Tolerant Leftists Say Nikki Haley Is Abandoning Indian Heritage by Using Her Middle Name
“If there is an enterprising person out there they can find her name change order in SC probate records (she obviously changed her name after she got married) and it will list the legal name prior to the change.” -CNN’s Asha Rangappa
Few things are more predictable in this country than the Very Online (Woke) Left showing their true ugly colors when minority politicos in the Republican party assert themselves by running for higher office and patently rejecting the “America is racist” narrative.
As per the norm, that exact scenario has played out this week in the aftermath of former Trump ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley announcing her 2024 presidential candidacy.
Almost immediately, far leftists including supposedly “respectable” hosts and analysts from MSNBC and CNN revived the tiresome “Nikki Haley is trying to hide from her Indian heritage” lie in part because she uses her middle name (her full name as it is listed on her birth certificate is Nimarata Nikki Randhawa), further proving how absolutely terrified they are at the possibility that a minority GOP candidate could one day be president.
Haley’s declaration that America is not a racist country is what triggered the meltdowns. First, let’s take a look at that portion of her speech:
Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley invokes her own boundary-breaking record on race:
“Joe and Kamala even say America’s racist … Take it from me, the first minority female governor in history: America is not a racist country.” pic.twitter.com/yZvhvKObGC
— The Recount (@therecount) February 15, 2023
Next, let’s check out how the smears about Haley allegedly running away from her Indian heritage were aided and abetted by the mainstream media, who were obviously on standby to launch pre-written hit pieces on her supposedly “complicated racial dance” right out of the gate:
A woman of color has become the first prominent Republican to take on Trump.
There's no doubt Nikki Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, is a trailblazer. But she's had a fraught relationship with race.
Unpack her track record in today's Recast ⬇️ https://t.co/Iq9OqmPlVv
— POLITICO (@politico) February 14, 2023
In 2001, for example, Nikki Haley reportedly listed her race as “white” on her voter registration card, and never publicly explained why.
She's also shown a willingness to embrace some of the dog whistles deployed by the current Republican Party.
More: https://t.co/Iq9OqmPlVv
— POLITICO (@politico) February 14, 2023
Predictably, the usual race arsonists on the left did their thing, including Atlantic writer Jemelle Hill:
So why did she change her name then? https://t.co/ZcTwADRgwz
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) February 16, 2023
New York Times writer/CNN commentator Wajahat Ali also got in on the act:
Just submitted a piece on Nikki Nimrata Haley shamefully using her Indian heritage to launder white supremacy and GOP talking points. It was cathartic for the soul. Hope you enjoy it whenever it's published. Look for it on @MSNBC
— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) February 15, 2023
Former MSNBC host Tiffany Cross made sure to refer to Haley by her first name:
You know what's dumb? Trying to convince dumb people of an indisputable truth. That's not my ministry. I leave it to the dumb to keep dumbing down their tribe and then wrap it in something called "freedom" or "patriotism" or something like that. So. Please. Carry on Nimrata…
— @tiffanydcross (@TiffanyDCross) February 15, 2023
CNN legal and national security analyst Asha Rangappa, a lecturer at Yale and a former FBI agent, was confronted over comments she made in 2020 in a since-deleted tweet about Haley using her middle name:
At least you’re not trying the name thing this time. Btw, what’s your first name? pic.twitter.com/QtLFYmE1yh
— Damin Toell (@damintoell) February 16, 2023
She proceeded to proclaim that part of Haley’s alleged plan to hide her Indian heritage was to take her husband’s last name:
Now it's Nikki Haley's last name that's the problem https://t.co/Iv8FfCD7L0
— Fusilli Spock (@awstar11) February 16, 2023
… and then later went full birther in urging her followers to dig through South Carolina probate records to see if “Nikki” was actually Haley’s middle name prior to her marriage:
Yes. If there is an enterprising person out there they can find her name change order in SC probate records (she obviously changed her name after she got married) and it will list the legal name prior to the change
— Ashley Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) February 16, 2023
The media’s favorite woke Trump family member Mary Trump also wigged out:
First of all, fuck you Nimrata Haley. Second, you are a racist, anti-American sell-out. Third, my friend @DeeTwoCents has more integrity, intelligence, passion, and decency in one fingernail than you have in your entire being. Finally, @NikkiHaley, you will never be president.
— Mary L Trump (@MaryLTrump) February 15, 2023
MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan pretended to take the high road:
I implore liberals on here: feel free to criticize Nikki Haley for a lot of stuff (I do and will continue to!) but stop with the Nimrata/Nikki name change accusation. Nikki is her middle name, she’s always used it, and it’s a Punjabi name too. She isn’t Piyush/‘Bobby’ Jindal (!)
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) February 17, 2023
And yet in commentary from his show, he, too, accused Haley of pretending to be white in order to gain political advantage:
“It’s not just her gender, let’s talk race,” Hasan continued. “She kicked off her inaugural address as Governor of South Carolina in 2011, just as she kicked off her presidential announcement on Wednesday. By describing herself as a proud daughter of Indian immigrants. Like fellow Indian Republican Bobby Jindal in Louisiana three years earlier, Haley ran for governor in her own southern state without really leaning into her race or ethnic identity beyond her stock line and a few speeches. Black state lawmaker later told The Atlantic ‘There are many people in the state who don’t think of her as Indian at all. They think she is just a nice conservative woman with a tan.’ Gender, race, it all matters to Haley until it doesn’t. By the way back in 2011, according to public records obtain by local papers, hilariously this proud daughter Indian immigrant identified herself as white on her voter registration card.”
