Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/01/17/haley-the-us-has-never-been-a-racist-country-trump-hold-my-beer.html
…
4 Likes
So according to her only letting land owning white guys in their mid 30’s vote is just a technicality?
22 Likes
Another hanging curve right down the middle, another whiff. Anyone who thinks she would be a competent President isn’t paying attention. She would have to answer much more difficult questions, should she become President. And some of those answers will have global implications.
What should she have said? Well, first of all, just like any lawyer would tell their client, only answer the question that was asked. Don’t broaden the question into something bigger. Kilmeade asked her if the GOP was a racist party. Answer that question. Don’t use that as an opportunity to talk about racism in the US, an issue which has already tripped her up. Say something like, “I don’t believe the Republican Party is racist, Brian, or I wouldn’t be a member. However, I can see how some people get that impression, and we need to do a better job of reaching out to minority groups blah blah blah.” It’s an answer that’s bullshit, but it can’t get her in trouble.
28 Likes
Your advice is good. Unfortunately for Haley, it’s undermined that by the fact that she’s terrified of offending her party’s bigoted base – the same base that all but guarantees that she’ll lose to an overt racist. To even acknowledge that the party is perceived as racist and that it can do better in countering it immediately brands her as disloyal.
23 Likes
“We’re not a racist country, Brian. We’ve never been a racist country," she said
Sure, and the civil rights leader whose life we just celebrated on Monday was slain because he happened to be standing too close to the bird James Earl Ray was aiming for.
14 Likes
I guess “never been a racist country” is true in her (and other mental gymnasts’) mind, for the very narrowly-defined “the United States was the Union” and “the only racist thing I’m thinking of is slavery” sort of case.
6 Likes
Nope, even by that narrowest of definitions she would be dead wrong. For example Kentucky was officially aligned with the Union even though almost one in five people in the state were enslaved.
12 Likes
So many follow up questions.
" So the people who were enslaved, was they classified as slaves going on a merit- based system, or was their some other criteria?"
“Was it ever a sexist country, such as during the part of our history when married women couldn’t own property, a business or have their own credit card? Was it at all sexist that it was legal for a man to assault his wife?”
“Why do Republicans hate history?”
ETA: “If someone, today, advocated that it should be legal to enslave black people, and only black people, do you think that person might be racist? Or just someone with an interesting opinion on the role of government?”
10 Likes
She came here and experienced enough privilege and acceptance to see this side of America, and yet she doesn’t help to protect other Americans or fight for other US people to have the same?
IMO she’s worse than Trump. Maybe not more dangerous than Trump, but… somewhat worse in that enabling kind of way.
9 Likes
Right?
Fascists like a strong man. What makes some one think that they will vote for a naive little lady who doesn’t want to offend anyone by telling a truth that the fascists she’s appealing to want told loud and clear anyway.
Trump: AMERICA IS RACIST AF AND OUR RACE IS ON TOP! SUCK IT!
Haley: No no, vote for that guy of course, but if you don’t wanna vote for him I’m here and we can always pretend there’s no racism again 
4 Likes
Racists love it when public figures say blatantly racist things and support overtly racist policies, but they don’t like being called “racists.”
Even avowed Klansmen will say crap like “I’m not racist, I just love white people!”
4 Likes
It’s true but I still say she’s nothing but a foil or veneer on Trump’s campaign though.
You just can’t challenge the authority and submit to authority at the same time and if I had to guess the people managing her campaign know this but figure branding her this way and trotting her out here and there will help solidify the fascist base and normalize their overt racism. She can take the fall and her brand of “moderate” Republicanism can quickly be declared a failure so we can get on to the main course…
A return to segregation, ethnic cleansing, and an apartheid type culture is the actual aim of the GOP and that is what their base apparently wants so bad they’re totally ok with destroying the US as it exists to get there. Because what I tend to hear from the “I just love my white culture and want to support it” crowd is that part of supporting it is the right to be racist and if they can’t explicitly be racist then that is the real racism that has been holding back the true master race so that the others can usurp them.
9 Likes
of course; they dont want this us as it exists for a looong time now.
and she embraces it; I mean, only a racist would say that the us was never a racist country, right?
6 Likes
Yes! Exactly. It’s hard for me to articulate because the whole thing just makes me sick and angry.
5 Likes
I started to go with a sarcastic “[Citation Needed]”, but we actually do have literal receipts and bills of sale to show that we were (and still are.) 
8 Likes
8 Likes
I know she’d be wrong; I’m trying to think how she could possibly think she’s right. And the only way I can think of is if she chooses the very narrowest definitions for “country” and “racist,” and then oversimplifies.
She’s not trying to be right. She’s trying to lie in a way she feels makes R-voters who are beginning to get creeped out by the overt racism feel that it’s not really as bad as they might think.
Problem is she rambled. She described herself facing racism as a way to show racism isn’t there. That’ll shave off a few of the smarter ones. The rest will feel that their fears are overblown and never think of it again.
9 Likes
Yeah I think one of the hardest things to wrap my head around in politics is how often NOTHING REAL MATTERS. It’s all just about “narratives” and what is needed to “construct” them. Nothing else is as important as this it seems.
A sincere effort and real resources must be made to actually learn about a problem and improve it, along the way unpleasant facts and realities might emerge as challenges, but why bother when you can just “invent a narrative” instead? And what is the job of the politician in such a system? Well… to sell a narrative I guess.
9 Likes
