Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is an “alpha-Karen with brown skin,” according to left-wing columnist Wajahat Ali, who accused the former U.N. ambassador of using her skin “as a weapon against poor black folks and poor brown folks” as well as a means to “launder white supremacist talking points.”
Appearing on MSNBC’s The Mehdi Hasan Show on Sunday night, Ali roughly quoted the late anthropologist and author Zora Neale Hurston as saying, “Not all skinfolk are kinfolk,” while declaring Haley “the Dinesh D’Souza of Candace Owens.”
“She’s the alpha-Karen with brown skin,” he continued. “And for white supremacists and racists, she’s the perfect Manchurian candidate.”
“I see her and I feel sad because she uses her brown skin to launder white supremacist talking points,” @WajahatAli tells @MehdiRHasan about Nikki Haley’s presidential bid strategy and how it falls short. pic.twitter.com/MYNhZfz3ea
— The Mehdi Hasan Show (@MehdiHasanShow) February 20, 2023
The Daily Beast contributor then expressed his “disgust” for Haley’s positions given her background.
“Instead of applauding her, I am just disgusted by people like Nikki Haley who know better, whose parents were the beneficiaries … of the 1965 Immigration Nationality Act, which passed thanks to those original BLM protesters and the Civil Rights Act,” he said.
Noting that her father traveled to the U.S. “because he was a professor [and] taught at a historically black college in South Carolina,” Ali asserted, “that’s how she became the proud American that she is.”
However, he continued, “like all these model minorities — which by the way is a strategy of white supremacy to use Asians in particular as a cudgel against black folks — instead of pulling us up from the bootstraps and pulling others [up by their] bootstraps, we’re taught to take your boot and put it on the neck of poor browns, immigrants, refugees, and black folks.”
“And that’s what she did in her ad,” he added in reference to her presidential campaign launch ad published last week.
It’s been a busy week for us and we couldn’t be more proud of @NikkiHaley.
Thousands came out for our launch in South Carolina and every New Hampshire town hall was standing room only! ??
Join the movement and let’s shake up Washington.
pic.twitter.com/gGNPAOMbLQ
— Team Haley (@TeamHaley) February 18, 2023
Ali further explained that he feels “sad” when he sees Haley “because she uses her brown skin as a weapon against poor black folks and poor brown folks, and she uses her brown skin to launder white supremacist talking points.”
“And the reason I feel sad [is] because no matter what she does … it will never be enough, [the right will] never love her,” he alleged.
Nile Gardiner, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, described the dialogue as “one of the nastiest, most racist interviews in recent American history.”
“Liberals think it is acceptable to launch racist attacks against conservatives such as @NikkiHaley,” he wrote. “It isn’t, and reflects a hate-filled mindset.”
One of the nastiest, most racist interviews in recent American history. Liberals think it is acceptable to launch racist attacks against conservatives such as @NikkiHaley It isn’t, and reflects a hate-filled mindset. https://t.co/1EDwY6QGw1
— Nile Gardiner (@NileGardiner) February 20, 2023
Haley, who served as governor of South Carolina before heading to the U.N. under the Trump administration, claimed in November the GOP is “making history” by fielding minority candidates, who “like all Americans,” desire a robust economy, first-rate education, secure borders, and safe streets.
Meanwhile, the Republican Party continues to make gains with minorities.
In October, USA Today reported that 40 percent of Hispanic voters and 21 percent of black voters currently back the Republican Party, compared with former President Donald Trump earning 12 percent of the black vote and 32 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2020.
Previously, Haley said ABC legal analyst Sunny Hostin criticized her name because the latter “can’t stand the fact that a minority female would be a conservative Republican,” while Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) asserted that “openly racist” commentary from Democrats has exacerbated an already-underway shift among Hispanic voters, from Democrat to Republican.
In May, Breitbart News reported that black Americans have started to support Republicans in droves as their approval of Democrats has diminished over the years, paving the way for more than 100 black conservatives throughout the country to run for office last year.
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
