I am inspired by Nikki Haley - and as a lifelong progressive Democrat, that is painful to admit. Now that she’s ended her presidential campaign, I’m having complicated feelings.
As an Asian American woman in politics like me, Nikki Haley is a trailblazer and still a rarity. She was the first woman of color ever elected Governor in 2010. Today, more than a decade later, there is only one woman of color Governor anywhere in the country: Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico. (How sad and far behind are we!) Throughout Haley’s presidential run this year as the lone woman candidate, I’ve thought about all the young South Asian girls who saw her and thought: she looks like me. The power of that can’t be overstated, particularly when there are so few Asian American women in elected office.
During the Republican presidential debates, I cheered for Haley when her all-male opponents bullied her and she punched back so charismatically and effectively. Vivek Ramaswamy tried to weaponize her gender against her: “Do you want Dick Cheney in three-inch heels?” She owned it; she one-upped him: “Yes, I’d first like to say they’re five-inch heels and I don’t wear them unless you can run in them.” For every woman who has ever wanted to tell a bully to shut their mouth but couldn’t or didn’t, Haley did it for all of us at that moment.
Trump - the biggest bully of all - has attacked her with birther conspiracy theories, claiming that she, as a daughter of immigrants, is ineligible to run for president. Just to be clear: She was born in South Carolina; she’s eligible to run. On social media, he misspelled and used her given first name Nimrata in quotes to other her. (Haley has always gone by her middle name Nikki.) Like Haley, I’m a daughter of immigrants who grew up in the South. My dad still calls himself “Oriental” because that’s how people refer to him in Texas. As Asian Americans, there are daily reminders that we’re never American enough, and during the COVID pandemic, then President Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric fueled anti-Asian hate and violence that continues today. No doubt, Trump is dangerous.
The problem is that Haley is dangerous too. She erases slavery as a cause of the civil war and with a straight face, says that America has never been a racist country. As a strategy, Republicans have long tried to divide our communities of color - and as a daughter of immigrants and a woman of color, Haley as a torchbearer for that strategy is alarming. Haley picks and chooses who she wants to be when it serves her. That means we don’t really know who she is, and that scares me. She has said affirmative action should be unconstitutional and that book bans are good. The current hellish attacks on communities of color would also be our reality under a Haley presidency.
Here’s another thing: I can’t even be sure how “girl power” Haley is because she doesn’t support my right to make choices about my own body - or my embryos apparently. She’s an extremist who believes that embryos are babies. On the heels of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling on IVF, she supports states regulating IVF and believes they should decide who can and can’t have families. As a woman, Haley as a torchbearer for the movement to strip my reproductive rights spins my head around.
I’ve heard many Democrats say that they’d be okay with Haley as president - and I get it. At minimum, Trump is chaos in person form and when faced with the possibility of another Trump presidency, maybe Haley doesn’t look so bad. Let me make this loud and clear - Haley is bad. She is bad for women, bad for women of color, and bad for the future of our country. She’s just good at hiding all the bad.
I now know that I can both appreciate her for being the first woman of color to run for the Republican nomination and fear her winning. Let Haley be a lesson that representation is not enough. It’s about changing the paradigm of what it means to be an Asian American woman in politics and to do so in solidarity and deep community with other women of color.
Diana Hwang is the Founder/Executive Director of the Asian American Women’s Political Initiative (AAWPI), the only national political leadership organization for AAPI women. In 2023, she was named one of POLITICO’s 40 power players who shaped the intersection of race, culture, politics and policy.