Twitter appears to be okay with leaving up the lie about Haley “changing her name,” though user-driven fact checks have been added to many of the tweets in question:
This is still up. Not in spite of the fact that it's a lie, but because it's a lie. https://t.co/NibocSft36
— jimtreacher.substack.com (@jtLOL) February 17, 2023
Ironically, some of the same folks who have hit out at Haley for using her middle name also do not use their first names, like Rangappa, who added her first name (Renuka) to her Twitter profile after she got called out. She stated that she didn’t use it professionaly because it was supposedly hard for Americans to pronounce:
You cannot get much better hypocrisy:
Joining those criticizing Nikki Haley for using her middle name to "hide" her Indian heritage is @AshaRangappa_ who…uses her middle name and is from Indian Heritage.When she was called out for this, suddenly her screen name changed. pic.twitter.com/Ng9eMAiZFG
— Lie-Able Sources (@LieAbleSources) February 16, 2023
She’s now changed it to “Ashley” in an attempt at mocking her critics.
“View” co-host Sunny Hostin, who in September declared that Haley was “fake” because she wouldn’t “lean in” to her Indian heritage, also does not go by her first name:
The View's Sunny Hostin, who's real name is Asunción, accused @NikkiHaley of going by "Nikki" to appeal to Americans more, despite that being her official middle name on her birth certificate. https://t.co/JuLmOrruvM
— National Review (@NRO) September 21, 2022
Hostin admitted in 2021 that her real motivation in going by “Sunny” was to advance her career, noting that her “career took off” after she started using the name.
Woke leftists who “lean in” on their race in part by using names other than their first ones to advance their careers and make money turning around and criticizing someone else for allegedly doing the same thing sounds like an incredibly stupid and hypocritical argument to make because that’s precisely what it is–an incredibly stupid and hypocritical argument.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Judy Tyler did the opposite, using Summerfall Winterspring as her stage name. Claimed by the cast to have round heels as well, which would have led to an even better Indian name. Sort of a Kamala situation.
I applaud Nikki Haley for trying to assimilate.
But by taking down the Confederate flag, she illustrated she did not, in fact, assimilate.
Why is Haley’s use of her middle name such a problem? My father used his middle name all his life with some not even knowing what his actual first name was, so their excuse for an argument makes this a little personal.
Blithering idjits need something else to get excited about.
.
As someone who uses their middle name I have to agree. My family has a weird tradition about naming conventions for the eldest male. We give them the father’s middle name as their first name. So John Robert Smith would name his eldest son Robert Something Smith. Then we use the middle name to fully differentiate and identify us from our Father. Gets tricky in the modern age of credit reports. The military of course doesn’t give a hoot about individuality and you damn well use the first name answering to Smith, Robert and suck it if you don’t like it.
The oldest surviving family Bible displayed at a huge family reunion when I was in fourth grade shows this going back seven generations just prior to the War of 1812. Still adhered to by all the various cousins and branches of the tree which is kind of amazing really.
Stephen Grover Cleveland.
Thomas Woodrow Wilson.
Best answer: “Why is my Indian heritage ten times more crucial to you than it is to me? Are you some sort of racist?”
What is the general descriptive term for her race? Indo-European. Yes, she has a better “tan” than someone German or Norse but the linkage is still there. Harris using the same pigmentation to link to other race for politics is the big lie. Intersectionalism requires racism.
They are shallow, hateful people, with no problems, so they manufacture some, pretending to save humanity so they can claim virtue and then justify telling people who they must be and what they must think.
The Left is certainly afraid that their “Indian” is not as good as the GOP’s “Indian”.
I find the vile Dumb-o-crats’ idiotic vilification of Haley and other conservatives for a supposed lack of “ethnic purity/loyalty” to be so utterly infantile, offensive and racist.
People have the right to change their names, to be called by nicknames, or, whatever other name they desire. The vile and stupid Dumb-o-crats’ demand that conservatives of “minority” ethnic heritage must follow some sort of unwritten ethnic loyalty/purity guidelines in doing so is absurd, stupid and offensive.
Even if Nikki Haley’s choice of “Nikki” as a first name had no connection to her Indian heritage, who gives a damn? No fair-minded, rational and sane person would ever hold it against her, nor should they. But, the vile Dumb-o-crats’ racial and racist obsessions have made them total lunatics on this and every other racial matter.
I downvoted, because you don’t recognize using an Anglicized name as a form of assimilation.
Has everyone here forgotten that foreigners should ASSIMILATE?
Why would a name mean anything if gender is fluid?
Lefties are so predictable and one-dimensional that it’s utterly boring.
I saw her open a talk by saying that the organizers wanted to get an Indian woman but Elizabeth Warren wasn’t available.
I don’t understand the problem. A man can magically become a woman, win awards for its feminity. Someone, on nothing more than a whim declare.change of pronouns and demand acceptance, and this highly accomplished lady uses a middle name and becomes a race traitor?!? I don’t think so.
Hooray for Nikki Haley!
They object to assimilation. That’s their objection.
Mary Trump sounds like a real angry AWFL.
Nikki is using her middle name which is quite common. Nikki changed her last name when she got married. Very common until 5 minutes ago.
You can tell how much a threat someone is to the Progressives by the amount of vitriol present. I’m still not voting for her.
Not only very common until 5 minutes ago, very common in India. Neither Indira nor Sonia Gandhi were born with that surname.
regardless of the particular name she chooses to use, she was born in so carolina–she’s an american and therefore a fellow citizen
unlike the untold millions who have crashed the southern border, she did not “immigrate”–she was born here
Give her a break. She didn’t change her tricks after she married.
I won’t be voting for Nikki Haley in a primary.
But this Leftist racial sliming is utterly disgusting… and 100% predictable.
/Meta — This one goes too far at least two ways. Scroll on by. You Were Warned.
Call back to Prince’s “Darling Nikki” — she is, too, still “prime.” Hey, if it worked for Cackles of Cali…