supreme Court." He continued, "To begin with, the answer is clear. If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede.”
Bottom line: Until the US Constitution is amended to give state’s an out, there is no legal way to secede.
However, Haley—as we know—was not making a legal point, but rather a political one. Once again she was pandering to those like the Sons of the Confederacy who dream of a day when the “South will rise again.” And to the modern day supporters of GOP Texas Gov Greg Abbott who is channeling the secessionists of the Confederacy in his battle with the Biden administration over the border.
This is the exact reason why in December, Haley told a group of GOP voters that the cause of the Civil War was “the freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do.” She didn’t make a “flub” by ignoring that slavery was the cause of the Civil War. Rather, Haley’s answer by design was defending state’s rights—the same argument used to defend slavery, defend Jim Crow and today to defend state’s enacting laws to force women to carry a fetus to term. That is what so many in the GOP want to hear.
Of course, the public backlash for Haley was so severe that she backpedaled and admitted the following day that the defense of slavery was in fact why states seceded.
Trump and the MAGA movement are the greatest threat to our democratic Republic since the fascist nations of the Axis Powers in World War II. But Haley is also awful in her own right. And Haley once again reminds us that there are no good Republicans.
Nikki is serving to expose how weak trump is. She is no different than he. In fact, she is trump without the indictments and the financial failures. The choice between Trump and Haley is truly a choice between two evils.
There are no good Republicans because Republicans no longer exist. MAGA exists as the Christofascist Nationalist Movement KKKrowd.