POLITICS JUNE 29, 2010
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There has been much written about the new diversity of this year's GOP candidates, who include several women, African Americans, Hispanics, and other ethnic minorities. Frankly, for those of us who have argued that diversity is an asset in the classroom and the boardroom, it’s hard to argue that it’s not a positive development for the Republican Party. I may disagree with Nikki Haley, this year's GOP poster child, on every substantive issue, but the fact that a woman who is also Indian-American won the Republican nomination for governor of South Carolina is a big step forward. After a decisive victory in the primary, despite the now-infamous "raghead" comment and other intolerant opposition to her candidacy, Nikki Haley is a serious contender to run the state that produced Strom Thurmond and supported his racist, misogynistic leadership for half a century. Her nomination is a sign that times are changing—that it's getting a bit easier for my children to imagine a world where they could be a governor or even president. And I'm proud of her accomplishment.
What will be more interesting, however, is whether a new diversity in the GOP will bring with it any substantive changes for the party and the ideas that it promotes. Will it adjust its views on issues central to the narratives of its sundry up-and-comers? So far, all signs point to "no," as this year's slate of Republican candidates often serves to highlight ironies within the GOP.
Let’s consider the issue of immigration. Nikki Haley is the daughter of two parents who came to the United States for a better life for their family. Dr. Ajit and Raj Randhawa immigrated from Amritsar, India, and they are entrepreneurs who have created a multimillion-dollar business. By any measure, their story is the story of how America’s liberal immigration policies enrich our country. Or, put another way, Nikki Haley’s story—including her political rise—is the story of how immigration can enrich our country. Yet the Tea Party movement, which has supported Haley, is vehemently opposed to inclusive immigration policies; some Tea Partiers have gone so far as to propose a moratorium on legal immigration. Do they not recognize the paradox of supporting Haley while advocating for draconian immigration policies that would prevent people like her parents from building their lives here?
Or consider the separation of church and state. Haley had a Sikh wedding alongside her American one (juggling two is no easy task; I had a Hindu ceremony in addition to an American one). But, during the primary, she had to describe herself several times as a Christian, and she implied publicly that religion was important to her theory of governance. "I believe in the power and grace of Almighty God. I know, and have truly experienced, that with Him all things are possible. I have looked to Him for leadership throughout my career and will continue to do so as governor," she wrote on her website. Do Republicans not realize that Haley's story, again, depended on the religious freedom guaranteed by the constitution? (Or, worse, do they not care?) Will conservatives of all minority religious backgrounds in the United States be compelled to both pledge allegiance to a Christian doctrine and promise to apply it to their governance if they want a spot on the GOP ticket?
Indeed, the GOP still has a long road to hoe before it achieves inclusive politics and policies—and it doesn't seem eager to move quickly, if at all. I recognize and respect the progress that nominations like Nikki Haley's represent. But the real measure of a leap forward will come when Namrita Randhawa Haley is welcomed by the GOP as warmly as Barack Obama was by Democrats.
Neera Tanden is the chief operating officer of the Center for American Progress. She served in the Obama and Clinton administrations.
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10 comments
While the article is generally well written and persuasive, isn't the metaphor: "Row to hoe" rather than "Road to hoe?"
- feitsw
June 29, 2010 at 9:35am
Who are we kidding. The Republican Party will be desegregated when a person by the name of Ajit or Raj Randhawa, can stand for general election as an Indian American Hindu, who will be judged only by their economic and political conservatisim. Not by their self-hating renunciation of their birth, religious, and ethnic origins. Even the Democratic Party is not far behind in requiring its current Party leader to proudly confess that he is not a Muslim.
- 12alainu
June 29, 2010 at 12:36pm
I recall the period between Nixon and Reagan when the Republican Party went off the rails, and some Democrats moved over to the Republican Party in the hope that a better mix of views in the Party would bring it back to sanity. It didn't work then and it won't work now. Being out of the majority makes Republicans insane, because, as one of them used to say, "you know he's right".
- rayward
June 29, 2010 at 2:09pm
Agree with 12alainu with slightly changed last paragraph: "Democratic Party is AS far behind in requiring its current Party leader to proudly confess that he is not a Muslim". Democratic Party has a very rich history of bigotry and racism - Jim Crow laws anyone? Both parties have shameful history, we should embrace Nikki Haley's election without analyzing that it's not warm enough...
- banina
June 29, 2010 at 4:24pm
Oh please. What selective outrage from the author. Guess who muttered these gems below? “In Delaware, the largest growth of population is Indian Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7/11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.” "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept." "a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,'" "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy ... I mean, that's a storybook, man." "“White folks was in caves while we was building empires… We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.” “A few years ago, this guy [Barack Obama] would have been getting us coffee…” "If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house" "“This guy, he was catapulted in on hope and change, what we hope the guy is. What the fuck? Everything he’s saying’s on the teleprompter. I’m blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived. I saw it all growing up.” It goes on and on...
- seattleeng
June 30, 2010 at 2:55am
Seattleeng nails it. Every single one of those remarks was uttered by a prominent Democrat. Today the Republican Party is post-racial, while the Democratic Party is racist to the core. What is "affirmative action" but anti-white racism? The Democratic Party was historically the party of Jim Crow. Today it's the party of Crow Jim. Plus ca change plus c'est la meme chose. Neera Tanden advances the bizarre theory that Hinduism is a race. Hinduism is a religion, not a race. But Hinduism's core doctrine of the caste system is racist, and for that reason I would never vote for a Hindu for elective office. But that is not because I'm racist. It's because I'm anti-racist.
- bulbman1066
June 30, 2010 at 4:55am
That was brilliant, Bulbman. Next time an anti-Semite tells you that he won't vote for a Jew because the idea of a "Chosen People" is racist, you just nod your head and tell him you see his point. Just like one of those C-Span anchors.
- wildboy
June 30, 2010 at 3:52pm
Bullfruit, wildboy. When did a Jew ever treat you the way Hindus treat dalits, aka "untouchables"? In the state of Israel Muslims have more rights than they do in any Muslim country. On top of that the majority of Jews, including those in Israel, are secular liberal humanists. As for the small ultra-Orthodox minority who might be described as racist, I wouldn't vote for one of them any more than I would vote for a Hindu who believes in the caste system.
- bulbman1066
July 1, 2010 at 5:27am
Nikki Haley's protestations of referring everything to the Christian god is a kind of right-wing-enforced groveling before the Christian ayatollahs of the evangelical and Tea Party movements. Whether Haley has converted to Christianity, whether she is still in her private beliefs a Sikh, or whether she is independent and enlightened enough to have chosen some other belief or non-belief, she should be ashamed of herself and of her supporters that such contortions have become mandatory in right-wing America.
- orray2
July 1, 2010 at 2:44pm
Religious controversy has always been a part of American politics. Thomas Jefferson was accused of being a libertine who if elected president would take away our Bibles. Yet most of the early presidents, as well as Lincoln, were deists rather than orthodox Christians. Evangelical Christianity is not necessarily "right-wing". The Populists led by William Jennings Bryan had a platform that included many ideas that were later enacted during the New Deal. In fact evangelicalism went from leftwing to apolitical and didn't align with the Right until the Left started making war on the family and traditional morality in the sixties and seventies. Why was Nikki Haley guilty of "contortions"? It sounds as though she handled the situation pretty smoothly, of at least as smoothly as anybody could in South Carolina :-). >the Christian ayatollahs of the evangelical and Tea Party movements The tea party for the most part hasn't blown the religious horn. Their shtick is smaller government, more libertarian than anything else.
- bulbman1066
July 1, 2010 at 5:50pm