Trump Ratchets Up Racialized Attacks on Nikki Haley With New Nickname

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As reports of tightening polls emerge from New Hampshire, former President Donald Trump is returning to a time-tested approach to get Republican votes: racialized dog whistles of his opponent. His new target? Former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

Haley was born in the US to Indian parents who immigrated as an academic family in 1964. Haley was born in 1972 as Nimarata Nikki Randhawa before taking her husband’s last name when she was married. According to a USA Today fact check, Haley did not “whitewash” her name, as she has gone by her middle name, Nikki, a Punjabi name meaning “little one,” since she was born.

None of this matters to Trump, even though he hired her to serve as his UN Ambassador and showered her with effusive praise when she served in his administration. Now that she’s his political rival, he’s begun to refer to her as Nimrata, evoking the very same dog whistle attacks he made against former President Barack Obama, when he repeatedly used his predecessor’s middle name, Hussein.

But now that she is getting close to Trump in the New Hampshire polls, he’s taken to calling her “Nimrada,” which many observers see as a nakedly otherizing and race-based attack on Haley’s heritage.

On Friday morning, he trotted out a new and juvenile insult, calling her “Nimbra,” which may have some deeper meaning or could just be a sign of mental decline. Trump posted on social media:

Governor Chris Sununu, the now failing Governor of New Hampshire, where I am beating his endorsed candidate, Nimbra, by big numbers, and DeSanctimonious by even bigger numbers,  should spend more time keeping Democrats from voting in the Republican Primary – How ridiculous is that? Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because Nimbra doesn’t have what it takes. She’s weak on China, Russia, Borders, and Crime, but never saw a war she didn’t like. I defeated ISIS, Rebuilt our Military, and brought our soldiers back home. I hope Sununu’s endorsement of Nimbra has more strength than Kim Reynolds’ Iowa endorsement of DeSanctus! How did that work out? MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Hitting one’s political rival on policy is fair game. Insulting past endorsements that appeared to have failed? Not terribly graceful, but sure. Do you.

Mocking one’s ethnic ancestry by making fun of their name? It’s just flat-out douchebaggery, and nothing we haven’t seen from this guy before.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.